Feeding live bloodworm

Hi,
This is a dumb question but I've never fed any live food to any of my fish -
they take and enjoy the frozen stuff. However, I've got a problem with some
Ich ridden Clown Loaches that are just not feeding and are getting weaker.

I thought I might try giving them live bloodworm. Do I just stick it all the
tank at once, buy some sort of feeder, or just put the required amount in
the tank and find a way of storing the others?

Thanks
Gill

"Gill Passman" gillspamattaylorpassmanspam.co.uk wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
This is a dumb question but I've never fed any live food to any of my
fish -
they take and enjoy the frozen stuff. However, I've got a problem with
some
Ich ridden Clown Loaches that are just not feeding and are getting weaker.

I thought I might try giving them live bloodworm. Do I just stick it all
the
tank at once, buy some sort of feeder, or just put the required amount in
the tank and find a way of storing the others?

Thanks
Gill

I use the feeders for bloodworm for my angels. For clowns, it sinks very
quickly to gravel, much faster than frozen. As it's the first time, I would
add a few by hand or turkey baster, near where they feel safest at first,
about 6 each. To keep it fresh, keep in covered jug, change most of water
every day (tap water not tank) and keep in fridge. It should last 5 or 6
days. They should find it irrestible. They will eat as much as you give
them, so increase amount once they like it, which hopefully is straightaway
so they get better quickly, pushing each other around as they eat it, a
mini rugby scrum. All my fish love it. Mary

"Mary Burns" wrote in message
...

"Gill Passman" gillspamattaylorpassmanspam.co.uk wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
This is a dumb question but I've never fed any live food to any of my
fish -
they take and enjoy the frozen stuff. However, I've got a problem with
some
Ich ridden Clown Loaches that are just not feeding and are getting
weaker.

I thought I might try giving them live bloodworm. Do I just stick it
all the
tank at once, buy some sort of feeder, or just put the required amount
in
the tank and find a way of storing the others?

Thanks
Gill

I use the feeders for bloodworm for my angels. For clowns, it sinks
very quickly to gravel, much faster than frozen. As it's the first
time, I would add a few by hand or turkey baster, near where they feel
safest at first, about 6 each. To keep it fresh, keep in covered jug,
change most of water every day (tap water not tank) and keep in fridge.
It should last 5 or 6 days. They should find it irrestible. They will
eat as much as you give them, so increase amount once they like it,
which hopefully is straightaway so they get better quickly, pushing
each other around as they eat it, a mini rugby scrum. All my fish love
it. Mary


Mary, can you adjust your program setting to not add the before your
response so that we can distinguish your text from the post you are
answering to? This particular post was obvious to distinguish, but your
mid-posting is invisible to find.

Gill, I've never seen a case where Clowns which didn't eat frozen
bloodworms ate live bloodworms, but this is possible if the fish were
wild-caught and have simply never adjusted to dead or processed foods. I
hope this works for you, but I don't recall Clowns being difficult to
adjust to processed foods.

I can't recall if your Q-tank was hard water or soft. As far as I know,
the majority of Clowns are wild-caught, and I've found that Clowns
acclimate poorly to hard water. After acclimated, they seem fine, but I
still have my doubts about the wisdom of keeping botia in hard water
set-ups (which is something I've done and am doing myself).

A little speculation, but it's possible that your two batches of Clowns
may have come from different environments. Some are wild-caught and
shipped by exporters who are not much more than bagging/transport
stations collecting the local harvests (which include local small-medium
fish-farming operations). I would not be surprised to find that many
wild-caught are directed to farm pools (perhaps they were undersized for
sale, or to extend their selling season etc). With evaporation, these
pools would probably become much harder, so some Clowns might come from a
pseudo-farmed environment (and would acclimate more easily to processed
food and harder waters).

This might go part way in explaining what you're seeing. Coming from the
same store is no clue. Even coming from the same distributor or supplier
is no clue. My importers could *usually* tell me origin history if I
asked, but they gave me the feeling that it wasn't always entirely under
their control ;~).
--
www.NetMax.tk

"NetMax" wrote in message
...
"Mary Burns" wrote in message
...

