@@Fishtory Not to nitpick but if I am not mistaken I don't remember where you got the daphnia nor cyclops from? I only ask because everything else flew in but I must have missed where the daphnia and cyclops came from? As far as I know they are both attracted to light but I have seen plenty of puddles that don't contain any moving life forms.
@@donaldlyons17they typically show up in algae / green water settings but you can also sometimes buy a live culture to start them off with. Aquatic Arts sells it sometimes or Phillips Fish Works has microfauna and scud starters
I'm keeping kiddie pools with tadpoles in them this summer. Today I noticed bloodworms and little bouncy flea like bugs in one of the pools. Hope the tadpoles like to eat them.
This is actually one of my favourite of videos of yours lol , I’m going to leave a tub out from now on 👏🏽👏🏽 I might look a bit weird early in the morning hovering over stagnant bucket but the crazy things we will do for our pets and fish 🤭🤭
Hey Alex, forgive my need to correct you on a few things. All the critters you were calling daphnia, are just female cyclops, or copepods. The 2 sacs of eggs give them away. Daphnia aka water fleas bounce, they look like fleas, if you've ever had to deal with an infestation. Copepods are great fry food because of how small they are
Ah so that’s what I found when cleaning my filter! They where jumping everywhere! Is that a good sign or a bad sign? And where did they come from 😅 thanks
You are totally correct... I for some reason had it in my head that they were different...but now I Remember daphnia are the ones that spin (also in the tub) and have eggs inside! ..doh! Thank you... I'll pin that right away. Face palm. I appreciate you setting things straight!
@ Fishtory. You’ve inspired me in many ways. I have a stream in the backyard woods on my property. I’ve set up a tub with natural substrate and organic life forms in my backyard near the home. As well as a 10 gallons tank inside from the same stream/ creek. Found Planeria-type worms in it last night (no fish, plants, or macro life forms inside yet). You rock, Brother! 👍🏾💙
@@Fishtory Indeed and thanks for replying. Just got my first sponge filter for the wild/ savage 10 gallon creek tank as well. Excited to see what happens. I’m used to costly moving parts.
Watching the video reminded me of when I was young. My grandmother had an old fish-less gold fish pond. Everyday I collected all kinds of live foods and the fish loved it. Thanks for sharing Alex!
Love your chanel always so informative. Can i ask when your feeding worms to your betta,s what are the greedy ones with the blue lips they are wonderful.
So i feed black or blood worms 2 or 3 nights a week if im home for a while.... and more like 1 or 2x a week id not. They seem to like bug bites and algae flakes also... and mosquito larvae or daphnia ill feed them every day if they're in my ponds out back
You know what live food guppies really go wild for.?! Spiders. They go crazy on a new level; and will choose that over any other food in the tank. Ants get them pretty crunk too.
Dude this was awesome! I have a 10L white experimental bucket outside & have had it for about 3 years now, use rain water & water from my tanks to keep it topped up & it's growing all sorts of critters, originally it came from a collecting trip of some native plants in a local most normally dry river bed, even has natural snails in it from when it was flowing one year. Cheers!
I just collected a liter of pond water that was loaded with thousands of water fleas and three tadpoles. I live in baltimore MD. It was a good time and I’ll be making a bucket of my own soon enough
I’m so glad u came up in my algorithm again I couldn’t remember your channel name and I learn SO much from your videos thanks I snapshot it this time lol
Here I thought if it looked like mosquito, walked like a mosquito and bites like a mosquito.... IT'S A MOSQUITO 🦟😂 I HAD NO IDEA THERE WERE SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS AND THEN OF COURSE YOU HAVE THOSE LITTLE THINGS THAT BITE YOU IN THE SUMMERTIME THAT I CALL "SEE ME NOTS" OR "NO SEEUMS"that love to chew your rear end up especially late in the afternoons on a hot balmy day! I actually thought they were just baby mosquitoes!! 😂 I really enjoyed the video because I love live foods for my bettas! The neighbors weren't too happy that I was cultivating mosquitoes in tubs but hey, that's just the way it has to be 😂😂 Thanks for the video and all the "skeeter" education Alex😂 I hope you and everyone else is having a great day!
