Garden worms - is there a prob with these as food?

[Sean]

I am trying to reduce the cost of my hobby - seesh these discus keep me poor - my latest is growing my own brine shrimp - cheap eggs avail on ebay, and now my worm farm - I feed smallish baby garden or worm-farm worms to my discus and they love it - it took them about a day to like them though. I just take a clump of worms from the worm farm - give them a good rinse with the hose and then suck up the smaller ones in a plastic 2 ml pipette and drop into the tank - once they get used to this type of food they go for it, I honestly have not seen the discus so 'friendly' and happy at feed time. This must be a healthier feed for the discus. would that be true? The trick I find with these worms is to only put the very small and smallish ones in the tank. Another plus IMO is that the worms that do not get eaten don't die for a day or so - bloodworms that do not get eaten tend to get lost in the gravel in my tank and no doubt rot until I get around to a gravel clean. Is there are general thought that the more live food the better?

[kalebjarrod]

i have had the same idea sean

you must be carful to remove all the dirt out of the animals first as this can produce bacteria and parasites (although most of these are unlikey to be harmful to your fish)

try not to ffed them to much of this food type, they will become fussy and then only eat live foods. somtimes this may be difficult to supply like if you go on holidays etc etc

how expensive do you find the homade B/H mixes?

[Sean]

Hi Ryan,
Yeah it would be a real hassel if the fish only ate live food, especially if there was a need for someone else to look after them for awhile. I probably fuss too much with the food - B/H is OK, although I find it a bit of a hassle making it up and it is cheap - I bought the Breeders Premium Discus Food which my discus are slow to take up - might have to starve them a bit to get used to it. As for live black worm - have you had any problems with this? - I have just been tackling worms in my discus and have used metro and have ordered some panacur. I am reasonably sure that these were not introduced by the live black worm as I bought some sickly looking fish recently (I have now learnt) - and for the past year or so I have offered my discus live black worm 3-4 times per week without any problems and with excellent growth rates and colouring etc.
My only worry with B/H is it's capacity to foul the water quickly in an aquarium with gravel (same with most prepared foods).

[kalebjarrod]

i have heard of people useing metro to fix thier feed

i plan to use it but not as a staple only to induce spwaning and as treats

3-4 times a week sound exactley like waht i would do

sounds like your on the money

LOL :lol:

[Sean]

Hey Kaleb
I use Metro (metronidazole) for infections and as a 'cure-all' when the fish look sick and I am not sure what the problem is. Is this the same stuff that you are talking abbout - metro as a treat? to induce spawning? or do you feed live black worm for this? :?:

[Ben]

sounds like a great idea using garden worms!
what varity are they? i have bought 1/2 litre of live blackworms for $57- and my 17 discus ate them in 8 days! thats very expensive! keep me advised on using earth worms,
cheers

[Sean]

The garden worms that I use are from a worm farm - started originally from a box I bought from Bunnings. The method I use is to wash them with a hose and most of the time I leave them in a container o/night in a little water and feed the next morning after they have crapped out all their food and look a lot cleaner. I have a plastic pipette that allows me to suck up the smaller worms, I find that discus far prefer smaller worms that they do not have to rip up to eat.
I have thousands of worms in the worm farm and there are plenty of the smaller ones to feed the discus on the weekends - they are a real treat for them!
Also, these worms are probably 'cleaner' than live black worms and are essentially free.
The larger worms are eaten by my Oscar, Frontosas and Blue Dolphins. Another hint for the worm farm is to feed rock mellon or butternut pumpkin peel to the worms - this makes the worms congregate in the one spot and make it much easier and cleaner to catch. Good luck
Sean

[Ben]

thanks again sean! thats a great piece of info!
i am off to bunnings now to start my worm farm!

[Ben]

here is the new worm farm i started yesterday!

[Sean]

Um, I think that to be successful in raising heaps of worms, you should look into either purchasing a proper worm farm (again from Bunnings or K-Mart) or looking on the web on how do make one. I think you can do this with a couple of foam boxes on top of each other. Worms need water and some means of water drainage so they do not drown.
Hope this helps
Sean

[Ben]

sean, thanks again for the tip!
i have cut small holes in the bottom of this tub to allow for drainage , small enough that the little bugger dont escape!
when i was at bunnings, they had those plastic worm farms, but they were almost $90 each!
i would rather by a new tank than spend that much!
thats how i came up with the above tub!
its twice the size than those worm farms and it cost me less thasn $15 bucks!

also i keep it at the back of my garage in the shade not in the garage, its cooler out the back.

cheers

[Sean]

Ah, sounds good - all the best with it.