Bloodworms living in my filter

[Anonapersona]

I rinsed the filter pads yesterday and saw blood worms bound up in the pads. I thought, "Hmm, funny that any got over to this side of the tank, the fish gobble them up so fast on the other side of the tank." I tried to rinse them out of the padding but they were pretty well stuck, so I put it all back into the filter.

Today, when I turn off the filter, and water escapes down the intake, a live bloodworm falls out, flops and wiggles on the floor of the tank until a discus eats him.

Now, first I'd like to know how I got a live bloodworm from frozen bloodworms.

Then, I know that the Hikari bloodworms that I feed are "sterilized" somehow. If I have live bloodworms in my filter, is there some unsterile conditions I need to know about? Do I need to worry when the fish eat these worms? Or is this a normal part of a nutrient cycle, worms feed on fish filter, fish feed on worms?

If it matters, the filter is a Penguin 330 with biowheel and two clamshell cages with cut filter padding for mechanical filteration. A wad of floss is in the basket for bio seeding when I change the padding in the clamshells on no particluar schedule, just when they wont rinse clean in the sink. No sponge prefilter, but I siphon the inlet as I shut the power down to catch any stuff that floats free when it back flushes a bit. The filter is on the oppostie side from the feeding area and if I see beefheart or other food get over there and go into the filter intake, I pull the tube up to slow the intake down. So, it gets stuff in it, but not too bad. I do wash the pads every few days. The tank also has two sponge filters.

[Tad]

Anonapersona,
not that it matters...but how many live worms did you find?..and have you ever fed blackworms.... I know that with live black worms I have found them living in the substrate of a tank I once had, and also living in a cannister filter I used to have......but finding a live bloodworm in your filter when you use only frozen..just doesnt make sense...its a case for Mulder and Sculley for sure ;D

Tad ???

[Anonapersona]

One live worm flopping in the tank. In the filter pad, maybe 15 worms, I thought they were frozen worms that had drifted, I didn't see any move. They were imbedded in the padding so I couldn't get them out.

I am torn; part repulsed at worms in my filter, part intrigued at live food for my discus.

Oh, I've never, ever fed CBW. Only my own beefheartshrimp mix, pellets, live brine shrimp and assorted frozen treats (BS, BW, daphnia, mysis shrimp)

[Tad]

Yup doesnt make sense to me either....but then again, "remember" ;D..I have migrating red wigglers :-X

regards,
Tad

[FishKeeper]

You sure they are really alive? I've seen frozen bloodworms that, when thawed, move around in the current of the tank and you'd swear they are alive, but they are not. I'd try and remove one and place it in a cup of water and see if it is truly living, or just doing a great imitation.

[Anonapersona]

No doubt, this worm was squirming! Flopping and wiggling like a trout out of water. While I know that if you squeeze a dead bloodworm with tweezers it will move as if alive, this baby was on the floor of the tank, doin' the watusi all by himself.

My research shows that bloodworms are midge larva, so maybe those small flys that I see occasionally in the house are not fruit flys. Apparently the filter pads have attracted flys and they laid eggs which hatched.

Or the frozen bloodworms have come back to life.

[Larry Grenier]

I think your theory of flys laying eggs in your filter makes the most sense.

X-file closed ;)

[Carol_Roberts]

Bloodworms are mosquito larva - any mosquitos flying around your house laying eggs? ;D

[Cosmo]

Not sure how you got the live ones, unless Carol's theory applies, but had similar situation many many years ago thought I'd share.

Way back when, when undergravel filters were thought to be the way to go (I'm talking 20+ years here) I used to have on in each of my Discus tanks and I'd power them using the old piston style air pump (which really put out the air). Used to feed live blackworms exclusively, and any that weren't immediately gobbled up escaped by tunnelling into the gravel. Cool thing was, they'd go down and down until they got thru the filter plate where the flow would suck them back up the tube to the surface and into the mouths of one of my hungry Discus. Natural feeding at it's best!! (got a little messier once powerheads were invented ;D)

Don't use the UG's anymore for obvious reasons, and, use only frozen worms, so, unless some of mine reanimate like Ann's guess the little suckers popping back out of the filter to be eaten ain't gonna happen anymore :)

Jim

[Anonapersona]

Bloodworms are mosquito larva - any mosquitos flying around your house laying eggs? ;D


While it is possible that mosquitoes could lay eggs in my house, the water in the filter is much to turbulent to allow a mosquito to land safely (though I once knew a neighbor that found mosquitoes breeding in an upstairs toilet that was seldon used!). This red worm seemed unable to rise by wriggling the way a mosquito lava will.


