Blackworms/Tubifex worms... are they the same thing?...

Apart from dried Tubifex worms I have only once (accidently) stumbled upon live tubifex worms (1975) at a sewerage farm (where I trespassed beyond the fence).... but subsequently heard about blackworms, which I googled.... and IMO.... i think they are the same thing?....

Can anyone confirm that blackworms are in fact Tubifex worms..... and if so?..... can they be proppogated from a culture (if I can get hold of it)...... (Blackworm dealing is big business in aquatic circles abroad).....

 

@Reedfish ..... do you know if Blackworms are available in South Africa.... I've heard on another forum that they can be propagated from a culture?....

 

@Sean J use to import freeze dried blackworm from australia. They were pretty good stuff.

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There are different blackworms, but they are definitely not the same as tubifex.

There are the Australian blackworms which Ashley mentioned which are a seperate species.

Then there are the North American blackworms. In the north of the continent, it gets very cold in winter and everything freezes over and then all the goggas die off of course, but in the short spring and summer that they have, these blackworms appear by the millions, they mature to midges in autumn, or fall as they call it and these bugs apparently sting and bite the living hell out of you. Now I understand that the blackworms are the larvae and they are harvested and sold live in their LFS or frozen or freeze dried. They have a good nutritional value, but it must be remembered that with all of these types of mozzie larvae, a large part of the bug is carapace, or shell, and this is completely undigestable, BUT it is good roughage. However, anything would be better than the absolute rubbish bloodworm that some LFS sell in South Africa, which is so full of bacteria that I view them to be unsuitable for tropical fish keeping.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Have to Agree with the quality of blood worms in LFS but the LFS will continue to sell them so the fishes will die and
they will get more sales in new fish. win win? for the stall owner.

So next question is, is blackworms on the blacklist? Ashly said Sean J use to import it but those are frozen.
what about live ones ^^

 

No is basically the answer to all your questions.

Most of the LFS owners are once again completely uninformed about the bloodworms they sell, they think bloodworms are bloodworms as as long as they can buy them cheaply and sell them for double the price that is fine. Well, you should just boycott the cheap rubbish that is your choice. If you are from Pretoria, contact Marco about taking part in our imports of decent high quality German bloodworm.

Ashley stated that Sean J used to import freeze-dried blackworms, not frozen ones, so you misunderstood that.

However, you can forget about live ones, they are not permitted to be imported as live, and it is also not worth it, you would be shipping water around the globe and transport has just become too expensive.

I would actually advise you to read the sticky article that I have written about feeding discus and other fishes as well for you to get an idea about what you should really be feeding to feed a balanced ration and then look at what you need from there.

Kind regards,

Dirk