I killed my Apistogramma

[Hassles]

By feeding frozen Bloodworms to my Apistogramma Trifasciatum I have inadvertently killed it. The body was today taken for autopsy and the diagnosis was that the bristles of the bloodworms lodged in the intestine & stomach causing the demise of the fish. No more Bloodworms for my Apistogrammas (Kribensis or Rainbowfish). I shall hereby use blackworms or grated frozen fish as suggested by the VET.

 

[mf3011]

No way!?

Is this a common thing? Or is this just a one-time occurrence? I use frozen blood worms as my main source of food, so obviously this scares me a bit lol. I also use freeze-dried blood worms, is this a problem too? My apistos never really ate anything else, and they seemed to love these worms. What should I do?

 

[Mike Wise]

Hassles,

I am sorry to hear of your loss. Blackworms might not be any safer. If they are used as a primary food, they tend to give fish excess fat around the internal organs. Since they only live in organic rich environments, blackworms often carry a high bacteria load. It is very important to make sure you get healthy worms and flush the dead worms out daily with fresh water. There are much safer foods to feed your fish.

mf3011,

I have heard some problems with live & frozen/freeze-dried bloodworms. There are reports that some sources of bloodworms are from water poluted with heavy metals, so I would not recommend off brand sources. Stick to the name brands. I have heard of bloodworms chewing through the intestinal walls of fish, but it is not common; probably more losses occur like Hassles'. Still, it is not very common. I don't use bloodworms because I am highly allergic to them - as are many people.

I won't discourage you from using black- or bloodworms, but I feel that freshly hatched baby brine shrimp is a much superior food. Many breeders use it almost exclusively to feed their fish.

 

[mf3011]

Thanks Mike!

Thanks Mike, and I have tried the baby brine with my borellii, and it seemed that he ate them, but then it looked like he spit them right back out. Maybe I'll try again here sometime in the near future.

 

[Rolo]

Hi,

I do not feed Bloodworms anymore since several years. I had losses, too (also A. trifasciata) by feeding living Bloodworms.

Some people think, it's because of polluted water in the the Bloodworms origin, others because of internal injury by little "hooks" of the Bloodworms.
I don't know, what's right, but I think it doesn't matter.

Many people feed them without having losses (or maybe just don't pull Bloodworms and unexplainable losses together) and the fishes like the worms obviously.

But if I can feed them 100 times without problems and then once causing a loss, then it is once too much. Especially in my case I lost fishes, I couldn't get again anywhere. And this is infuriating.

Anyway, even if the fishes always go for the biggest possible food, that fits in their small mouth, it is more healthy for the fish and more natural to feed "small" food like cyclops, moina, little brine shrimps and stuff like that.

regards,
Rolo

 

[Konigwolf]

Well I dont have any room to set up any real sort of brine shrimp hatchery at the moment, so what about frozen adult brine shrimp for fish (dwarves) of a enough size to eat it?

Also while I have never heard of it before (this problem), I respect mikes judgement enough to consider not feeding to my dwarves at all what about safety aspect for larger fish eg, dempsey, salvini, festivum, blue acaras, angels, discus, etc. ( I dont like community dinner, discus dinner etc as my fish just seem to make a mess all over the tank with it)

Food wise (sorry if this makes it a little OT), I usually use NLS (new life spectrum), tetra color bits, bulk crumble (seems to do good stuff for inspiring regular breeding ) supermarket flake (aristopet I think) full of lots of fish stuff, no fillers (wheat, soy etc) as well as frozen brine shrimp and bloodworm.

I usually have twice daily feeding ration, wet 1/dry 3 meals, and fast about 1 day a week

I had never thought about unexplained dwarf deaths and blood worms before . Just thought poor stock at times, as I often keep them with my discus (which I've only ever lost one [discus] in 3 years of keeping them and that was my fault) I thought I'd see probs there first (with decent stock)

Gives me alot to think about :frown: :frown:

 

[Mike Wise]

Feeding a wide variety of different foods - if the fish eat it - is much better than feeding only 1 type of food, even if it is super quality. For larger fish try frozen gammerus shrimp or krill. Eathworms are a great live food for conditioning cichlids.

I don't understand your problem with a brine shrimp hatchery. My hatchery (3 2-liter bottles & and a stand take up only 24 X 24 X 8" space in my fish room. It feeds about 25 aquariums of fish every day.

 

[Konigwolf]

I don't understand your problem with a brine shrimp hatchery. My hatchery (3 2-liter bottles & and a stand take up only 24 X 24 X 8" space in my fish room. It feeds about 25 aquariums of fish every day.

5 kids, 2 adults in a 3 bedroom house. 3 kids are being homeschooled, my wife is doing university so one bedroom is a dedicated study, we only have 3 tanks at the moment (1x100gallon/2x40gallon). I cant set up a hatchery because we literally dont have the room. The only availible space for a brine shrimp hatchery would be near ground level, not good with a crawler/trying to walk 8 month baby around. I'm getting a garden/storage shed come green house in august that will have power (the wife wants a solar heated pond in it as well ), so i'll have a little more room then. But till then, things are a little squeezed, literally.

 

[Hassles]

Aussie Blackworms

I give all my fish as diverse a diet as they will accept. Fortuneately here in Victoria, Australia we have a breeder / supplier of blackworms both live and freeze dried (http://www.blackworms.com.au). I shall use these to supplement the diets of my fish which also include Rainbowfish and Kribensis. Like many I have fed frozen bloodworms to many fish over many months but in view of safer alternatives being readily available I see no point taking the risk with Bloodworms regadless of how much my fish loved them. The vet (fish specialist) who performed the autopsy on my Apistogramma recommended against Bloodworms and suggested blackworms or grated frozen fish.