Blackworms, how do you feel?

[ACIDKEEPER]

I don't seem to get why there is so much hate involved with blackworms. i have and is still using them to get my apistos in shape for breeding for so long now. i have never had anyfish die of them, ever. and disease and parasites have never been incountered. just wanted to hear some opinions about these guys. thank you. Joe

 

[fishboy20]

With live foods you have to be careful as they carry many diseases. It has been known that black worms can cause internal bacterial infections. I had this happen once with a DR A. cacatuoides but never again. It only takes one time when that happens to never use them again. If you raise your own live foods, it is usally much safer to feed them. I have never lost an Apisto to a live food I've raised. Why take the chance when frozen foods are available as well?

 

[M0oN]

The problem with feeding strictly CBW that you culture yourself or obtain from the LFS are as follows:
1. They need to be clean before you obtain them, if they get infected with bacteria once, then the entire stock is ruined for good.
2. You need to rinse them on a daily basis with used aquarium water and place them into new water in the fridge, it's also a good idea to set out the portion you plan on using that day in room temperature waters and let them purge themselves 2 hours before feeding them.
3. They are nothing close to the simulated live foods in the wild, they will cause instenstinal blockage, constipation, hexamita and if fed to young fish will stunt the developement of the intestinal tract altogether (if you'd like more in depth information on this I'll provide it, but it's pretty boring). Live foods in the wild feed mainly on algae and small particulate matter from foods expelled through fishes gills, they have an herbal nutritional value as well as high proteins, cultured worms do not.

It's absolutely essential to the growth of the intestinal tract in fish to have a makeup of both high protein and vegetable intake, especially if you're a serious breeder...

Jason

 

[farm41]

Vegetables for our apistos 8O

I feed veggies to my ancistrus, but the apistos won't touch it.

 

[M0oN]

Vegetables for our apistos 8O

I feed veggies to my ancistrus, but the apistos won't touch it.

There are ways to get them to take it up, such as leaving blood worms in ocean nutrition formula 2 overnight then freezing them, or just simply taking blood worms, good nutritious herbivore flake food, nutritious carnivore flake food and pureeing them all together in a food processor then freezing it and feeding them in small bits...

 

[farm41]

Why do you think that carnivorous fish need vegetables?

 

[M0oN]

Why do you think that carnivorous fish need vegetables?

Knew somone would ask eventually, well here goes, it's a long read, so bare with me...this is based on discus, which are strictly carnivore's...all of these findings are backed up and I can provide refrences if you need them...

Every child knows that a bad diet is bad for the health while a well-balanced one is good. Our fish do not have the choice but have to eat whatever we feed the tank. A badly balanced diet is a grave stress factor that will cause damage in only a short period of time. For example Discus will suffer intestinal blockage after just two weeks of eating nothing other than beef heart.

Soft, fatty foods cause the intestine to fail and not digest properly, which in turn aids the reproduction of intestinal parasites. A diet rich in fibre will cause the opposite. The instanal movements are more frequent and the digestion is more effective. Also important are the carbohydrates from plants as they are converted to build the protective coat of the intestinal walls. This prevents the reproduction of flagellates and other parasites. With the great selection of foods available in the aquarium stores it should not be a problem to offer the fish a well balanced diet.

It is now assumed that the fish knows what i needs and prefers when several different foods are offered. It is easy to figure out what the fish most like to eat, and that there are individual differences from one fish to another. One may prefer brine shrimp, another red mosquito larvae or beef heart. To offer only the preferred foods would cause the fish to have deficiencies, just like we do not eat our favorite food every day.

The length and form of the intestinal tract tells us much about the diet needed by any fish species. Pure carnivores, such as trout, have a short intestine. Fish that eat mainly vegetarian diets or diets rich in fibre have intestines several times the length of their body.

Viewed in this way the Apistogramma does not occupy a special position. Young fish that have just begun to swim have a short intestine, adapted to the easily digested rich diet of small organisms. Within the first days the intestine begins to grow, as the young fish begin to eat other micro organisms in the aquarium.

As they begin to eat newly hatched brine shrimp the intestine grows even longer and reaches three times the body length after four weeks. This means that the fish eat a little more ballast rich diet in this period. After three months the fish are approximately 3 centimeters long and the intestine is about two and half times the length of their bodies.