Hahaha I love you. I'm sure they're thinking "what in the Hell is going on in that mobile home?!" 7 cats run out, you're talking loudly to yourself about fish randomly (Iivestreams). Lol be careful you could look more suspicious now than ever before hahah
LOL I remember when I brought in so many mosquitoes larvae one morning to feed and by the end of the day when I can back to feed.l they were all flying around .
I believe I had an encounter with those "vampire mosquitoes" while traveling through Mississippi. You can hear them from a few feet away as they dive bombed you!
@@Fishtory LOL! Every insect that ends up in our house, is blamed on me! I feed bugs to my tarantulas and lizard, but not wild ones! That seems not to be part of his thought processes when accusing me of loosing another cricket or roach! And, of course, I’m the official catch and release person.😄 He’s the official stomp on it until it’s dead, person.😂
This is so great. I can't wait to put some tubs out! It was 27 this morning so I will wait until it gets above 32. Thank you for introducing growing insects to us!
This video came out at a perfect time. I have been considering giving my betta a variety of live foods but I am limited when it comes to indoor space. My betta loves frozen (and thawed) bloodworms. I hope to get a some tubs going for som live mosquito larvae as well! Thanks for this video. It is really encouraging to see so much life and activity in your tubs despite the lower temperatures 🌡
I was excited at first because this was exactly what I was looking for. Im in another country now and cultures aren't available here. I have been doing the mosquito larvae and just earlier today saw bloodworms in my bucket and a really cool looking species of scuds...took me awhile to figure it out because they look different from most images of scuds online. These look a lot more like baby shrimp. I was hoping you would say more on how you culture the other live foods without needing a culture though. I don't know how I got the scuds because I didn't put much stuff in my buckets besides a few pieces of lava rock about the size of gravel. Only one of my buckets got the scuds though.
So if there was a bubbler in the tub, would it prevent mosquitoes larva but keep the daphnia and other smalls worms. Basically foods for pea puffers and or baby fish
Hmmm perhaps a certain size netting? but depending on where you live there are like 50 insects that have bloodworm style larvae...so perhaps you could catch and hatch the worms and then put them in a bucket with seran wrap
Just some random thoughts as I think about doing this...Could you collect these and place them in a jar in your fridge to slow the growth for a longer shelf life, instead of collecting every day? If you had 2 buckets, would it deplete the supply to pour through a mesh screen and filter them all out? Then you could either freeze or store them in fridge? I live in Georgia, and the last thing I want is to propagate the mosquito population, so it would be great to strain/filter the bucket every X amount of days to make sure and not allow any mosquitos to complete it's life cycle. Thanks for the upload if you read this, much appreciated as I do ponds and more things outside this year to support/expand my fish.
Yes you can totally do that... and I do often refrigerate them. However freezing them without vacuum sealing seems to cause ice crystals that turn the insects to mush ...so just be careful with that...fish get picky about eating mush lol
I have...Annnd I misidentified the darn things... all of the ones in this video were cyclops. Daphnia are little whirly spinning guys...also in those tubs and standing waterm...but there are many varieties around the world. Most of the little copepods and there are over 400 daphnians alone- are fish safe...or they spit out any that are not good.
Alex, have you cultivated blackworms? I'm semi successful in my basement at 23 deg C and 20 cm water depth. Small internal sponge and a layer of gravel. Feeding green pleco wafers. Corys love those worms. I'm very allergic to bloodworms so can't use them.
I'm not successful with black worms other than just living in my substrate/tanks. I've kept colonies for 4 or 5 months and they always mold or rot frustratingly. I'd love to see your method
I live in Texas and some cities around here have ordinances against having standing water because of the mosquitoes so I was wondering if you have any tips for culturing any of these inside
Don't, you'll wake up with West Nile one day when it comes to mosquito larvae. You should be able to collect and harvest everything he's taking about on a daily basis, provided the water container is in an open area; although blood worms take about a couple weeks to mature. Where I live if I fill a bucket with water one day, I can come back the next and find plenty of larvae. Keep in mind that the ones you see on camera are the extremely old ones, there are thousands in there that are not visible to the naked eye. That's actually my litmus test for when I age tap water outside, because they can't survive in fresh tap water, but once you see mosquito larvae, it's conditioned enough to add to a tank; about 3 days for my tap water.
