live blood worm

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Lots of different Chironomid midges "bloodworms" in Australia, not sure about the drier areas, but you should get mosquito larvae in your bucket, even if you don't get any bloodworms. I hope it cools down for you soon, we could do with it a warmer, but 40oC isn't funny for anybody.

I've found some Aquaculture papers on culturing bloodworm. One where they fed then larvae on Palm nut pressing, and another where they fed them tetramin flakes, on which they did very well, details below.

"Nutritional values of chironomid larvae grown in palm oil mill effluent (POME) and algal culture"
Habib M; Yusoff M; Phang S; Ang K & Mohamed S.
Aquaculture, Volume 158, Number 1, 1 December 1997 , pp. 95-105
"Experiments showed that POME induced high production of chironomid larvae, but also produced high quality live food for the aquaculture industry"

and

EGYPTIAN JOURNAL OF AQUATIC RESEARCH 1687-4285
VOL. 31 NO. 2, 2005: 403-418.
CULTURE OF CHIRONOMID LARVAE (INSECTA- DIPTERACHIRONOMIDAE)
UNDER DIFFERENT FEEDING SYSTEMS
HABASHY, M
"The present work revealed the good nutritional value and growth rate for chironomid larvae fed on tetramin"

cheers Darrel

 

[Rabbit]

Ok thanks for that, I would like to try it but I am not sure if we have midges here or not

:yes:Sure do mate.

 

[Brengun]

Yeah I thought too hot here too but I had a drum of dw soaking under the verandah and the worms turned up in there as well as a heap of mossie larvae and some sort of centepede looking things. My rainbowfish didn't differentiate, they just gobbled the lot up.

 

[Rabbit]

Yeah I thought too hot here too but I had a drum of dw soaking under the verandah and the worms turned up in there as well as a heap of mossie larvae and some sort of centepede looking things. My rainbowfish didn't differentiate, they just gobbled the lot up.

lol

 

[dw1305]

Food for free

Yeah I thought too hot here too but I had a drum of dw soaking under the verandah and the worms turned up in there as well as a heap of mossie larvae and some sort of centepede looking things. My rainbowfish didn't differentiate, they just gobbled the lot up.

Quality, that is what I do as well I don't care too much what they are, but just chuck em in, I've never had any problems with introducing anything nasty, although I did once find quite a big Dragonfly nymph in one of the tanks, which was a bit of a shock.

I had a quick dredge in my garden pond yesterday (it's been covered with ice for almost a month) and got a few Daphnia and lots of swimming mayfly nymphs (Baetis spp.), the fish loved them and the they swim incredibly quickly (just like the "man from Atlantis" for older readers), so quite a few make it into the weeds and give the fish some exercise later.

cheers Darrel

 

[Doodles]

I found a couple of those mayfly nymphs in one of my tanks a couple of years ago:yes:

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Doodles wrote

I found a couple of those mayfly nymphs in one of my tanks a couple of years ago

. I think they must be much more tolerant of low oxygen levels/pollution than most Mayflies (which are usually an indicator of high quality flowing water) as I've found them before in the "Daphnia bucket", and even in with the mosquito larvae.

The Mayfly itself must be really common although I don't ever remember seeing a Mayfly in the garden, although once or twice I've run a moth trap and there have been a few in there so maybe they are nocturnal?
cheers Darrel

 

[Lornek8]

Maybe Callibaetis rather than Baetis.
Callibaetis are common stillwater mayflies. Also called speckled wing duns due to the speckled wings of the adults. You probably don't see many mayflies as the adult stage of the lifecycle is extremely short, often only a day or so. Adults spend a large portion of their short lives in vegetation and are usually most active at dawn & dusk. You may see the spent spinners on the pond surface unless you have fish in the pond.
This is going back to my flyfishing days, which has been awhile now, so some of the info might not be 100% accurate.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Lornek, thanks that's very useful. I think the Baetid Mayflies must all be very similar. I brought some into work today from the pond, to be I.Ded, and they are apparently "Cloeon dipterum".
cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I'll resurrect this old thread as we have new members and my bloodworm buckets are in full production of bloodworms, mosquito larvae and Daphnia at the moment. I've been away for a few weeks and they have really prospered why they haven't been harvested.

If any-one did leave a bucket out, it would be well worth a dredge now (technique for netting and cleaning your catch earlier is in the thread).

cheers Darrel