anyone treat there blackworms?

[tag]

Hi All,

I'm curious. For those of you who have a reliably clean source of blackworms I would say that you don't likely treat them with anything before feeding to your discus however, I don't have a reliably clean source and I can't get anyone to ship to Canada because of the effect of time and travel on the worms so....

does anyone treat their blackworms in preparation for feeding to their discus?

Thanks a ton for any info you can share

Take care

Tina

[jaydoc]

Cary Strong from Great Lakes Discus used to treat his with methylene blue. You should be able to find him in the Selller's section and PM him or look up GLD website and call him.

Cary the Lesser

[ppv1951]

tina..... why not raise your own? they're fairly easy from what i'm seeing. they live in the water, so an old tank or any container would do. aquaticfoods has one pound for $23.75, including shipping, but might be a bit higher out of the US. email them.

you can find several articles on growing them, going through google, searching for california blackworms. you might want to try red wigglers too (eisenia fetida). below is a link to arkansas caveworms, $15.10/pound shipped inside the US. also fairly easy to culture.

www.aquaticfoods.com

www.homestead.com/wormseller/justworms.html

why pay over and over? worms reproduce like crazy!

good luck tina!

pat.

[ShinShin]

I remember reading a piece written by the late Jim Quarles about raising blackworms. His experience was that it was not worth the effort. Jim was not a lazy man, either.

[Spices]

I remember reading a piece written by the late Jim Quarles about raising blackworms. His experience was that it was not worth the effort. Jim was not a lazy man, either.

Maybe because they stink! :D I started to reproduce them but fell short in patience.

The only treatment I do with the blackworms is clean them twice daily for the first two or three days (with fresh, nonchlorinated cool water). Then I do it daily after that.

[Cosmo]

Hi Tina :)

Rinse them in a methylene blue solution daily, and keep them in the solution in the fridge as well. A trick I picked up via one of Cary Strong's posts. I use 2 drops meth blue per gallon both for cleaning and storage. This works very well with the clean source worms.

I believe Cary used a stronger solution and gave them a bath of several hours rather than the regular storage like I'm doing and did it only whenever they started feeling slimy or smelling. Would recommend you PM him and see what he suggests.

Jim

[ShinShin]

I will ask again - "Does anyone else see anything wrong with feeding a food that ought to be treated for parasites before feeding that food to your discus"?