Keep in mind that just like humans, the majority of fish are going to prefer regular processed fish food. Think of it like kids choosing between McDonald's and a salad. So definitely reduce the amount of regular food you are feeding. They eat it around this time of year because it's a novelty., But by July they get sick if it and will want you to feed them regular processed fish food.
@@johnmorgan8127 the reason I asked about culturing inside is because I can be fined up to $2000 for having a bucket of standing water on my property. We have a lot of mosquitoes here and the cities take a lot of precautions to prevent the spread of west Nile virus
@@damianthompson8941 I understand the reasoning behind it, but when a larvae metamorphosizes into whatever it is, it's exoskeleton is extremely soft so it can crawl through whatever barrier you have containing it and it will get into your house and cause whatever you are trying to prevent. Blood worms also take a couple of weeks to harvest because they have a slightly slower growth cycle
@@damianthompson8941 there is also the problem of continuous hatching. Just because you have two mosquito larvae that were hatched at the same time, doesn't mean they will have the same life cycle, larvae 2 may develop at a much faster rate than larvae 1. The size of the larvae that you saw on camera, they were literally about to metamorphosize within a day or so, if not a few hours. When they have a head like in you see at 15:23 , it signifies that they are close to being fully developed
Do you add the outside water to your thank or do you have dump the water into a brine shrimp net ten suck up tank safe water? I'm worried about introducing harmful organisms to my tanks.
I add some outside water...but there is a chance of worms or other bad critters in the water... it's just that fish are from nature...and even though the environment is different where they're from...they can fend off most wild organisms way more easily than the stuff that is in aquarium stores and wholesalers/farms, where the pathogens have had an arms race to outdo any cures we come up with
I am almost scared to be around bloodworms because I keep reading about how many people are allergic to them and I know I am literally allergic to everything 🤦🏻♂️
Yes, any outside plant, water or fish can be a vector for illness. That being said...with the exception of fish leaches I've never gotten any issue in 8 years of doing this. Nor have other local members of my fish club...but I could see the tropics and stagnant water being more dangerous
Hey you know what. I just found out that bloodworms can provoke a strong allergic reaction on humans and also can kill some fish. And you know what. Not one video I've watched so far of the many youtube's fish channels ever told me anything about that. And you know what. Now that I know this, it TOTALLY makes sense over some fish that I lost lately. I tought there was a big problem with the water or a disease but then I've stopped feeding worms and everything immediately got OK. Did I kill my fish with love 🧐 ? They say some species (like ramirezi) are more fragile toward bloodworms and won't tolerate them. They say bloodworms should be fed only 1 time a week or even altogether banned from any fish diet. What do you think ?
Sometimes it's from fatty liver disease or blockage in the gut from only eating so much protein. However I'll have to research the allergy part too. Thanks
@@Fishtory some people had strong allergic reactions, asthma and/or rash in contact with the fine powder from freeze dried blood worms. I don't have any stats in hands (it did not happen to me) but the internet seems to recognise this as a real problem. Something to do with hypersensitivity to chironomids that affects a lot of fish keepers... I've been strongly warned to not to feed them more than once a week to fish and to ban them altogether if possible.
