The Puffer Forum

A couple of questions about live blackworms

1) If many of the blackworms have turned white - can I still use the worms that are still alive or should I throw away the whole batch?

2) What is the best way to store live blackworms?

3) What is the best way to convert a dwarf puffer to frozen bloodworm if the ONLY foods it will accept are live blackworm and live daphnia (I need to travel quite a ways to pick up the blackworms and daphnia - so it is becoming difficult to keep these stocked).

4) How long can you keep a batch of live blackworms in the fridge?

Thanks in advance!

If you can't remove most of the dead worms, then I'd toss all of them out. I always rinse them at least every day to every other day, in a brine shrimp net under cold water & then keep in a Cool Whip (or similar) bowl with minimal water & holes cut in top, in the fridge. I buy a pound every 2 weeks & they stay well this way until I run out.

I'm afraid once my DPs had a taste for live worms, they refused anything else.

My dps have also refused to accept anything but live blackworms now. I've had a batch last more than three weeks in the fridge. I try to rinse at least every other but it someone time goes 3 days this is typically the only time I see die off. Although when I rinse I re-dose with vita Chem and sprinkle a small amount of crushed up freeze dried krill into the container. When selecting a container for storage you want to keep the worms in very shallow water( less than a 1/2" above them). Unclear on how thick of a layer of worms you can have and successfully keep them alive but I normally shoot for less than a 1/2 layer of worms. I keep mine uncovered as they are kept in a beer fridge in the basement which only I normally access but they need to have oxygen so can be kept with an aerated lid as PP suggested.

P.s. I also use wayyy less amounts than PP (super jealous of her aquatic friends). To answer your initially question I would assume approach it how most switch mandarin gobies over to prepared foods. Start feeding live food mixed with prepared(frozen) and slowly start to ween the amount of live foods mixed until you are feeding just prepared foods. Just make sure to defrost, rinse, and vitamin dose any frozen food offered.

Thanks for all the information - very helpful!

I forgot--I gutload the worms with crushed fish flakes & plankton/krill powder & soak them in Vita-Chem.

Live blackworms eat crushed fish flakes? Is this what you mean by gut loading?

I had dwarf puffers eating only live blackworms, and they eventually ate frozen bloodworms. I don't remember how long that took or what led to them taking the bloodworms.

WendyKL wrote:Live blackworms eat crushed fish flakes? Is this what you mean by gut loading?

Yup