Feeding Grindel Worms To Fish

[archivis]

I have a long established (almost 10 year old) 40 gallon freshwater tank
stocked with an assortment of fish, most of whom are around 4 inches long:
a red-tailed shark
a dragon goby / dragon eel / whatever the name of the week is
he's much larger - about 8 or 9 inches long
a tiger barb (or possibly a clown loach, my money is on the barb)
an assortment of 5 or 6 platys (look like minnows)
a big silver dollar fish

(I'm not 100% on some of the fish types as I was in Canada for the
purchase of most of them)

The tank is equipped with a dual-powerhead undergravel filter, a box
corner filter, an air-stone bubbling away, as well as a 20 W hood
providing illumination.

Now these fish are being fed on a mix of the typical flake food stuff and
a frozen mix of well, bits of all sorts of stuff we get at the store,
which is intended primarily for the dragon goby - not that much really
ends up down on the bottom for him.

It has long been my intention, from when I first got the tank seven years
ago (used, complete with fish (not, unfortunately, the same fish), gravel,
hood, pumps, and background) to feed them a varied diet - and for a while
shrimp pellets were added to the flakes. Moving to a live food supplement
has always been on the back burner, but things like moving to Canada
have interfered over the years :)

Now that I am unemployed and back at the family residence (with lots of
time on my hands) I have been looking into feeding live food as a
supplement to what they're getting now. Partly because it's something
else to grow, and partly because I feel that if the dragon goby has
something besides his fishy friends to eat he'll eat less of them (as
family members swear to have seen him do).

Perusing the various live feed faqs and web sites it seems that
maintaining a culture of grindel worms is both simple enough as a first
trial run that even I probably won't screw it up, and not too invasive (my
family is going to protest vigorously if I have worms in the fridge. I
don't even have to ask. Storing the frozen feed mix in the freezer was
challenge enough).

Ideally the fish would be fed a few worms every day (probably in the
morning, as their normal feeding is at night) as a dietary supplement and
diversion from the usual swimming in circles.

However given the size of the fish in our aquarium, I am not sure if the
grindel worms are even going to show up on their radar (sonar :). It
would be a shame to have to tear down the tank because I fed them a bunch
of worms they wouldn't eat, which then proceeded to burrow into the gravel
substrate and expire at some later date.

So, oh sages of the net, is this a good idea? Or are my culinary
offerings going to be spurned by my fish?

Alternatively, would Daphnia work? I have a small tank languishing away
in storage I could convert to a daphnia hatchery (maybe with some plants
and a snail or two - which might happen anyway).

[Graham Ramsay]

"archivis" wrote> Alternatively, would Daphnia work? I have a small tank languishing away
> in storage I could convert to a daphnia hatchery (maybe with some plants
> and a snail or two - which might happen anyway).

Grindal worms are easy to cultivate and are taken
by just about every fish. White worms are similar and
are suitable for larger fish. Earthworms can be easily
obtained for larger fish also.
Daphnia are very difficult to keep alive for anything more
than a few days. Some fish don't seem to care for Daphnia
and even those that do will only eat so much of it.
Worms are by far the better food. Just don't keep them
in the fridge.

--
Graham Ramsay

[Rick]

"archivis" > wrote in message
...
> I have a long established (almost 10 year old) 40 gallon freshwater tank
> stocked with an assortment of fish, most of whom are around 4 inches long:
> a red-tailed shark
> a dragon goby / dragon eel / whatever the name of the week is
> he's much larger - about 8 or 9 inches long
> a tiger barb (or possibly a clown loach, my money is on the barb)
> an assortment of 5 or 6 platys (look like minnows)
> a big silver dollar fish
>
> (I'm not 100% on some of the fish types as I was in Canada for the
> purchase of most of them)
>
> The tank is equipped with a dual-powerhead undergravel filter, a box
> corner filter, an air-stone bubbling away, as well as a 20 W hood
> providing illumination.
>
> Now these fish are being fed on a mix of the typical flake food stuff and
> a frozen mix of well, bits of all sorts of stuff we get at the store,
> which is intended primarily for the dragon goby - not that much really
> ends up down on the bottom for him.
>
> It has long been my intention, from when I first got the tank seven years
> ago (used, complete with fish (not, unfortunately, the same fish), gravel,
> hood, pumps, and background) to feed them a varied diet - and for a while
> shrimp pellets were added to the flakes. Moving to a live food supplement
> has always been on the back burner, but things like moving to Canada
> have interfered over the years :)
>
> Now that I am unemployed and back at the family residence (with lots of
> time on my hands) I have been looking into feeding live food as a
> supplement to what they're getting now. Partly because it's something
> else to grow, and partly because I feel that if the dragon goby has
> something besides his fishy friends to eat he'll eat less of them (as
> family members swear to have seen him do).
>
> Perusing the various live feed faqs and web sites it seems that
> maintaining a culture of grindel worms is both simple enough as a first
> trial run that even I probably won't screw it up, and not too invasive (my
> family is going to protest vigorously if I have worms in the fridge. I
> don't even have to ask. Storing the frozen feed mix in the freezer was
> challenge enough).
>
> Ideally the fish would be fed a few worms every day (probably in the
> morning, as their normal feeding is at night) as a dietary supplement and
> diversion from the usual swimming in circles.
>
> However given the size of the fish in our aquarium, I am not sure if the
> grindel worms are even going to show up on their radar (sonar :). It
> would be a shame to have to tear down the tank because I fed them a bunch
> of worms they wouldn't eat, which then proceeded to burrow into the gravel
> substrate and expire at some later date.
>
> So, oh sages of the net, is this a good idea? Or are my culinary
> offerings going to be spurned by my fish?
>
> Alternatively, would Daphnia work? I have a small tank languishing away
> in storage I could convert to a daphnia hatchery (maybe with some plants
> and a snail or two - which might happen anyway).
>
>
>
>