"Gill Passman" gillspamattaylorpassmanspam.co.uk wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
This is a dumb question but I've never fed any live food to any of my
fish -
they take and enjoy the frozen stuff. However, I've got a problem with
some
Ich ridden Clown Loaches that are just not feeding and are getting
weaker.

I thought I might try giving them live bloodworm. Do I just stick it
all the
tank at once, buy some sort of feeder, or just put the required amount
in
the tank and find a way of storing the others?

Thanks
Gill

I use the feeders for bloodworm for my angels. For clowns, it sinks
very quickly to gravel, much faster than frozen. As it's the first
time, I would add a few by hand or turkey baster, near where they feel
safest at first, about 6 each. To keep it fresh, keep in covered jug,
change most of water every day (tap water not tank) and keep in fridge.
It should last 5 or 6 days. They should find it irrestible. They will
eat as much as you give them, so increase amount once they like it,
which hopefully is straightaway so they get better quickly, pushing
each other around as they eat it, a mini rugby scrum. All my fish love
it. Mary


Mary, can you adjust your program setting to not add the before your
response so that we can distinguish your text from the post you are
answering to? This particular post was obvious to distinguish, but your
mid-posting is invisible to find.

Gill, I've never seen a case where Clowns which didn't eat frozen
bloodworms ate live bloodworms, but this is possible if the fish were
wild-caught and have simply never adjusted to dead or processed foods. I
hope this works for you, but I don't recall Clowns being difficult to
adjust to processed foods.

I can't recall if your Q-tank was hard water or soft. As far as I know,
the majority of Clowns are wild-caught, and I've found that Clowns
acclimate poorly to hard water. After acclimated, they seem fine, but I
still have my doubts about the wisdom of keeping botia in hard water
set-ups (which is something I've done and am doing myself).

A little speculation, but it's possible that your two batches of Clowns
may have come from different environments. Some are wild-caught and
shipped by exporters who are not much more than bagging/transport
stations collecting the local harvests (which include local small-medium
fish-farming operations). I would not be surprised to find that many
wild-caught are directed to farm pools (perhaps they were undersized for
sale, or to extend their selling season etc). With evaporation, these
pools would probably become much harder, so some Clowns might come from a
pseudo-farmed environment (and would acclimate more easily to processed
food and harder waters).

This might go part way in explaining what you're seeing. Coming from the
same store is no clue. Even coming from the same distributor or supplier
is no clue. My importers could *usually* tell me origin history if I
asked, but they gave me the feeling that it wasn't always entirely under
their control ;~).
--
www.NetMax.tk


The two sets came from different branches of Maidenhead Aquatics.
Potentially the supplier could be different but I doubt it - I can do some
digging as both places know me quite well.

The Clown that is showing some sort of recovery sniffed around the bloodworm
but didn't bite. One of the others came out of hiding but again didn't
bite - his colour looked a bit better than the last time I saw him though.
The tetras loved them :-)

The water here is hard - I don't know the exact hardness but spend hours
cleaning limescale off the bathroom/kettle.

Gill

Hi Gill, just in reply to your question, place the blood worm in a feeder as
the blood worm will bury into the gravel and breed like crazy, polluting the
water if let loose in the tank. The feeder is a conical shape with slots for
the fish to suck the worms through. Good luck!
"Gill Passman" gillspamattaylorpassmanspam.co.uk wrote in message
.. .
Hi,
This is a dumb question but I've never fed any live food to any of my
fish -
they take and enjoy the frozen stuff. However, I've got a problem with
some
Ich ridden Clown Loaches that are just not feeding and are getting weaker.

I thought I might try giving them live bloodworm. Do I just stick it all
the
tank at once, buy some sort of feeder, or just put the required amount in
the tank and find a way of storing the others?

Thanks
Gill