I thought that bloodworms were mosquito larva also, but a google search yeilded:

Freeze Dried Blood Worms:
High Protein!
Avoid handling messy frozen foods.

Our high protein whole body Freeze Dried Bloodworms (Midge fly larvae) are a wonderful treat. Great for marine and fresh water fish.

Use freeze dried bloodworms and avoid the toxins that are associated with live bloodworms.
Start putting size and color in your fish today, with our complete line of specialty products.

Order today and start improving your aquarium's nutrition with our complete line of specialty products.

as well as other assorted sites that call them midge fly larve.

Now, I still want to know what the toxins associated with live bloodworms might be. Why is it that some people are allergic to them? Should I throw away that filter pad? Oh, oh, I'll check the Skeptical Aquarist, ususally good info there.

[Anonapersona]

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/feeding/bloodworms.shtml

Well, if they are tricky to cultivate, why are they in my filter??

[Anonapersona]

More info and more confusion....help me I'm drowning....

http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/month.200204/msg00124.html

So, this could actually be a tubifex worm?? Living in my filter?

[fshngal]

Can you take a picture of this worm and post it?

Thanks,
Fshngal

[Larry Grenier]

Are you sure they're bloodworms? Perhaps a local bug has a place to land a deposit her eggs?

[Anonapersona]

That one is long gone, but the ones that are bound in the filter padding are looking fat. Apparently the wash of tap water didn't hurt them at all.

Yes, I'll get a photo. It may take awhile to locate the camera and remember how to unload, crop, move to a file that will load to here. (I'm really not adept at that stuff)

[jules]

Fly larvae? Do they look like maggots?

Hi,

Sometimes I see them in the AC500 power filter. They're not red though. They're grayish/cream colored! With the combination of heat and moisture and a place to keep eggs, you can and will get larvae (worms) growing. From what I gather it is the same worms of such from leaving old moldy bread in a moist enclosement.

All the more reasons why I adamantly use my watered-down "you-know-what" to remove those beneficial critters but not very nice to touch and clean. lol :D

*Angie*

[Anonapersona]

They look exactly like bloodworms. Not like maggots. They are red, not gray. I took photos but I can't get on that computer right now to upload and mess with that now. I'll post tomorrow.

[Anonapersona]

Photos of 3 worms pulled from the filter, they are segmented worms I can see now. That dark stuff at the end of one is just a bit of filter pad that came off with the worm.

[Anonapersona]

The filter pad, upstream side. Pretty clean but for the worms.

Because they are segmented worms, I hear that they may be tubifex. I know the fish love them, I dropped the 3 that I pulled into the water and they were eaten instantly.

Now, are tubifex bad because of coming from filthy cesspools, or might the worms that I pull from my own relatively clean filter be safe and not bacteria laden?

[Jean]

Holy Batman!

Do you ever have worms in those puppies! Now where did they come from? :-\

Cosmo- love that story~

Jean ;D 8)

[Anonapersona]

Holy Batman!

Do you ever have worms in those puppies! Now where did they come from? :-\



Uhhh, I'm still tryng to figure that out.... and if they are safe to feed to the fish. The fish do love them, that is for sure.

There are a lot more worms today than there were two days ago or whenever I first posted this topic. And my filter pad is dramatically cleaner than it was 2 days ago, too.

Part of me thinks, ick, worms eating the goo in the filter, can't be healthy to eat. Then I think maybe it is a nice ecological cycle, sort of like the O2-CO2 cycle with plants and fish.

I dunno. Still researching. Surely some of you expert discus folk have seen this before!

[Wolf_Mek]

I found somethin that looked very closely to what's in your filter in my pond. I think, in fact, they may be bloodworms... which are in fact midge lavae... I checked out encarta to be sure: here's a definition of "bloodworm"
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/bloodworm.html

I also actually saw midge's (or very close look-a-likes) flying around my pond early this year.