I feed my fish (depending on their size) an assortment of live foods
including BBS, Micro Worms, grindal worms, white worms and meal worms. I
would recommend white worms for your set up. Grindal worms are easy to keep.
I simply mix up some peat and potting soil and put a culture in. I have a
piece of glass that fits in their containers and a large marble which keeps
the glass up on a slight edge. I grind up cat chow and sprinkle this on the
glass which I have wetted. Next day simply take an eye dropper of water and
spray the worms into a small cup and dispense with the eye dropper. Keep
rotating the culture between several containers , always having a fresh one
on the go. Similarly with white worms I use either peat and potting soil or
you can buy worm bedding from Wal-Mart or bait and tackle shop. The worm
bedding has food already in it and the white worms seem to grow much quicker
in that stuff. I soak a piece of break in some milk, put it on top of what
ever soil you use. The worms come to the surface to feed and can be easily
removed with a pair of tweezers. Put them in a small container of water and
they will ball up in clumps and can be fed to your fish using the tweezers.

Rick

[Sarah]

Why not keep worms in the fridge? I used to keep black worms in my
fridge for my mini frogs and they'd last for weeks.

I do have a question about feeding worms though. I always had a
problem with a few worms escaping into the gravel because either my
frog or the betta would miss them. I now have a couple of frogs in a
tank with a sand base and I don't really want my sand full of stray
black or tubifex worms. I would feed freeze dried but my frogs seem
only able to locate live worms/food. Is there a way to minimize the
number of escaped worms? Is it bad to have a bunch of worms in my
substrate?

Sarah

"Graham Ramsay" > wrote in message >...
> "archivis" wrote> Alternatively, would Daphnia work? I have a small tank languishing away
> > in storage I could convert to a daphnia hatchery (maybe with some plants
> > and a snail or two - which might happen anyway).
>
> Grindal worms are easy to cultivate and are taken
> by just about every fish. White worms are similar and
> are suitable for larger fish. Earthworms can be easily
> obtained for larger fish also.
> Daphnia are very difficult to keep alive for anything more
> than a few days. Some fish don't seem to care for Daphnia
> and even those that do will only eat so much of it.
> Worms are by far the better food. Just don't keep them
> in the fridge.

[Graham Ramsay]

"Sarah" wrote
> Why not keep worms in the fridge? I used to keep black worms in my
> fridge for my mini frogs and they'd last for weeks.

At low temperatures the worms won't reproduce. White and grindal
worm cultures can last for years.

> I do have a question about feeding worms though. I always had a
> problem with a few worms escaping into the gravel because either my
> frog or the betta would miss them. I now have a couple of frogs in a
> tank with a sand base and I don't really want my sand full of stray
> black or tubifex worms. I would feed freeze dried but my frogs seem
> only able to locate live worms/food. Is there a way to minimize the
> number of escaped worms? Is it bad to have a bunch of worms in my
> substrate?

White and grindal worms don't seem to burrow into the gravel.

--
Graham Ramsay
Learn about the work of the JREF
www.randi.org

[archivis]

> Grindal worms are easy to cultivate and are taken
> by just about every fish. White worms are similar and
> are suitable for larger fish. Earthworms can be easily
> obtained for larger fish also.
> Daphnia are very difficult to keep alive for anything more
> than a few days. Some fish don't seem to care for Daphnia
> and even those that do will only eat so much of it.
> Worms are by far the better food. Just don't keep them
> in the fridge.