Now the intestine grows more slowly and conforms with the growth of the body. When the Apistogramma is adult the intestine has only one and a half times the length of the body. At this oint in their life the Apistogramma require a diet that has sufficient fibre and essential lipids and carbohydrates. Feeding only blood worms is not correct because it contains little fat. In addition the fat from blood worms is difficult for the fish to digest becaues it contains few essential fatty acids. Carbohydrates are completely absent in blood worms. Commercial frozen blood worm mixtures have added vegetarian ingredients but they still lack the needed fats/lipids in sufficient amounts. (The best of these is Hikari frozen bw)

More thatn 15 years ago a scientist by the name of Dieter Untergasser did tests with blood worms. An aquarium with 16 adult Apistogramma was fed exclusively blood worms. The result was that more than half of the fish had distended stomachs after about two weeks. It was a partial intestinal blockage. Following this he immediately changed the diet and fed fibre rich foods, while increasing the temperature slowly by 4 degrees. The fish recovered after only a few days.

Many breeders have stopped feeding blood worms some time ago. Test conducted by Manfred Gobel and Dieter Untergrasser have concluded that blood worms are not well suited as a staple diet. No fish in the Amazon, with the possible exception of pirahna, had the opportunity to adapt to a diet of pure protein. But why are blood worms not well suited? Blood worms consist of 21% protein and 79% water. It would be ideal to increase the protein percentage of the diet. To explain this a more in depth look is needed.

Proteins have to fulfil several functions in an organism. Enzymes and hormones are also built from proteins. Proteins are chains of amino acids. About 1000 amino acid chains form one protein chain. There are 20 amino acids that are used to build these chains in a genetically predetermined order by every organism. The number of combinations is almost infinite.

The proteins in the diet have to be split into its amino acids in the intestine. The blood then transports the amino acids to the cells, which convert them into the ogranism's own proteins. The body itself can construct eight of the needed amino acids by converting similar ones. The other 12 are essential and have to be contained in the diet in sufficient amounts. So the diet is most ideal when it contains the largest amounts of the essential amino acids in the amounts needed by the body.

Let us imagine the body needs a certain essential amino acid in the quantity of 6% to build a protein. If the protein in its diet only has 2% of this amino acid, then only 1/3 of the protein can be used and the remaining 2/3 are rejected with the faeces. The blood worm diet has an even worse ratio. The unused portion of the diet is the food for the bacteria and flagellats in the intestine.

This would not be such a problem if the undigested protein did not pollute the water. Because of the nitrification of the protein into nitrate the pH of unbuffered water can crash over night. I have seen aquariums where after feeding blood worms the value fell from pH 6 in the evening to pH 4 in the morning.

In un-buffered water with low or no carbonate hardness the pH will always fal if the filtration is active. But if the diet of the fish is well balanced this will happen more slowly and evenly. If the diet is ill suited or the fish are overfed the pH will crash. That is also why excess food should be removed from rearing tanks within 10 minutes.

A monotone diet will cause the apistogramma intestine to function less, because fibre and carbohydrates are missing, causing blockages and constipation.

Like the proteins carbohydrates come in many different forms, so it is not enough to add sugar or starch to a food mixture. High quality vegetable based carbohydrates are needed in order for the fish to produce the slime coat for the intestine and skin.

If they are absent in the diet the intestine will not function normally. Bacteria and flaellates then multiply in the intestine, causing inflammations in the intestinal walls. Food is no longer digested properly; the fish loose wieght and can no longer fend off disease. The fish are treated, but the medications do not work sufficiently or at all. In my opinion it is better to offer the fish a high quality more expensive diet than to offer them inferior cheaper foods. No one likes to eat the same food all the time, and fish should also be offered a varied diet. Freeze dried FD foods are equal to live foods because of the special conservation process. And it is certain that they cannot transmit parasites. Tubifex, red mosquito larvae, daphnia and brine shrimp are available in excellent quality. On top of this these foods are usually enriched with extra vitamins and proteins needed by fish.

Because of the earlier mentioned reasons it is vital to offer such foods or high quality frozen foods at least once a day in order to supply the fishes intestine with fibre from the rough chitin particles of these feed items. It is not necessary to feed a vegetarian food since flake foods contain the high quality vegetable based carbohydrates and lipids.

These lipids are the long-term reserves of the organism. Unsaturated fats are essential and must be part of the diet in sufficient amounts. The organism in the presence of these fats can only absorb the fat-soluable vitamins. But the organism also needs not only vegetable but also animals fats. But not every fat is good, and it would be a great mistake to supplement the food with fats from warm-blooded animals. Fish cannot digest these fats well because they remain solid in normal temperatures. This will cause the fish to be incapable of taking up vitamins in the necessary quantities.

