Fry and Microworms   6/7/09
Hello!
I read through a lot of different pages and through your site about microworms. I noticed that some of them can be detrimental to fish health while others are good as food.
<Microworms, the species Panagrellus redivivus, are nematodes and a completely safe fish food. Are you confusing Panagrellus redivivus with other types of nematodes? While most nematodes are harmless, it's true that some are parasitic and can cause disease. But the phylum Nematoda is a big group, comparable in diversity to the phylum Chordata, into which we belong, along with snakes, fish and sea squirts!>
I recently started raising Betta fry and I use microworms to feed them. I am just curious, If a microworm is longer than my fry, will it be bad for them?
<It won't harm them, but when it dies, it'll pollute the tank, lowering water quality, so indirectly that's a bad thing. So yes, you need to sort your microworms before use, putting only sufficient in for feeding your
fish.>
I also found microworms in a tank where I did not intend for them to be in.
Are they the food type ones or the bad ones?
<Can't possibly tell for sure, but almost certainly they're harmless free-living nematodes likely present in most aquaria.>
If they are bad for the fry should I move my fry to another tank then?
Thanks
<Cheers, Neale.>

Emergency! - dead worms and cloudy water (understanding BOD!), & FW puffer fdg.   02/06/09
After years of healthy fish and clean water, suddenly yesterday my tank was cloudy like I've never seen it before. I thought it was a temporary die-off of bacteria -about 3 days earlier, I had removed one of those Purigen filter bags to bleach and soak it (did not put it back in yet), but there were still regular filter pads in there. Two days earlier, I had
also put in some blackworms for my puffer to eat as usual - they had all situated themselves nicely in the substrate like they always do, didn't seem to be any problems. Well yesterday the worms had scattered all over the tank as if in distress. Today they were almost all dead and disintegrated and the water was really foul. All the fish were at the top
looking for air. Was this due to (a) lack of oxygen due to cycle being all messed up from filter bag removal or (b) maybe the worms were diseased and when they died they set off an ammonia spike? I have changed half the water, am probably going to change another half tomorrow and start to get rid of the worm remains. Fish all seem to be still alive somehow. Thanks for your prompt response! Bob
<Hello Bob. It is NEVER a good idea to add live food (or any other kind of food, other than plant material) to a tank that is not consumed within 5 minutes. Not ever. The reasons why your live food in this case died and caused problems is difficult to say, but the point is that the situation should never have arisen in the first place. Yes, when live food dies it causes the oxygen content of the water to drop. There's something called the Biological Oxygen Demand (or BOD) that encompasses not just the oxygen used by animals and plants, but also things like bacteria and fungi. Decay is a major element of this, and the more decay there is, the higher the BOD. If BOD exceeds the amount of oxygen in the water, you get an oxygen crisis, and things can die unless they can supplement their oxygen by breathing air. Lungfish and Gouramis for example are masters of this latter art, but Puffers can't do it, and obviously any bacteria stuck inside a (closed) filter can't do it either. If filter bacteria die, ammonia and nitrite processing decreases, and water quality drops. So, the "fix" here is to do a big water change to flush out any ammonia and nitrite, clean the substrate to remove as much decaying organic matter as possible, and then make jolly sure you don't add too much live food ever again! If you have excess live food, store it in a container of water in a cool place. Add a bit at a time, just enough for your fish to be nicely fed but not gorged so much it swells up. Puffers should look lean, with a gently rounded belly, and should NOT look like they swallowed a bowling ball. As for the filters, all else being equal they should bounce back within a day or two. Rinse any media gently in a bucket of aquarium water, and then put the filter back together. No long-term harm should happen. Cheers, Neale.>

Re: emergency! - dead worms and cloudy water (understanding BOD!), & FW puffer fdg.   02/06/09
thanks!
<Happy to help.>
I feel horrible.
<Oh?>
To explain, I have never had luck keeping my worms in the fridge.
<Don't bother.>
Despite changing the bit of water they soaked in daily the worms always died and messed up my whole fridge.
<Indeed.>
Therefore I have always "hidden" live food under a rock covered in java fern in the corner of the tank where even the puffer could only access a few worms at a time, and this has worked for years.
<Ah...>
However this time the new store I went to gave me too many worms (twice the normal amount), and I think maybe this caused the BOD problem you refer to.
Maybe I'll try again with the cool storage especially after this problem.
I hope everything stabilizes soon. Thank you.
<Why not buy frozen? (As opposed to freeze dried.) Safer, cleaner, cheaper.
Puffers take to frozen food without complaint. You can also offer a variety of things: bloodworms, blackworms, glassworms, etc. More variety = better health. You don't need live foods. Cheers, Neale.>

Re: emergency! - dead worms and cloudy water (understanding BOD!), & FW puffer fdg.   02/06/09
This has been an ongoing war for years with my puffer. He simply does not do frozen. I have starved him for months feeding only frozen and he hates it. He spits it out and then finally loses interest altogether. My LFS guy said, he'll eat it if he's hungry enough but I have never seen any evidence of this even when he's emaciated. This is a very entitled and privileged animal.
<Made a rod for your own back here. Do try bloodworms. My puffers (including Dwarves, Red-tails and South Americans) love them. Offer alongside the live food, mixed in. While feeding on the one, they'll likely take the other. Switch brands. Some seem more palatable than others. My puffers are less keen on glassworms and mosquito larvae than bloodworms. Also try hand-feeding, using forceps. Wriggle the food about enticingly.
Generally, puffers *will* eat if they're hungry enough. Never seen one refuse! What kind of puffer is it? Cheers, Neale.>

Re: emergency! - dead worms and cloudy water (understanding BOD!), & FW puffer fdg. - Part 3  02/06/09
It's a dwarf. Forceps, are you serious?! Wow, high maintenance, this one.
<Yep. Deadly serious. I feed many of my fish this way. Besides helping to "tame" them (i.e., to settle into captive life and view humans as friends, not giant predators) it's also a way to make frozen/dead food more "interesting", so they take it readily.>
If I'm not mistaken I tried frozen bloodworms - in those compartmentalized plastic chambers?
<Yes.>
Is there a brand you recommend?
<Any should be fine to start with, but look for "mini bloodworms" given the species you have; the big bloodworms might be too tough. Don't thaw them in warm water: let them defrost slowly. I find thawing them quickly sometimes
does something to the flavour, and the fish are less keen. But do, please, try mixing bloodworms with the live mosquito larvae. Once they're in a feeding frame of mind, they may well peck at anything.>
Also I tried frozen shrimp. He also got a few snails here and there, till they became hard to find.
<Indeed.>
Thanks so much for all advice, the fish are already swimming around better after I changed most of the water.
<Cool. Good luck, Neale.>