Comments about
Feeding Live Black Worms to Fish
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Here is my container
of Live Black Worms in my garden under
an old bench. This container is about
7" in diameter and 6" tall. It says
10 cups on the bottom. I keep the container
about half full of water with a maximum
of about 2 tablespoons of worms.
In the top
picture the Black Worms are in a tight
round ball and that's how you'll usually
see them. I poured some water from my
small pond into the container, gently
swirled the worms, and poured most of
the old water, but none of the worms,
onto a plant in my garden.
I repeated rinsing
the worms a few times, until the water
was completely clean and clear. Then
I filled the container half full with
water from my small pond and put the
container with the worms back under
the old bench in my garden. The worms
immediately begin to clump together
again. |
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I feed most of my fish a few
Live Black Worms every other day or so. This page
contains information about how to keep Black Worms,
how to feed them to your fish, and which types of
fish shouldn't eat Black Worms. |
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I keep these worms outside in my
garden in the shade under an old bench on the north-west
side of my house, where it's usually cool, and the
worms don't get much direct sunlight. You can see
this arrangement in the picture at the top of this
page. |
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Before I feed these worms to my fish,
I examine the worms carefully. When the worms are
healthy, they cling together in a tight ball as
shown in the picture at the top of this page.
If the worms are limp, or if I
see any dead white worms, I dig a small hole in
my garden, pour all the worms in the hole, and cover
them with soil. I don't feed weak looking worms
to my fish. But this happens very rarely, and usually
the worms look healthy.
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Wash your hands
with warm water and soap, then completely rinse
off the soap, before you handle the worms, so you
won't have anything toxic on your hands that might
harm the worms or the fish that eat the worms.
Actually I can rinse
and feed the worms to my fish without touching the
worms with my hands. I recommend you learn how to
do this too. It's still a good idea to wash your
hands before you do anything with your fish, and
wash them again after you finish with your fish.
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Incidentally these Black Worms are
very sensitive to chlorine and Chloramine, so you
can't use tap water directly from the faucet. That's
why I use pond water. |
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Although these worms are called Black
Worms, you can see in the pictures above that these
worms are not black. They are dark brown. I have
heard that these Black Worms are a species in the
genus named Tubifex.
There is another species of worms
in the genus Tubifex that is called Brown Worms.
They are a lighter shade of brown, and these Brown
Worms are smaller than the Black Worms.
The Brown Tubifex Worms are more
difficult to keep alive, and fish often become sick,
after they eat Brown Worms. So we don't recommend
the Brown Tubifex Worms as food for your fish, but
we do recommend the Black Worms.
Click
here for information about the correct scientific
name of these worms.
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I rinse my Black Worms two
or three times each week. When I get fresh worms,
I rinse them every day for a few days. These worms
can live for a long time, when you keep them like
this. |
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A few Black Worms are good for most
fish. I feed two or three worms to each of my fish
every other day. This is a very small amount of
worms. But even this small amount seems to greatly
help the fish.
Most fish keepers do not feed
worms to fish like Goldfish, Barbs, Livebearers,
and Danios. But I feed most of my fish a few worms.
You may hear that feeding worms to most fish is
not recommended. I think this is wrong. Most of
the very good fish keepers that I've known have
gone out of their way to feed their fish small amounts
of several different kinds of live food including
Black Worms.
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I have use my ingenuity to feed these worms to all of my fish, because my most active fish
swim near the surface of the water and will try
to eat all the worms. A shy fish, that hides under
a rock cave, won't get any worms.
I use a turkey baster to suck
up a few worms and squirt the worms under the rock
cave where the shy fish can eat them. Turkey basters
are very inexpensive and available in most grocery
stores. If you can't find a baster, ask someone
working in the store to help you find one.
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It's very important to feed
Black Worms to certain types of fish. For example,
a few worms each day will help female fish like
Bettas develop eggs. Click
here to read more about Female Bettas.
Some fish must eat worms. Elephant
Noses, Baby Whales, Puffers, Black Knife Fish, and
African Dwarf Frogs need to eat worms regularly.
If you wonder about what to feed
a certain type of fish, here is how this website
can help you. Suppose you want to know what to feed
Angel Fish. First click
here to go to our Search Page, and enter the
word "Angel" with or without the quote marks.
The Search will produce a list
of the titles to many pages on this website containing
the word "Angel", and the titles of the best pages
for "Angel" will be at the top of the list. Click
here now to go to the page at the top of that
list and scroll down that page to "Recommended Diet"
where you can read about what to feed your Angel
Fish.
You can use the Search Page to
quickly find information about any fish that is
discussed on this web site.
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Some types of fish won't eat worms.
Plecostomus Catfish do not seem to be interested
in eating worms. Click
here to read more about these catfish.
Kissing Gouramis also do not seem
to enjoy eating worms. Click
here for more about Kissing Gouramis.
A long time ago we noticed that
Mbuna Cichlids from Lake Malawi in East Africa are
much more likely to get a disease called bloat when
fed worms. So we never feed Mbuna Cichlids any worms.
Click
here to read more about Mbuna Cichlids.
We also found out that worms are
not good food for Peacock and Haplochromis species
from Lake Malawi. Click
here to read more about these fish.
Tropheus species from Lake Tanganyika
are even less tolerant of worms and are almost certain
to have problems when fed worms. We also don't feed
worms to Frontosa, another cichlid species from
Lake Tanganyika. Click
here to read more about Frontosa.
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Feed Live Black Worms to your fish
last, after you've fed all the other food. The worms
are for dessert. Most types of fish prefer these
worms to all other types of food. If you feed worms
first, the fish may not want to eat the other foods.
So feed the worms last as dessert for your fish.
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Your Health and Safety. Be
sure you wash your hands, after you handle these
worms or the container that you keep the worms in.
These worms are not dangerous to your health, but
it's important to wash your hands after handling
anything that is alive. |
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Click
here to go to another page in this web site
with Customer Comments and our Replies about Live
Black Worms. |
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