Do Frozen Blood Worms Carry Disease Pathogens?

[DISCUS STU]

I occasionally use the Hikari brand which is supposed to be very high in quality but am I still passing potentially dangerous diseases to my fish?

[Sabrina]

Hi Stu,
I wonder this about the frozen versions of foods myself. I even wonder it about the freeze dried stuff too. But then I think that maybe its a matter of building up your fishes immune system to these types of foods, I know we keep them in captivity but in the wild they would be eating all types of potentially disease ridden bugs, fish or plant matters. So is it really that dangerous that we feed them these foods, I don't know for sure. Yes I have heard that frozen blood worms can carry diseases, and that you should really only feed them as a treat, not a staple diet.
I recently lost a discus that developed what I think was hole in the head, white pimples all over his face. I'm still trying to work out how he got the disease in the first place, for the first month I had him I only fed him tropical foods like flakes and pellets, then 2 weeks ago I order my first bag of freeze dried black worms cubes and started feeding those daily, within 2 weeks he had the white pimples on his face, I guess its made me wonder.

[Filip]

Hikari are known as the safest brand for FBW on the market , declaring their three folded UV sterilizition process .
If any FBW out on the market can be even considered safe I guess they should be the one .

With that said , still a numerous part of experienced hobbyists and breeders believe that no FBW can be 100% pathogen free .
Opinions are 50/50 on this matter and it is still a hot topic in the discus hobbyists world .

My personal opinion is that I would use Hikaris and some other proven and trusted sources but would certainly avoid No name sources or brands of live food suppliers .

[RuinerM3]

What's the consensus on Omega one? I use their FBW and Brine Shrimp.

[bluelagoon]

You can buy the freeze dried blood worms.I've read someplace that the freeze dried ones are pathogen free due to the process of freeze drying.And a lot more bang for the buck for dry if you buy in bulk.Just has the water removed.If you google them,you'll see that they have just as much protein as black worms when dry.The only difference is one is a midge fly larva and one a worm.Google pound per pound too;you'll find a big range in their price per pound.

[bluelagoon]

O and some folks are allergic to blood worms.

[Larry Bugg]

O and some folks are allergic to blood worms.

I carefully wash my hands every time I feed freeze dried black worms. I can get a very minor irritation from them. I use tongs when feeding frozen blood worms because I have had severe allergic reactions to them. I once ordered freeze dried blood worms from Jehmco because the price is so good. Ordered 1 kilo. Opening the bag is enough to make me break out due to the dust that is emitted. (Blackworms have dust also so I am careful opening the bag.) I had to sell the kilo of freeze dried blood worms.

I'm one of those that believes the freeze drying process eradicates any parasites.

Hole in the head is generally thought to be caused by poor water conditions. The food you fed won't cause this.

[DISCUS STU]

Thank Larry. I haven't had HTH for many years, other than occasionally my own lol, and still hear mixed things about frozen bw's possibly causing issues re parasites, etc. I only use the Hikari brand.

[plecocicho]

Bacteriosis by feeding frozen bloodworms, Kubitschka case


Chiromid larvae, better known as bloodworms are staple food for many frehwater fish , both in nature and in captivity. Frozen bloodworms are probably most sold type of frozen food for ornamental fish and fish take them with gusto, especially catfish of all kinds. But feeding them can under certain circumstances lead to problems . On one hand bloodworms posses chetae, which can lead to intestinal blockage,damage and eventual death, or fish can get infected, the bacteriosis been the most fatal. Here is a summary of one such case of bacteriosis by feeding with frozen bloodworms. The Kubitscka case.

