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live worm feeding - which ones, how to propagate?


bues0022

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I ran across an old Reefcentral post which our own Paul B contributed heavy on - from way back in 2010 ( http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1907090&highlight=blackworm ). I'm hoping he sees this thread and can chime in - both for the extraordinary depth of knowledge, but also the not to subtle wit and sarcasm that tends to drip from every post - it cracks me up.

 

I've been considering getting into feeding something other than pellets/flake/homebrew frozen foods. Live worms seemed interesting. The thread I linked above was discussing black worms, but white worms are also fed in reef tanks. Which one and why? Is one easier (and less smelly) to propagate? Having a super nutritious, renewable food source seems like a no brainer.

 

As an aside (for Paul), on page 4, you were discussing the benefits of fish oil fed to fish, and the other guy seemed to be giving you a hard time - I seem to recall seeing a BRS/WWC youtube a few weeks back (it was likely already old news by the time I saw it), where WWC believes in feeding their tank a "fish mash" as they think even the corals do better with the fats/oils their food provides the water column. I've been feeding my fish lately a mash of squid and bunker (a super oily fish that I had left over from baiting crab traps this summer). I put them in a blender and let 'er go. I know much of the oil get skimmed out, but my fish go nuts for the oily fatty food, corals eat like crazy, and while it could have been a better mix, I'm quite happy that I chose to chuck the whole fish in the blender (skin, scales, guts, and all) instead of only the meat fillets.

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Paul has raised both black worms. I'm not sure that he propagated the black worms, but I do know that he had a blackworm trough that he used to sustain and feed them that kept them alive for a very long time. He even wrote some posts here with pictures of it. I seem to recall that it used an airlift to bring a light trickle of water up to a PVC trough (that, to me, looked like half of a PVC fence post cut lengthwise). On the other end of the trough, there was a drain, around which he put some window screen to keep the worms from going down.  The white worms may have been a propagation effort, though. 

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I actually found articles on both written by him. The blackworm one from RC I linked above, and his white worm one here: https://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/wash-your-white-worms-277482.html

 

I'm interested to hear from him, after doing both, which one is better to start with. I'm thinking white worms because they don't involve running water (consideration for the space I have at the moment), and they seem to propagate quite easily. 

 

Some noted on the blackworm thread that the cleaner shrimp didn't go for the blackworms. I wonder if that's also true for white worms. It would be awesome to feed some corals with food that the shrimp won't steal. Not sure if the corals will catch the wriggling buggers though.

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1 hour ago, bues0022 said:

I actually found articles on both written by him. The blackworm one from RC I linked above, and his white worm one here: https://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/wash-your-white-worms-277482.html

 

I'm interested to hear from him, after doing both, which one is better to start with. I'm thinking white worms because they don't involve running water (consideration for the space I have at the moment), and they seem to propagate quite easily. 

 

Some noted on the blackworm thread that the cleaner shrimp didn't go for the blackworms. I wonder if that's also true for white worms. It would be awesome to feed some corals with food that the shrimp won't steal. Not sure if the corals will catch the wriggling buggers though.

Amazingly, I have seen my corals eat the black worms. I feed them to the tank and they fall on corals and getting sucked into the mouth/polyp. I have a video of an sps actually, but it's hard to see.

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  • 3 months later...

If you wanted me all you had to do was send me a self addressed, stamped envelope and I would steam off the stamp and forget about it. :why:

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