How to make Earthworms nutritional?

[imagirlgeek]

Should I even be concerned about adding nutrients to earthworms before feeding them to the fish?  For all I know, they are chock full of vitamins!  

We've been giving these to some of the fish, and they all pretty much like them, but one of our puffers just goes nuts over them!  Like, he's tap-dancing around the tank, doing cartwheels, chanting my name when I walk by...it's creepy, but cute.  So I want to keep giving them to him, but am I just feeding him a puffer equivalent of fast food??

[Nickintex]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

I told you puffers LOVE nightcrawlers!

[imagirlgeek]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

I told you puffers LOVE nightcrawlers!

I know!!    You totally know how to make the fish happy.  

....and please note that I listened and acted on your advice...

[jeebus]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

Aren't bugs & worms high in protein?

[eklikewhoa]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

You could feed them some of the amino acid and supplements to give them some more edge.

[PhishPhreek]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

Try mixing a little of this in your worm dirt.  
"It wouldn't hurt"    

[imagirlgeek]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

I never would have thought about baby food!  

[Nickintex]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

You could feed them some of the amino acid and supplements to give them some more edge.

Nightcrawlers on steroids?  8O

[imagirlgeek]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

You could feed them some of the amino acid and supplements to give them some more edge.

How?  By adding it to the worm dirt?

[eklikewhoa]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

or soak whatever food you put in there for them.

[fishlady]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

how cool.....
do you have to like strip the worms or something....i read somewhere that you have to get all the gunk out of the worm before feeding them to your fish....
how do you keep your worms ?
do you prepare them somehow?

[wesleydnunder]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

FL, I don't prepare them for the fish other than to rinse the dirt off of them. Sorgham meal is a good food for your earthworm culture too, Traci. For night crawlers, most species need to be kept cool, if not actually refrigerated. Angle worms can be kept in a coolish place, like an open shed or garage that doesn't get too hot in the summer. Gut-loading the worms isn't necessary, but like EK stated, can add benefit.

Mark

[fishlady]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

wow......okay.....thanks Mark.....
maybe i need to get some worms then.....my puffers would love them.....
so can you buy them anywhere and then transfer them into another dirt or do you just add something to the dirt their already in?

[eklikewhoa]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

You can try using meal worms.... I kept some arowanas nice and healthy with it.

[JStrider]

Re: How to make Earthworms nutritional?

I kept a mealworm colony for my leopard geckos for quite a while...

I kept them in turkey breeder crumble... high in calcium and other nutrients for laying hens... mealworms ate it... made the mealworms nutritious for the geckos.

keeping the mealworms was really easy.

just put a few inches of the crumble in a tupperware, lay a damp(not dripping) paper towel over 2/3 of the surface area for them to drink from, every few days moisten the paper towel a little.  also when moistening the papertowel its a good idea to pick out any dead ones you see.

somewhere I have a link saved to a really good instruction set for keeping mealies.