Fresh blood worms are good, but need some vegetative supplements for calcium and vitamin E I've read. Where as daphnia and cyclops are nearly perfect for most nano omnivorous or carnivorous fish species... if you had enough of them
I just said outloud... I wonder if you could culture these things in a smallish tub on the porch or in an enclosed back porch? And my son gave me THE LOOK...the are you really that freakin' crazy look. 😄😁😆😅🤣😂 We have an agreement that he can deal with all the tanks and tubs and questionable unmarked sort of foodish looking things in the freezer, but I did make an agreement with him that I would not turn the whole house into a science project or experiment. No jars of creepy looking liquids everywhere with creepy things floating or living in them. And NEVER EVER NEVER any spider breeding projects ☺ I do understand, cuz he gets plagued with insect bites all summer, spring, and fall. He must have some really good blood cuz if there is ONE flea in the entire house it will find him and bite him. He's been around my fish tanks his entire life and never really shown any interest in them, but he's been listening to you, corvus, cory, mark shelly and others in the background when I'm playing a chanel and 2 weeks ago when he took me to pick up a 20 L on sale, he was all over the fish department. On the way home he asked if he could have a fish tank of his own in his room, and that he might ask for advice but otherwise he wanted to do everything himself, water changes, algae picking off, feeding, picking his own substrate, etc. Basically, in a nice way saying, I know you can do it better and know more Mom, but HANDS OFF, I want to learn about and watch my own tank and fish by myself. Told him of course he can have his own tank in his room and that I won't even look at it unless he calls me in to see something. Took 35 years and hearing fish fam people talking in the background, but now he's interested and wants his own tank and fish. I think that's pretty dang cool.💖 👍❤👍
Hahaha that's great! I'm so excited for you guys. That'll be super cool to watch (secretly) "bug off mom!" . Also...fair enough rules in the house...I have those also (but nothing is allowed in the fridge, so I'll actually hide it in my injection medication box if it's blackworms or something lol
Pretty sure the little things with two balls behind them are cyclops with egg sacs....those aren’t daphnia. Daphnia don’t move like that.
You are correct. I mixed up pregnant daphnia. They're also in my tubs..but they're the little whirly gig flea things
@@Fishtory Not to nitpick but if I am not mistaken I don't remember where you got the daphnia nor cyclops from? I only ask because everything else flew in but I must have missed where the daphnia and cyclops came from? As far as I know they are both attracted to light but I have seen plenty of puddles that don't contain any moving life forms.
@@donaldlyons17they typically show up in algae / green water settings but you can also sometimes buy a live culture to start them off with. Aquatic Arts sells it sometimes or Phillips Fish Works has microfauna and scud starters
I'm keeping kiddie pools with tadpoles in them this summer. Today I noticed bloodworms and little bouncy flea like bugs in one of the pools. Hope the tadpoles like to eat them.
This is actually one of my favourite of videos of yours lol , I’m going to leave a tub out from now on 👏🏽👏🏽 I might look a bit weird early in the morning hovering over stagnant bucket but the crazy things we will do for our pets and fish 🤭🤭
Haha right on. Thank you kindly
Just went out yesterday and harvested some mosquito larvae from our stock tanks. Fish went wild for them :)
Right on! They love them so much. I also think it helps with mating
Hey Alex, forgive my need to correct you on a few things. All the critters you were calling daphnia, are just female cyclops, or copepods. The 2 sacs of eggs give them away. Daphnia aka water fleas bounce, they look like fleas, if you've ever had to deal with an infestation. Copepods are great fry food because of how small they are
Ah so that’s what I found when cleaning my filter! They where jumping everywhere!
Is that a good sign or a bad sign? And where did they come from 😅 thanks
@@AdriCr4ft not sure where yours came from, but these are daphnia:
ua-cam.com/video/DBepzM_oDfA/v-deo.html
You are totally correct... I for some reason had it in my head that they were different...but now I Remember daphnia are the ones that spin (also in the tub) and have eggs inside! ..doh! Thank you... I'll pin that right away. Face palm. I appreciate you setting things straight!
My pleasure Alex. Love your videos, I always learn a tonne.
@@Fishtory also, have you ever tried to culture detritus worms? I have been keeping some Scarlet Badis' and they just go for them with gusto.
@ Fishtory. You’ve inspired me in many ways. I have a stream in the backyard woods on my property. I’ve set up a tub with natural substrate and organic life forms in my backyard near the home. As well as a 10 gallons tank inside from the same stream/ creek. Found Planeria-type worms in it last night (no fish, plants, or macro life forms inside yet). You rock, Brother! 👍🏾💙
That is awesome, sounds like itll be a learning process and full of interesting developments. Cheers
@@Fishtory Indeed and thanks for replying. Just got my first sponge filter for the wild/ savage 10 gallon creek tank as well. Excited to see what happens. I’m used to costly moving parts.
