Are Frozen Bloodworm Cubes Bad?

[Cockatoofreak]

Some say yes, but Google "Frozen Blood worms origin". Apparently, the San Francisco Bay ones are grown in sterilized facilities and sold to the aquarium trade as safe fish food.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Apparently, the San Francisco Bay ones are grown in sterilized facilities and sold to the aquarium trade as safe fish food.

They may be all right, but I'll be honest I'm still a little <"dubious">.

<"https://sfbb.com/fish-food/bloodworms-single/">.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Mike Wise]

I don't see where SF claims that they are "grown in sterilized facilities", only that they sterilize them later prior to packaging. SF is a fairly respected brand so I wouldn't be overly concerned. Just use bloodworms sparingly, not as a regular part of their diet.

 

[Cockatoofreak]

You are correct, sir. It was Google that said that!

 

[Mike Wise]

Never, ever, believe Google without verifying!

 

[Mike Wise]

Never, ever, believe Google without verifying! And don't call me sir; I work for a living (an old military saying by enlisted soldiers to mock officers).

 

[MacZ]

There is an international phenomenon of people losing fish after feeding red mosquito larvae. It was reported basically from every continent. To my knowledge mainly geophagine dwarf cichlids are affected, but lately I heard reports expanding to other softwater species, characins, bettas and others. For a while people speculated over reasons, like hooks and spikes o the larvae or breeding them in contaminated conditions akkumulating things like heavy metals.
But at the moment we have two remaining candidates for the causes. The one is an intolerance to something in the larvae, similar to an allergy. This one might be ruled out if other species start to be affected, too. The other is the frozen larvae going bad due to bad handling, especially not keeping the cooling chain, defrosting at one point and being refrozen at another. This makes sense, as I have often seen people treating animal food not the least as careful as human food.

 

[Cockatoofreak]

Well, OK then! I won't call you "surely" either...

 

[Cockatoofreak]

I don't see where SF claims that they are "grown in sterilized facilities", only that they sterilize them later prior to packaging. SF is a fairly respected brand so I wouldn't be overly concerned. Just use bloodworms sparingly, not as a regular part of their diet.

Frozen Bloodworms Fish Food

Share This Page: Fish Food - Frozen Single Ingredient Bloodworms Scientific name: Chironomus plumosus A Favorite For Freshwater Fish Your discus, eels, bett ...

sfbb.com

 

[Cockatoofreak]

Frozen Bloodworms Fish Food

Share This Page: Fish Food - Frozen Single Ingredient Bloodworms Scientific name: Chironomus plumosus A Favorite For Freshwater Fish Your discus, eels, bett ...

sfbb.com

Contains​

Purged and disinfected bloodworms. Our techniques that we developed in-house for purging and disinifection of bloodworms prior to packaging ensures a premium quality product.

 

[Ben Rhau]

It has been discussed many times in this forum, if you search for "bloodworms"

 

[anewbie]

The problem is that when a fish bloat up and die most people don't really know the exact reason they just make a guess as to cause; often an uneducated guess.

What I will say is that many things can cause a fish to bloat; from temperature flux (most often during water changes) to bad diet to some evil mystic casting a spell. I will say that in my early days i had a few fish bloat whether it was due to bad diet or temperature flux i can't say - but conversely i haven't had a fish bloat the past whatever - i think 5 years. I mostly feed my fishes a mixture of fluval bug bite ground up with algae max (nls or fluval) and they seem to live a nice long time the only thing is i'm missing reds that make a lot of fishes brilliant in tom's picture. This seems to be cosmetic but is still a bit disappointed if you want some eye candy. I'm thinking it is not so much broad diet as something specific in the diet - maybe carotine?
--
Anyway I can't tell you if bloodworms or temperature flux or water that was too hard cause bloat but whatever it was not feeding blood worms; keeping everything in very soft acidic water and a consistent diet seems to have solved that issue. I expect most of my wc dwarf cichild to live 4 to 6 years (with the presumption of nearly a year old at purchase) but perhaps longevity is a poor judge of health.

I do now and then but not on a regular basis feed them frozen myst/brine shrimp and sometime spoil my favorites with live bbs.

Anyway i need to find that red magic marker and add a bit of red to my norberts.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

........ The other is the frozen larvae going bad due to bad handling, especially not keeping the cooling chain, defrosting at one point and being refrozen at another. This makes sense, as I have often seen people treating animal food not the least as careful as human food.......

That would be my guess.

I see it as a bit like chicken farming, there is a world of difference between intensive farming and a "free range" chicken, and I think the same applies to blood worms (Chironomid larvae).

Cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

... I'm thinking it is not so much broad diet as something specific in the diet - maybe carotine?
......
Anyway i need to find that red magic marker and add a bit of red to my norberts.

You are right, it is carotenoid pigments that enhance red colouring. They are what gives salmon and flamingo their pink colours.

They are originally algal, and they commercially farm the Green Algae (Haematococcus fluviatilis) as a source of <"astaxanthin">.

Fish normally get them "second hand" via crustaceans, like copepods.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Cockatoofreak]

Hi all,

You are right, it is carotenoid pigments that enhance red colouring. They are what gives salmon and flamingo their pink colours.

They are originally algal, and they commercially farm the Green Algae (Haematococcus fluviatilis) as a source of <"astaxanthin">.

Fish normally get them "second hand" via crustaceans, like copepods.

Cheers Darrel

You are correct about astaxanthin. The most profound change I saw was with one of my discus left in a tank with red cherry shrimp. After a month or so, I noticed his skin had a red hue and his colors were enhanced. Then I noticed him tracking down and eating the shrimp fry. I did a bit of research and bingo, it was astaxanthin in the shrimp.

I have since purchased this as a dust additive for soaking freeze-dried fish food as well as New Life Spectrum "GROW" which has it. It does work!

Whether it is inside frozen blood worms, I don't know. I would suspect that since the percentage of blood worms to water is minimal it would not have that much.

 

[Ben Rhau]

@anewbie Have you tried the “color enhancing” bug bites? They claim that it contains astaxanthin, but I’m not sure how well that works in practice.

 

[anewbie]

Hi all,

You are right, it is carotenoid pigments that enhance red colouring. They are what gives salmon and flamingo their pink colours.

They are originally algal, and they commercially farm the Green Algae (Haematococcus fluviatilis) as a source of <"astaxanthin">.

Fish normally get them "second hand" via crustaceans, like copepods.

Cheers Darrel

Nature is great; it makes our colour blind fishes red but when we who have color vision the red runs far away.

 

[anewbie]

@anewbie Have you tried the “color enhancing” bug bites? They claim that it contains astaxanthin, but I’m not sure how well that works in practice.

I just ordered some of their colour enhancing flakes which i presume are the same thing (it contains carrot extracts); to test. I might get some of the bug bites - and grind it down if the flakes don't work. There is a funny side story but i have a 600 gallon aquarium with some festivum (sp), chocoalte cichild and a bunch of loaches. Anyway i feed them some nice large bug bites and some large algaemax and some smaller bug bite but 2 or 3 of the fishes will sit there not eating until i put in flakes which they were promptly grab from my hands before they touch the water. Mostly the female festivum (which are around 5 inches).... something about flakes that drive them crazy - maybe because they are flakes.

 

[Mike Wise]

Well, OK then! I won't call you "surely" either...

(movie Airplane for those who don't know)

 

[MacZ]

(movie Airplane for those who don't know)

Thanks, I only know the german dub.