The chief attraction of daphnia over the grindel worms is that they're
truely aquatic - if nothing wants to eat them they can set up shop in my
tank for all I care :)

I thought white worms had to be kept cool - at least that's what all the
white worm culturing pages advise.

Can you raise white worms without a cooler?

[archivis]

> I feed my fish (depending on their size) an assortment of live foods
> including BBS, Micro Worms, grindal worms, white worms and meal worms. I
> would recommend white worms for your set up. Grindal worms are easy to keep.
> I simply mix up some peat and potting soil and put a culture in. I have a
> piece of glass that fits in their containers and a large marble which keeps
> the glass up on a slight edge. I grind up cat chow and sprinkle this on the
> glass which I have wetted. Next day simply take an eye dropper of water and
> spray the worms into a small cup and dispense with the eye dropper. Keep
> rotating the culture between several containers , always having a fresh one
> on the go. Similarly with white worms I use either peat and potting soil or
> you can buy worm bedding from Wal-Mart or bait and tackle shop. The worm
> bedding has food already in it and the white worms seem to grow much quicker
> in that stuff. I soak a piece of break in some milk, put it on top of what
> ever soil you use. The worms come to the surface to feed and can be easily
> removed with a pair of tweezers. Put them in a small container of water and
> they will ball up in clumps and can be fed to your fish using the tweezers.

Yeah, culturing worms does seem to be dead simple. I've seen suggestions
to culture them on bricks of coconut fiber, to avoid dumping potting soil
into your tank along with the worms. Have you tried that?

The only difference that came into play as for as my interest in grindel
worms over white worms is that the info I've seen for white worms suggests
keeping them cool. I live in Louisiana and relying on a cooler and a
container of ice is sort of iffy, and there is zero chance of me surviving
putting worms in the family fridge.

[Graham Ramsay]

"archivis" wrote
> I thought white worms had to be kept cool - at least that's what all the
> white worm culturing pages advise.
>
> Can you raise white worms without a cooler?

Cool but not chilled.
I keep mine in the garden shed.

--
Graham Ramsay
Learn about the work of the JREF
www.randi.org

[archivis]

>> Can you raise white worms without a cooler?
>
> Cool but not chilled.
> I keep mine in the garden shed.

It's going to be mostly 80 or 90 in the shade here until oh, October :)

I plan on keeping the grindel worms someplace in the house where it'll be
in the middle to low 70s most of the time.

Do you use a cooler with ice? Or just have them in a box out in the shed?

[Graham Ramsay]

"archivis" wrote
> It's going to be mostly 80 or 90 in the shade here until oh, October :)
>
> I plan on keeping the grindel worms someplace in the house where it'll be
> in the middle to low 70s most of the time.
>
> Do you use a cooler with ice? Or just have them in a box out in the shed?

No problem with temperatures in Scotland even in Summer!
I have my white worms in the shed but keep the grindal worms
in an old filing cabinet in my fish room. Grindal worms do fine
even in warm weather. (Relatively speaking of course, warm
here is anything over 70F).
By the way it's grindal, not grindel. They are named after
Mrs Morton Grindal from Sweden who discovered them.

Regards

--
Graham Ramsay
Learn about the work of the JREF
www.randi.org

[Rick]

"archivis" > wrote in message
...
>
> >> Can you raise white worms without a cooler?
> >
> > Cool but not chilled.
> > I keep mine in the garden shed.
>
> It's going to be mostly 80 or 90 in the shade here until oh, October :)
>
> I plan on keeping the grindel worms someplace in the house where it'll be
> in the middle to low 70s most of the time.
>
> Do you use a cooler with ice? Or just have them in a box out in the shed?
>


I keep mine in containers that I leave on the basement floor. Plenty cool
for them.

Rick

[archivis]

> No problem with temperatures in Scotland even in Summer!
> I have my white worms in the shed but keep the grindal worms
> in an old filing cabinet in my fish room. Grindal worms do fine
> even in warm weather. (Relatively speaking of course, warm
> here is anything over 70F).
> By the way it's grindal, not grindel. They are named after
> Mrs Morton Grindal from Sweden who discovered them.

Thank you for the correction...now that my mistake has been enshrined for
eternity on USENET. :)

The Grindal worms will just have to learn to love living in a box on a
bookshelf, I am afraid. But thanks for the worm-keeping tips as well, I'm
sure the worms would rather be in scenic Scotland as opposed to the swamps
here, but fish food, as they say, can't be choosers.