The danger of inefficient diet is the ensuing chain reaction of other deficiences. Carbohydrate deficiency is often a factor: without them the fish cannot produce the slime coat for the intestine. The slime coat is needed to coat the food and to activate the intestinal movements. Only then can the food be transported and digested. If insufficient amounts of the slime are produced the mashed food will not move and gases will build up. These cause inflammations of the intestinal walls. Flagellates and bacteria now multiply rapidly. Because carbohydrates are also needed for the digestion of lipids fat-soluable vitamins can no longer be absorbed. Carbohydrates also function as transporters for amino acids in the blood.

If the fish digests the nutrients in the intestine optimally flagellates cannot reproduce normally in large quantity. Flagellates always live off the left over nutrients, primarily proteins that the fish is not using. This is supported by the fact that skinny fish that have stopped eating also have no flagellates in their stomach. If the flagellates were feeding off the fish's body they would continue to feed and multiply at this time. If the diet of infested fish is changed the flagellate population also drop considerably. I have also raised young fish infected with flagellates and they grew to adulthood without the need for medications.

Whew! Hope that answers your question!

 

[farm41]

You mostly refered to blood worms in this article. Is the same true for CBW? They are a large portion of the diet in my fish, but supplemented with bbs, daphnia, white worms, grindal worms and Ocean Nutrition flake.

 

[M0oN]

You mostly refered to blood worms in this article. Is the same true for CBW? They are a large portion of the diet in my fish, but supplemented with bbs, daphnia, white worms, grindal worms and Ocean Nutrition flake.

CBW and blood worms are basically the same in nutrition values...

Like I said above, it's not a bad thing to feed them to fish, just don't make it their only source of food...they need vegetables for their intestines...

You might not notice any problems in them...but it will indefinately shorten their life span...

 

[farm41]

I do want them to be healthy, I will diversify their diet a little more.

 

[M0oN]

I do want them to be healthy, I will diversify their diet a little more.

Hhaa good, glad Id idn't type all that up for nothing

 

[Zapisto]

I do want them to be healthy, I will diversify their diet a little more.

Hhaa good, glad Id idn't type all that up for nothing

No you didn't
i read all religiously, and think i am agree.

 

[fishboy20]

The Ocean Nutrition Flakes have some veggies in them. Especially if you feed the Formula 2 flake. What you are currently feeding seems good to me (bbs, daphnia, white worms, grindal worms and Ocean Nutrition flake). You might throw in some frozen bloodworms and if you have live daphnia, you could feed them powdered spirulina. That would increase the amount of vegetation in the diet of your Apistos.

 

[Discus Man]

Moon, not to disagree with the fact that high protein diets aren't wise, the bloodworm bit has actually been altered. Though a logical assumption that the protein was to blame, the research is easily debunked as the undigestible shell of the insect larvae of the midge (aka bloodworm) is 90% the casue of the intestinal blockage. All mosquito larvae share this issue.
Super high protein diets from such sources as mysis shrimp exceed protein levels of blood worm and do not cause the blockages or gut infections.

I would also warn you that round worm eggs can survive being freeze dried, frozen or soaked in pure formaldehyde... there is always a slim chance of bringing in some pathogen...
that said, I do follow your recommendations... varied diet, home grown live food, freeze dried, etc.

 

[M0oN]

Moon, not to disagree with the fact that high protein diets aren't wise, the bloodworm bit has actually been altered. Though a logical assumption that the protein was to blame, the research is easily debunked as the undigestible shell of the insect larvae of the midge (aka bloodworm) is 90% the casue of the intestinal blockage. All mosquito larvae share this issue.
Super high protein diets from such sources as mysis shrimp exceed protein levels of blood worm and do not cause the blockages or gut infections.

I would also warn you that round worm eggs can survive being freeze dried, frozen or soaked in pure formaldehyde... there is always a slim chance of bringing in some pathogen...
that said, I do follow your recommendations... varied diet, home grown live food, freeze dried, etc.

Well, I don't feed live foods period, be they freeze dried, frozen, wigglin' or dead...just put what I know up there as some base information, glad you had somthing to add to it...people should form their own opinions based on what information they can gather from a large source of others, not just from the comments of one person.

 

[aspen]

when you use blackworms, you have to trust the source, and keep them properly. lots of people have had problems with blackworms, but you can't use anything better to induce breeding, ime.

a varied diet is best for your fish, there is nothing wrong with good flake, and a variety of worms, plus beefheart mix. overfeeding is the main problem with worms ime. it is very easy to overfeed a fish that can't resist one more bite.

rick