I really enjoyed your video. very informative. thank you for sharing
Glad it was helpful!
Watching the video reminded me of when I was young. My grandmother had an old fish-less gold fish pond. Everyday I collected all kinds of live foods and the fish loved it. Thanks for sharing Alex!
Right on. Very nice memory to have also. Thanks for tuning in
I'm so intrigued yet horrified at the possibility of escaped creatures
Love your chanel always so informative. Can i ask when your feeding worms to your betta,s what are the greedy ones with the blue lips they are wonderful.
So i feed black or blood worms 2 or 3 nights a week if im home for a while.... and more like 1 or 2x a week id not. They seem to like bug bites and algae flakes also... and mosquito larvae or daphnia ill feed them every day if they're in my ponds out back
@Fishtory Thanks. Can I ask what specifies the greyish blue fish with the blue lips? Are they a type of Steatocranus ?
My skin is crawling looking at those mosquito larvae. My area is continually mobbed by mosquitos, and standing bodies of water aren't allowed.
I love watching your fish eat! Great
Thanks...me too haha. Have a great weekend
“Texas has 58” I definitely felt that.
Glad he left florida out of that one ;-)
Lol yeahhhh the time I've spent in Beaumont confirmed there are about 50 too many species lol
Another great video! you did it again...
hug from portugal!!
Thank you so very much! Hugs from America right back at you, my friend
You know what live food guppies really go wild for.?! Spiders. They go crazy on a new level; and will choose that over any other food in the tank. Ants get them pretty crunk too.
Ants are the s#&$
Mine only eat tiny ones and only certain species , like no wolf spiders or mouse spiders for my fish... they just leave them ...annoyingly
I really hope my neighbors like the smell of my roses n flowers enough to forgive my worm & mosquito bucket. They probably don't, but I would
Hahaha well maybe not down near the tropics they won't. But uhhh...
dile a los vecinos que Alex te dijo que estaba permitido
Dude this was awesome! I have a 10L white experimental bucket outside & have had it for about 3 years now, use rain water & water from my tanks to keep it topped up & it's growing all sorts of critters, originally it came from a collecting trip of some native plants in a local most normally dry river bed, even has natural snails in it from when it was flowing one year. Cheers!
Oh cool! I'm really curious what yall have down under compared to me in the northern USA!
I just collected a liter of pond water that was loaded with thousands of water fleas and three tadpoles. I live in baltimore MD. It was a good time and I’ll be making a bucket of my own soon enough
reminds me of the Pink Floyd song "The Wall" ......Waiting For The Worms To Come ...LOL
Lol when the tigers broke free! In black 44
Isn't it how chikungunya started? 😉
😅
It's 42 degrees... did I mention it's 42 degrees lol
I’m learning so much from your channel mr Williamson! The corydora video blew my mind!
Oh I'm so happy to hear that! I mixed up the tiny tiny water bugs when I spoke in this video....they're all cyclopse...the daphnia swim in circles.
It's very cool. I'm also starting a vermicompost bin so that I can feed earthworms
Very nice! I need to build one also!
I never imagined that there'd be a good reason to leave standing water out 😂
Your knowledge is impressive..
Thank you
I’m so glad u came up in my algorithm again I couldn’t remember your channel name and I learn SO much from your videos thanks I snapshot it this time lol
Well im glad I did as well! Welcome to the channel and I hope you have an awesome week. Cheers
Super Cool 😎
Thank you much for this information on free fish food 👍
Sure thing! (Saves me lots of money haha) and they like it more usually
Very cool thanks for sharing ✌️👍💗💯
Thanks for watching
Here I thought if it looked like mosquito, walked like a mosquito and bites like a mosquito....
IT'S A MOSQUITO 🦟😂
I HAD NO IDEA THERE WERE SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS AND THEN OF COURSE YOU HAVE THOSE LITTLE THINGS THAT BITE YOU IN THE SUMMERTIME THAT I CALL "SEE ME NOTS" OR "NO SEEUMS"that love to chew your rear end up especially late in the afternoons on a hot balmy day! I actually thought they were just baby mosquitoes!! 😂
I really enjoyed the video because I love live foods for my bettas! The neighbors weren't too happy that I was cultivating mosquitoes in tubs but hey, that's just the way it has to be 😂😂
Thanks for the video and all the "skeeter" education Alex😂
I hope you and everyone else is having a great day!
