bloobworms

i bought a bar today for my clown loaches..
gave them a block .. just enough the all the fish in my tank

how often do i give it to them???

 

Frozen food isn't as nutritious as most people think...I feed my fish frozen food simply as a source of roughage. Personally I wouldn't feed them frozen food more than twice a week.

Much cheaper source of LIVE food...will be to start a daphnia culture. Keeps stocking itself. Algae powder to feed the daphnia will cost you R140...and will last you more than a year

 

where do i get this daphnia?? at a pet shop?

 

@J A X

i was asking for food for my clown loaches and the guy told me bloodworms is the best

 

Any store owner will tell you its best , most frozen foods will carry bad stuff as well. If you do want to feed bloodworm , keep with ocean nutrition . But real live foods will be better , sadly its hard to get , depends what you want to feed , bbs is easy to get and hatch

 

Bloodworms are basically just roughage. They have very little nutritional content. If you want to feed frozen, try mysis shrimp, enriched brine shrimp, cyclops, etc.

 

i feed bloodworm (campcon) almost every day - fish loves it

 

I feed a block every second day to my GT's,been doing it for more then 3 months without any problems.I hand feed them,only problem is when one of them gets a good hold on the block and swims away with it (or swallows a large chunk whole)

 

@Sean J I disagree... FROZEN bloodworm could have a lower protein value but live bloodworm is a different story. Some brands claim a 55% protein content in their FREEZE DRIED bloodworms, so live ones should have even slightly more. I think that it is mostly roughage is an urban myth. Bloodworms eat algae, same a many other live foods/zooplankton so why would they consist of mainly roughage and other organisms not? Do you have a reliable scientific source that says so? Would love to get proof of this either way. I cultivate lots of live bloodworms in my Daphnia cultures so the resultant mix of live foods that end up in the tanks are Daphnia, mozzy larvae and bloodworms, so the fish get a daily mix... In winter when the bloodworms are nearly non-existent I feed lots of Frozen and my killis grow at a rate of knots on them...

 

@Kieshara go look on farm dams or ponds near the edges, or even cattle troughs. Take a fine net and scoop along the edges - you can Google to see what daphnia looks like.

 

ok i see that... i just have to find a pond or dam.... hahaha

 

I feed live food to my fish every day...but I do believe there's a HUGE difference between live food...and frozen food.

So I'm with Sean on this (as I posted earlier as well), with regards to frozen live food being less nutritious than live food you catch or hatch daily.Just plain common sense tells me that having a bag of peas in the freezer for 8 months, won't be as healthy as fresh peas bought from the market...and I don't need a scientific paper to tell me that...

* I feed all my fish frozen live food (Ocean Nutrition Pack) once a week...as I believe it's a good source of roughage
* Live food EVERY day (mixing it up...some days daphnia or one of my micro worms or larvae) - I dont like eating the same thing every day, so why would fish
* Dried food EVERY day (again...mixing it up between brands, granules/flakes, etc - same reason as above)

 

@ J A X I think there are two issues here: Frozen vs live and nutritional value. That live is better there is no doubt... No I just wish someone can tell us with some evidence that bloodworms has/does not have a high nutritional value. My fish love it...:amuse:

 

Live food ..frozen.. why do we have deep freezers if the quality and nutritional value of food will drop so dramatically? That is wasting then. Yes a fresh fish caught and directly over the grill just tastes much more fishy/tastier/fresh. But I mean all they guy's up here in Gauteng-a-leng those fish we buy at our local supermarket "fresh" ain't always as fresh as we think but still we buy it because it's the freshest thing we can source and it still tastes good "depending on the person preparing it".

@francoisve I stand by you as frozen blood worms are loved by all fish and growth has proved me that as well. The nutritional value will be higher in live source but why should it be lost / be much less if it's frozen? Not only by frozen blood worms but same as ox heart and other. It simply can not just lose their valuable nutrition by freezing it.

 

@Reedfish I will be willing to part with a substantial amount of Springbok dry wors and biltong when you visit SA again and bring me a culture...:laugh:

 

@francoisve,

What method do you use to "farm" the bloodworms? I heard that dropping a piece of shade net in the tub and they use it to climb on, but never tried it.

 

I don't have any scientific evidence of the nutritional content of bloodworms. I'm not saying that you mustn't feed bloodworm to fish at all. What I am saying is that variety is the spice of life. Feed foods with "known" high nutritional content often. And you can definitely still feed bloodworm. Bloodworm is a vital food for my discus. I feed them bloodworms every second day. But I feed a lot of high nutritional content foods to them as well. The bloodworm is there for roughage.

As far as I understand it though, during the freezing process, the worms expand and basically pop. This leaches out the nutrients that should be in the bloodworm. That's why if you thaw a block of it on it's own, without adding any water, you get a red liquid instead of a clear water only. This means that a lot of the nutritional content in the bloodworm leaches out of the actual worm, and into the water column. Thus you're feeding your water column and not really the fish. If I remember correctly, it was actually Prof Dirk who explained this.

When Freeze Drying, the worms are completely dehydrated. This means that you're only removing moisture, or water. You leave behind all the vital nutrition in the worms. And I know that blackworms have an exceptionally high nutrient content, as they are not leached away during the freeze drying process.

Also... Try feeding Discus on only frozen bloodworm. They will very quickly go skinny and eventually they will die.

 

Frozen Blood worms have on average 4-6% Crude Protien.Freez Dried typically have 45-55% crude protien.And as @SeanJ stated are 2 completely differant products.Blood worms are a treat and should be used as such, so its completely up to you how much you want to feed.bear in mind though that over doing it can cause your fish to be come fussy eaters.So dnt use bloodworm as a staple it will not last.I dnt really bother with bloodworms as i feed my discus beef heart mix.i do however give my other fish bloodworms when i have it every second day or so.