Christian Ku*****ka is an Austrian small scale discus breeder, known mostly for wild discus F varieties He attributes his success to feeding various live foods, like Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, Plecoptera larvae and Gammarus, which he collects in unpolluted creeks and ponds. He ocasionally (normally freshly arrived wilds) buys from store live blooworms in breathable bags. He enriches them with muck, leaves, detritus and mud from creeks and ponds. The larvae get visibly more active, colour is more pronounced and wild discus have great pleasure in digging for larvae, like happy pigs they are. After some negative experience in past, he never gave his fish frozen bloodworms until his friend in the end of march 2012 convinced him that the quality of it has vastly improved. So he bought some of it and at first gave them only small portions. But as he saw, that all the discus went crazy for them, he gave them proper portions (wilds were fed almost exclusively with it). The various beautiful L- plecos also ate them with gusto. On april 3rd, 2012 at 6. a.m. he gave a large portion of it on all his tanks. He noticed that fish weren't eating so greedily like the day before. He didn't think any of it and went to work. When he came back at 5 p.m. he was in for a shock. 70% percent of all L-plecos that he kept with wild discus were dead. Others were clearly apathic with pumped reddish bellies. The wild discus looked fine at first glance. In F1 and hybrid tank the half of the discus were dead. The rest looked terrible. Not only the eyes, but pupil itself was white, the skin of many fish was torn in pieces from the body. It all looked like the infamous discus plaque. As he was struggling with a million question and dispare his experiences brought him back and he acted quickly.
Hybrid tank:
He removed all dead and dying fish and made two 90% water changes straight from the tap. At the end he cleaned all filters and flushed them for 10 minutes under 60 ͦC hot tap water. Then came the antibiotic treatment. He emphasises, that this kind of treatment is only for experienced once as he was using strong medications and consulted beforehand with his vet Dr. Bruckner.
• 500 mg Baytril + 3 g Clorotetracyclin + 1,5 g Augmentin for 100l,
• Third day 50% water c and redose full dose,
• Fifth day 50% water change and partial redose,
• Seventh day two 90% water changes.
He used tap water under high pressure, but with narrow stream for all his water changes. By using this there were a lot of small bubbles which helped to shed the damaged skin mucous. After the treatment the fish were moved to a fresh new tank. The old, fishfree tank was then treated with 40 ml formalin/ 100l for 6 days, followed by total cleanout of filters and many 100% water changes.
The fifth day of treatment onwards marked the end of the worst disease symptoms, but he kept using a high pressure narrow stream for water changes. It took fish 2 moths to look totally healthy. Their growth was a little stunted, which can be traced back to the usage of Baytrill, known as growth suppressor. Interestingly, the hybrids, which were too small to ingest bloodworms, showed no signs of disease.
Wild tank:
All the plecos beside three were dead. As wilds didn't show any of the symptoms he only did a water change. This would later be confirmed as a bad mistake. Although wilds didn't show symptoms their health over 2 months from the incident was not perfect. They repeatedly showed clamped fins, scratching themselves, spitting food, their appetite was on and off. At the begginning of summer one wild discus developed scale inflammation and died after two days. The surviving L- plecos developed similar outbreak symptoms and died in a few hours. It looked like all this time fish were fighting with a hidden bacterial infection, but unfortunately their immune system failed to prevail. He used this treatment.
• 500 mg Baytril + 3 g Clorotetracyclin for 100 l,
• Fourth day 50% water change and partial redose,
• Seventh day 90% water change.