Hahaha I love you. I'm sure they're thinking "what in the Hell is going on in that mobile home?!" 7 cats run out, you're talking loudly to yourself about fish randomly (Iivestreams). Lol be careful you could look more suspicious now than ever before hahah
@@Fishtory oh my gosh you about made me pee my pants LOL that was so funny 😂😂 I can picture it now 😂😂
Love you back my friend 🙏🌿🐟🌿💚🎊
LOL I remember when I brought in so many mosquitoes larvae one morning to feed and by the end of the day when I can back to feed.l they were all flying around .
Lol been there
That’s so scary 😭
Lol
I believe I had an encounter with those "vampire mosquitoes" while traveling through Mississippi. You can hear them from a few feet away as they dive bombed you!
Yeahhhh... no thank you
Thanks for another informative video 🤗🇨🇦
Thank YOU for watching and commenting so much :)
So cool! My husband might have a coronary, but it would be fun to try.
Lol my wife got bit by a mosquito in the house last night.... I'm never gonna hear the end of it
@@Fishtory LOL! Every insect that ends up in our house, is blamed on me! I feed bugs to my tarantulas and lizard, but not wild ones! That seems not to be part of his thought processes when accusing me of loosing another cricket or roach! And, of course, I’m the official catch and release person.😄 He’s the official stomp on it until it’s dead, person.😂
Thanks Alex! Really appreciate you sharing this info.
100% I'm glad it was useful to you! Have a great weekend. :)
Found this video very very interesting. Thank you Alex👍
Glad to hear it
Free food!
Om nom nom
This is so great. I can't wait to put some tubs out! It was 27 this morning so I will wait until it gets above 32. Thank you for introducing growing insects to us!
Certainly!
This video came out at a perfect time. I have been considering giving my betta a variety of live foods but I am limited when it comes to indoor space. My betta loves frozen (and thawed) bloodworms. I hope to get a some tubs going for som live mosquito larvae as well! Thanks for this video. It is really encouraging to see so much life and activity in your tubs despite the lower temperatures 🌡
No problem. Thanks for dropping a line!
I was excited at first because this was exactly what I was looking for. Im in another country now and cultures aren't available here. I have been doing the mosquito larvae and just earlier today saw bloodworms in my bucket and a really cool looking species of scuds...took me awhile to figure it out because they look different from most images of scuds online. These look a lot more like baby shrimp.
I was hoping you would say more on how you culture the other live foods without needing a culture though. I don't know how I got the scuds because I didn't put much stuff in my buckets besides a few pieces of lava rock about the size of gravel. Only one of my buckets got the scuds though.
Try muddy leaves from near a lake or area that floods....usually tons of micro crustaceans and critters live in the margin of lakes and swamps
@@Fishtory Thanks for the tip!
So if there was a bubbler in the tub, would it prevent mosquitoes larva but keep the daphnia and other smalls worms. Basically foods for pea puffers and or baby fish
Here in puerto rico the mosquitos can metamorphose in as little as 3 days in my experience 😩
Yeaaaah you have food all year... but also mosquitos most of it too lol
What were those grey fish with fat ol’ lips you were feeding right at the end?
They're blue lipped Buffalo head cichlids from lake Victoria's water shed
are you going live tonight?
I love free but I hate mosquito bites. Hahah. I just want the blood worm free not mosquito larva. Wondering how to isolate it and breed. Hmmm
Hmmm perhaps a certain size netting? but depending on where you live there are like 50 insects that have bloodworm style larvae...so perhaps you could catch and hatch the worms and then put them in a bucket with seran wrap
Just some random thoughts as I think about doing this...Could you collect these and place them in a jar in your fridge to slow the growth for a longer shelf life, instead of collecting every day? If you had 2 buckets, would it deplete the supply to pour through a mesh screen and filter them all out? Then you could either freeze or store them in fridge?
