Starting Blood Worm Colony

[bigbird]

Hi All,

Aprt from the issue of feeding bloodworm etc to Apistos, I wish to try and breed some anyway for my normal 5ft tank. My question is, can I buy a normal bag or blood worms and use this to start a new colony ? ideas and thoughts please ? I have enough mosquito larvae and bbs. cheers jk

 

[Rod]

No....:biggrin:

Like mossie larva.......Bloodworms are the larva of a flying insect......stick a bucket of water outside and you will get them from time to time

 

[bigbird]

ok thanks Rod, I have 5 buckets outside and find my supply of larvae great.
How does one then start a blood worm culture or colony ?

cheers jk

 

[jose_vogel]

This is a very old post (dated 1998):

http://fins.actwin.com/live-foods/month.9805/msg00018.html

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I do the same as Bigbird, and my "mosquito buckets" still produce bloodworms in the winter in the UK (although I'm not sure whether this is slow growing larvae over-wintering or that the chironomid midges are still active in milder spells). I have 3 or 4 buckets, filled with rain water and a good handfull of leaves, and I just add a handful of grass clippings when the water clears. I usually run the buckets for about 12 months before I re-start them.

I also innoulate them with Daphnia, it probably reduces the mosquito population (the feed on similar small planktonic food items), but it adds a bit of live food variety.

Bloodworms and Daphnia and/or Ostracods is a wholly compatible mix (bloodworms eat the decaying leaf fragments and biofilm)

cheers Darrel