The fish became better and after two weeks the whole group had normal appetite. He gave them only freshly caught live food and after another two weeks one of the pair even bred. But two of the wilds, especially one individual continually showed sickness, darkening, uneven breathing, increased producing of skin mucous, spitting… He removed those two to another empty 350 l tank to avoid social stress. He added another three healthy discus. Over two moths their health didn't improve. One day they would eat normally and with normal colour, but then after an hour they were dark again. Three added discus developed scale inflammation (»nitrate pimple«) and a larger water change solved this isue quickly. After a while new added discus also showed signs of sickness. Then at the end of January 2013 one of the original sick fish developed pop-eye and slight dropsy. The best filtration and large, frequent water changes didn't help and after three weeks the health of the fish detiorated so much, that he ended it's suffering. He took samples from its skin, liquid from body cavity and a sample of partially defrosted bloodworms and sent everything to his vet for antiobiogram tests.
As he was waiting for results, he did a few experiments on his own. He used all five of his tanks (sizes from 125 to 1000l; ages from 4-12 weeks to adults; hybrids, f1 wilds, wilds (including two freshly arrived Tefe wilds) and feed them frozen bloodworms and other food. The juvies received 10 portions a day, three of them were frozen bloodworms. The juvies showed stringy faeces already on the second day of the experiment, so he stopped feeding them with it and the faeces were normal the third day. The repeated experiment showed the same result. Wilds and hybrids got 5-8 portions daily, two of them were with bloodworms. The fifth day onwards the appetite declined rapidly and they didn't eat them anymore, not even the live ones. 50% of discus came back after three days, 30% needed one week and three needed 10 days. The newly arrived wilds were a few days ago still in Brasil, so they weren't used on bloodworms yet. So he fed them live bloodworms first. They liked them, but always left a few uneaten. Under close inspection, he found that those were already dead or didn't move much. The third day he gave them a small portion of frozen bloodworms. The wilds ate them but spat them soon after. The same was seen on the fourth and fifth day. The wilds became more frightened, darkened and moves to a corner. The fourth day one of the wilds breathed only one-sided. The frightness and darkening was over after 50% water change, but the breathing problem persisted. They recovered after 10 days with a help of heavy feeding of freshly caught live food. Interestingly, he also reported, that a heavy feeding of frozen black larvae (Culex sp.) also caused digestive issues, darkening and frightness. The big package of them contained per kg up to 5 chicken feathers. So he tested this food also.
The results from the vet showed that bloodworms had high concentrations of different aeromonads and pseudomonad bacteria. The probes from dead discus showed middle concentrations of Pseudomonas flourescens, small concentrations of Aeromonas hydrophila, A. sobria and Vibrio sp. As the table below shows, found bacteria had some resistance to different antibiotics. For example, Pseudomonas were sensitive only to enfloraxicin and Vibrio only against amoxicillin, florfinicol and oxitetracyclin.
Table 1: Antibiogram of found bacteria.
antibiogramm disease agent Pseudomonas flouroscens Vibrio spp. A. hydrophila A. sobria
amoxycilin (A 10 microgramm) r s r r
florfenicol (FFC 30 microgramm) r s r s
trimethoprin-sulfamethoxazol
(SXT 25 microgramm) r i r i
oxytetracyclin (OT 30 microgramm) r s s r
oxolin acid (OA 2 microgramm) i r s s
enroflaxin (ENR 5 microgramm) s r s s
furazolidon (FR 50 microgramm) r r t s
gentamycin (CN 10 microgramm) i r s i
nitro-furantoin (F 50 microgr) r r r s

r- resistant, s- sensitive, i- intermidiary
And here are results of tested different frozen food.
Pantoea pasteurelleds pseudomonads Moraxella Ochrobacterium Sphingomonas paucimobilis
Bloodworms A few few ++
Bloodworms B + ++
Black larvae A ++ + +

Since its not clear from the post, signs are for these bacteria: Blod. A -pseudo, Ochro, Spinghomonas, Blod B- psedom, Moraxella, Black larvae for the first three bacteria group.
++- middle concentrations
+- small concentrations

Such heavy use of antibiotics can be problematic for the public sewage treatment, so he removed it from discarded tank water with a usage of so- called charcoal bomb (1,5 m tall, 15 cm diameter and filled with 8-10l charcoal).

Translated from german by *** Slatinšek.

Christian Kubitschka (2013): Bakterielle Infektion durch rote Mueckenlarven, Diskus Brief, 3 und 4 Heft, Jahrgang 28.

[bluelagoon]

Not discus related but one thing is for sure.I've been extra feeding freeze dried blood worms to my year old albino dantum angels now for about a week now;it worked.The females are laden with eggs and breeding tubes are starting to appear.Hoping to get a decent pair out of the eleven fish.I see some picking/cleaning by some of the plump females.