I live in Georgia, and the last thing I want is to propagate the mosquito population, so it would be great to strain/filter the bucket every X amount of days to make sure and not allow any mosquitos to complete it's life cycle. Thanks for the upload if you read this, much appreciated as I do ponds and more things outside this year to support/expand my fish.
Yes you can totally do that... and I do often refrigerate them. However freezing them without vacuum sealing seems to cause ice crystals that turn the insects to mush ...so just be careful with that...fish get picky about eating mush lol
@@Fishtory Cool, good to know about freezing! Thanks!
Alex, have you ever collected wild daphnia ? or would you recommend ?
I have...Annnd I misidentified the darn things... all of the ones in this video were cyclops. Daphnia are little whirly spinning guys...also in those tubs and standing waterm...but there are many varieties around the world. Most of the little copepods and there are over 400 daphnians alone- are fish safe...or they spit out any that are not good.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Alex, have you cultivated blackworms? I'm semi successful in my basement at 23 deg C and 20 cm water depth. Small internal sponge and a layer of gravel. Feeding green pleco wafers. Corys love those worms. I'm very allergic to bloodworms so can't use them.
I've been trying to keep black worms for so long
I'm not successful with black worms other than just living in my substrate/tanks. I've kept colonies for 4 or 5 months and they always mold or rot frustratingly. I'd love to see your method
9 bettas?!?!! How big is that tank!!? 😩😩😩
40 gallon breeder full or plants. They aren't that mean if they're raised in groups as siblings
I live in Texas and some cities around here have ordinances against having standing water because of the mosquitoes so I was wondering if you have any tips for culturing any of these inside
Don't, you'll wake up with West Nile one day when it comes to mosquito larvae. You should be able to collect and harvest everything he's taking about on a daily basis, provided the water container is in an open area; although blood worms take about a couple weeks to mature. Where I live if I fill a bucket with water one day, I can come back the next and find plenty of larvae. Keep in mind that the ones you see on camera are the extremely old ones, there are thousands in there that are not visible to the naked eye. That's actually my litmus test for when I age tap water outside, because they can't survive in fresh tap water, but once you see mosquito larvae, it's conditioned enough to add to a tank; about 3 days for my tap water.
Keep in mind that just like humans, the majority of fish are going to prefer regular processed fish food. Think of it like kids choosing between McDonald's and a salad. So definitely reduce the amount of regular food you are feeding. They eat it around this time of year because it's a novelty., But by July they get sick if it and will want you to feed them regular processed fish food.
@@johnmorgan8127 the reason I asked about culturing inside is because I can be fined up to $2000 for having a bucket of standing water on my property. We have a lot of mosquitoes here and the cities take a lot of precautions to prevent the spread of west Nile virus
@@damianthompson8941 I understand the reasoning behind it, but when a larvae metamorphosizes into whatever it is, it's exoskeleton is extremely soft so it can crawl through whatever barrier you have containing it and it will get into your house and cause whatever you are trying to prevent. Blood worms also take a couple of weeks to harvest because they have a slightly slower growth cycle
@@damianthompson8941 there is also the problem of continuous hatching. Just because you have two mosquito larvae that were hatched at the same time, doesn't mean they will have the same life cycle, larvae 2 may develop at a much faster rate than larvae 1. The size of the larvae that you saw on camera, they were literally about to metamorphosize within a day or so, if not a few hours. When they have a head like in you see at 15:23 , it signifies that they are close to being fully developed
Do you add the outside water to your thank or do you have dump the water into a brine shrimp net ten suck up tank safe water? I'm worried about introducing harmful organisms to my tanks.
I add some outside water...but there is a chance of worms or other bad critters in the water... it's just that fish are from nature...and even though the environment is different where they're from...they can fend off most wild organisms way more easily than the stuff that is in aquarium stores and wholesalers/farms, where the pathogens have had an arms race to outdo any cures we come up with
I am almost scared to be around bloodworms because I keep reading about how many people are allergic to them and I know I am literally allergic to everything 🤦🏻♂️
I am allergic to the frozen ones...not the ones in my yard oddly...but that's a super good point
@@Fishtory Crazy interesting that the frozen ones caused it and the fresh ones didn’t……
@@Fishtory that IS odd. I would like to know WHY
Cant you introduce pathegons and parasites that are unwanted to your fish doing this ?