[Cosmo]

Ann,

don't know if they're good or bad for the system, but it sure does look disgusting. Looks like you got some filter material mixed up in your worms there ;D Maybe in a week or so when the larvea mature and you get a bunch of something buzzing around your house you'll know for sure what they are :) :)

[Anonapersona]

Ann,

don't know if they're good or bad for the system, but it sure does look disgusting. Looks like you got some filter material mixed up in your worms there ;D Maybe in a week or so when the larvea mature and you get a bunch of something buzzing around your house you'll know for sure what they are :) :)


Oh my Gosh! I hadn't thought about THAT!

Now, I just need to get them to walk the plank like Tad taught his worms to do. Too much trouble to get them by pulling with tweezers. I was hoping that when the filter was all nice and clean they'd just let go and try to wash downstream to find the hungry mouths of the fishies.

Hmm, more research to do.

[Anonapersona]

Maybe they do come from frozen bloodworms...

"Bloodworms

Live bloodworms are an excellent food for larger larvae. Live bloodworms are available at only a few places in the U.S., but are more widely available in the U.K. and other countries. Some people have reported success raising larvae with chopped frozen bloodworms. With any non-live food, one must be more careful than ever to prevent mold and contamination of the water from decay."

Bizarre. [edit] No, I've misread that, this is about feeding bloodworm larvae to other larvae, not using frozen to get living bloodworm -- doh!

[fshngal]

Thank you for posting the pictures. They sure do look like the mosquito larvae bloodworms that were harvesting in my backyard aquariums back in June.

Watch out for airborne mosquito's in your home.

Fshngal

Ditto! Airborne mosquitoes for sure. LOL Those are indeed (fly) larvae.

Just use diluted bleach to dissolve them. They'll melt off the filter pad. Looks like you have an AC500. Soak it in water-down bleach solution and you'll be in good shape to start the process from scratch. It takes no time to have the filter pad/sponge seeded (colonized).

*Angie*

[Anonapersona]

I really did not want it to be mosquitoes, but after reading the last post I decided to submerge the filter pad and see if the worms would surface like a mosquito larvae will. They would need air eventually, then when they were free of the padding, I would dump the water in the tank to call the fishes over for a little snack. I really did want to have a method to harvest these little treats.

When I approached the filter, I noticed a little tiny bug... Ah, HA! A fly... no, a mosquito, looking quite newborn. Or IS it? A midge fly looks rather like a mosquito, too, it turns out. Oh dear, more research needed...

Ah, Ha! http://www.coarsefish.com/Bloodworm.htm Looks just like the ones I pulled from the filter.

and the bug...http://www.ricecrc.org/reader/rice-crc/ch_tepperi.htm It looks a lot like a mosquito, but not.

NO, NO, NO. I will NOT have mosquitoes or flys in my house.

I pulled a few to give to the fish and took the pads outside to the trash can.

A quick investigation of the Penguin 330 shows that the baskets provide a nice calm pool of water for a blood-sucking mosquito mama or non-biting midge to lay eggs in. So, I've stuffed that with floss to cover the free water. There is a bit of free water at the corner that could attract a mosquito again, but it may be too turbulent, the center where the impeller wells up certainly is turbulent. So, I'll just keep an eye on the pads, these are the refillable clamshell frame types so I can replace pads easily.

Well, that was interesting, at least to me.... now if I could have gotten a sure-fire and super simple way to harvest those bloodworms before they hatched into flys, that might be worth doing. But for now, it's off to the trash can with them.

[oodi]

Another unsolved mystery solved!!!

Judi
:)

[lesley]

attached is a pic of the mosquito larvae we get in the southern hemisphere. are there species mosquitos that have dramatically different larvae?

[Anonapersona]

There are many different types of mosquiotes, and I suspect the larvae looks slightly different in small ways.

What was in my filter was not a mosquito.


I also found a bloodworm living in the sponge filter today. I pulled the air driven sponge filter and a bloodworm fell out in the bucket as I squeezed it. I wondered what the fish were after under that sponge. I guess I'll wait a few days and pull the main filter pads to see if they have magically appeared again. I find this so bizarre.

[krandrus]

This was one of the most entertaining threads I have read (I know, warped isn't it). Thanks for the entertainment!

Kevin