Home Names Info Species Images Crypts Shrimp Plant species Enclycloaquaria CoF Invert Taxa

Culturing Blackworms
Culturing California Blackworms

(Lumbriculus variegatus)

Black worms, or "trout" worms, suddenly appeared on the scene around 1980 along with the subsequent disappearance of Tubifex from the US and Canada. Tubifex were well documented - they were mentioned in nearly every Tropical Fish book ever written but right after the 1970s they were seldom if ever again available commercially.

The reason is their habitat - they are sewer worms that feed exclusively on "organic anaerobic sludge" and thus can only be found in nature in the most filty conditions imaginable and if human waste is in any way a component then they are obviously going to be a disease vector and I know of at least one case of hepatitis in Los Angeles that was attributed to Tubifex in the 1980s.

The worms were deprecated and as a replacement, "black" worms showed up. Larger and far more disgusting than even Tubifex they don't carry disease like Tubifex do an fish seemed to like them even more. \

It was confusing in the early 1980s to see all books talk about Tubifex and never mention black worms yet that was all you could buy. More so, little or noting was known about them. In the first fifteen years of Internet discussion of tropical fish, these two comments were about it as far as an explanation went.


    Robert Nhan of San Jose (now Fremont) has done it with Blackworms. Seven 10G tanks with deep (2-3") fine (30 grit) sand and heavy aeration. Seed all with a pound or so (total) of worms, and feed daily with cheap flake fish food, as heavily as possible without bad bacterial bloom. Do *lots* of water changes. On week three, start harvesting half a tank per day, and the other halves on week 4. Week five go back to the first halves, etc.

    Lots of work and tank space for modest worm harvests. No guarantee that bacteria will be much lower than from the store, tho. Unless you hand sort the starting worms, there's no guarantee you won't have planaria. Hydra can't live without live food, so they probably will die, of course. [Then they will come in on your plants, anyway. :-)]

    Dan Carson, of Hawaii has done it in big trays with real Tubifex, and using lava cinders (decorative stuff from garden shop) as the substrate. 150% weekly water changes were needed.

    All too labor intensive, for me. I could raise a *lot* of fish in 7 10G tanks, and buy lots more worms with their sale. YMMV.

    Wright Huntley, 1999



Blackworms have been used as aquatic composters.

farm

In late January 2018, this posting appeared on the net which documents pretty well where at least half the Blackworms in California come from, which as of this writing is where all the black worms in the US tropical fish industry originate.

Lately we've been asked numerous times where Blackworms come from.

Maybe this will help to clarify. There are only two sources of California Blackworms that supply the United States. Both here in California. A third is outside Melbourne Australia.

One California Farm is in Northern California. Their worms are harvested out of the ponds of a privately owned hatchery. Cleaned, and packed on the hatchery property. They supply a online reseller, California Tropical Fish wholesalers who in turn deliver to LFS's. Some of those wholesalers ship to out of state LFS's who in turn sell retail.

We, Aquatic Foods Blackworm Co. are the other.

We supply various Wholesalers, retail Tropical Fish and Pet stores, Institutions and the Hobbyist direct.

Here are a few photos of our Farm and Facility.

Please feel free to email to blkworm@aol.com with any questions or inquiries.
Jennifer
Aquatic Foods



Worms_as_fishfood.pdf
Worms_as_fishfood.pdf







VRx Copyright 2022
Richard J. Sexton