Yes, any outside plant, water or fish can be a vector for illness. That being said...with the exception of fish leaches I've never gotten any issue in 8 years of doing this. Nor have other local members of my fish club...but I could see the tropics and stagnant water being more dangerous
Hey you know what. I just found out that bloodworms can provoke a strong allergic reaction on humans and also can kill some fish.
And you know what. Not one video I've watched so far of the many youtube's fish channels ever told me anything about that.
And you know what. Now that I know this, it TOTALLY makes sense over some fish that I lost lately. I tought there was a big problem with the water or a disease but then I've stopped feeding worms and everything immediately got OK.
Did I kill my fish with love 🧐 ?
They say some species (like ramirezi) are more fragile toward bloodworms and won't tolerate them.
They say bloodworms should be fed only 1 time a week or even altogether banned from any fish diet.
What do you think ?
Sometimes it's from fatty liver disease or blockage in the gut from only eating so much protein. However I'll have to research the allergy part too. Thanks
@@Fishtory some people had strong allergic reactions, asthma and/or rash in contact with the fine powder from freeze dried blood worms.
I don't have any stats in hands (it did not happen to me) but the internet seems to recognise this as a real problem.
Something to do with hypersensitivity to chironomids that affects a lot of fish keepers...
I've been strongly warned to not to feed them more than once a week to fish and to ban them altogether if possible.
@The secret history living in your aquarium do you keep blackworms?
Not at the moment. I wish I were though
So what exactly do bloodworms turn into ??
Little bugs that fly around. About 50 different species all look similar at larvae . ... midge flies
Are all of those bettas female
No, there's 3 or 4 males...but they're siblings...so there is few less nesting/fighting amongst the floating plants and sight breaks :)
which worm is the most nutritious for fish? anyone know?
Fresh blood worms are good, but need some vegetative supplements for calcium and vitamin E I've read. Where as daphnia and cyclops are nearly perfect for most nano omnivorous or carnivorous fish species... if you had enough of them
@@Fishtory
I want to get some live black worms I think and spead them out as starters in some of my smaller tanks.
I just said outloud... I wonder if you could culture these things in a smallish tub on the porch or in an enclosed back porch? And my son gave me THE LOOK...the are you really that freakin' crazy look.
😄😁😆😅🤣😂
We have an agreement that he can deal with all the tanks and tubs and questionable unmarked sort of foodish looking things in the freezer, but I did make an agreement with him that I would not turn the whole house into a science project or experiment.
No jars of creepy looking liquids everywhere with creepy things floating or living in them. And NEVER EVER NEVER any spider breeding projects ☺
I do understand, cuz he gets plagued with insect bites all summer, spring, and fall. He must have some really good blood cuz if there is ONE flea in the entire house it will find him and bite him.
He's been around my fish tanks his entire life and never really shown any interest in them, but he's been listening to you, corvus, cory, mark shelly and others in the background when I'm playing a chanel and 2 weeks ago when he took me to pick up a 20 L on sale, he was all over the fish department.
On the way home he asked if he could have a fish tank of his own in his room, and that he might ask for advice but otherwise he wanted to do everything himself, water changes, algae picking off, feeding, picking his own substrate, etc.
Basically, in a nice way saying, I know you can do it better and know more Mom, but HANDS OFF, I want to learn about and watch my own tank and fish by myself.
Told him of course he can have his own tank in his room and that I won't even look at it unless he calls me in to see something.
Took 35 years and hearing fish fam people talking in the background, but now he's interested and wants his own tank and fish. I think that's pretty dang cool.💖
👍❤👍
Hahaha that's great! I'm so excited for you guys. That'll be super cool to watch (secretly) "bug off mom!" . Also...fair enough rules in the house...I have those also (but nothing is allowed in the fridge, so I'll actually hide it in my injection medication box if it's blackworms or something lol