Neptun
Tubeworms is the most famous long-used food for aquarium fish. It is very widely distributed in our country.
If you have been aquaristing for a long time, you probably know that feeding your pets only dry food, bread crumbs or hard-boiled egg yolk is not the best option. Such a diet can withstand for a long time only the most hardy and unpretentious fish.
Many species on dry rations do not do well. Improper nutrition can cause stunted development, disease, infertility and even death. This applies to all living things. But this site is dedicated to aquarium fish, so today we will talk about how to diversify their menu.
Buying live food
The easiest option is to go to the market where they sell goods for animals and aquarium fish. There you can buy moths, trubichnik, live daphnia. This was the case, at least in the recent past. So you can also try to buy live types of food in specialized aquarium stores. There you can mainly buy moths. But such stores and private traders selling live feed for aquarium fish are fewer and fewer. There are many reasons for this – earnings from the sale of such products is not great. The goods are perishable.
Let’s get back to feeding our pets. You could perhaps buy fish bait that is sold to fishermen, but it’s not that simple either. You’d be surprised to learn how much a dozen worms can cost. Well, it is understandable – today fishing is not the extraction of daily bread, and hobby – sport. In general, a prestigious occupation. Well, people communicate with nature in their own way. Showing not so much aesthetic or cognitive interest in it as gastronomic. I won’t say anything about hunters.
You and I, since you are on this site, are more interested in watching life and its development, admiring the riot of forms and colors.
Independent worm harvesting
But in order for your aquarium really was a riot of life it must be properly, varied and in sufficient quantities to feed.
Where to take feed if there is not even near the bazaar, which would remain at least one fish breeder selling not only fish, but also surplus food for them.
The only way out is to prepare live fodder yourself.
It is probably not possible to completely switch to live food. There is not always time to go to the nearest water body, where you can collect mosquito larvae, so beloved by your cockerels and macropods. In winter, you can not get and earthworms to pick up, which are swallowed with great appetite large cichlasomes and goldfish. But find a suitable food for your favorites in the spring-summer-autumn period can and should. You will be able to stock up for the winter.
Peculiarities of tubeworms
Let’s talk about tube feed. This is the most famous long-used food for aquarium fish. It is distributed in our country very widely. It is enough to find a shallow pond with muddy bottom rich in organic remains. In windless weather through the water column can be seen at the bottom of the terry swaying carpet of dirty red color. This is the desired site. Quite often, a large amount of trumpet worm can be found in places where domestic sewage is discharged. The worm burrows with its mouth end into the soil and passes through its intestines bacteria and organic residues in the sludge. The tail end is above the soil and sways rhythmically from side to side. These oscillations are more intense the less oxygen there is in the water.
When choosing a body of water for catching tubeworms, it should be remembered that it can accumulate various toxic substances in its body, which can lead to the death of the fish that ate it. Therefore, it is better to get away from industrial wastewater. In general, the farther away from the city or other industrial center, the better.
Tubefeed tubeworms Fishing methods
The method of catching depends on the required amount. If you need a small amount of tubeworms, you can put a net on the bottom of the reservoir, in which you should put spoiled fruits and vegetables, corn cobs. After a couple of days, the bait you put in the net will be covered with trumpet fish.
If the reservoir is located close to your house, you can find a secluded place on its bank and organize daily collection of a new portion of fresh truncheon. To do this, the nets lowered to the bottom of the lake should be three – four. Taking out the net lying at the bottom of three or four days and collecting from her harvest, put in it the next portion of bait (vegetables, fruits). So all summer long you can provide your fish farm with fresh trubchnik.
If the reservoir is at such a distance from you that it is difficult to get there every day, it is better to catch trubichnik in such quantity that it was enough for four weeks. For this purpose, you will need a shovel, which is used to scoop silt from the bottom and dump it into a bucket.
Instead of a shovel, you can use a wide fine mesh net with a small mesh. This net should be used to scoop up the top layer of silt together with the trumpet fish sitting in it. The top layer of silt collected in this way is also dumped into a bucket.
What to do with the loot?
When you have collected a sufficient amount of sludge, it should be allowed to settle. When this happens, the settled water is drained off and a layer of gauze is placed on the sludge. While the silt was settling, you could make a small fire. The bucket is put on the fire and the trubichnik, fleeing from the heat coming from below, crawls out onto the gauze.
Here it is not difficult to collect it. Now all the work that could be done on the shore of the lake is completed and your prey should be delivered home. It is best to do this by placing a ball of worms on gauze stretched on a rectangular frame. The frame can be made of rigid stainless steel wire, plastic or wood. Wooden frames should be soaked in hot olive oil before use. If there are no frames, you can bring the worms home wrapped in a damp, well wrung cloth or gauze. Tubeworms can remain viable for several hours on frames or in a damp cloth.
Feed tube feed How to keep it fresh?
When you are at home, it is necessary to put the worms in a flat cuvette with a small level of water, its layer should be such that when you tap on the cuvette a clump of worms comes out of the water. You can see how it looks on the video at the end of the article.
Care should be taken to ensure that no bacterial film forms on the surface of the water. The water should be changed twice a day – in the morning and in the evening. The most suitable temperature for storing tubeworms is about 5 degrees Celsius. Therefore, the cuvette with tubeworm can be kept in the refrigerator. However, the water must not be allowed to freeze. If the refrigerator is not available. You can keep just in a cool shaded place – cellar, basement, closet. The main thing is not to let the worms suffocate or freeze.
Running water
Sometimes aquarists equip a small flow channel for storing tubeworms. But the flow of constant action consumes a large amount of drinking water. Therefore, it is better to automate the change of water and change twice a day or automatically or manually. By the way, the simplest automatic water changer you probably already have. It is called the toilet cistern. It is enough to strengthen the canvas bag with a feed tube in the upper part of the toilet bowl so that it was immersed in water almost completely. Now every time one of your household uses this marvelous invention called a cistern flusher, the worms will get a portion of oxygen when the water is drained and then immersed in fresh cool water.
Preparation of the worm for fish feeding
Always remember that trumpet fish is a sanitary nature and therefore you get it, as a rule, in the most polluted water bodies. Therefore, you can feed it to your fish not earlier than after a week of keeping in clean water. If there is no dirt in the cuvette, and the water is not turbid and is not covered with bacterial film, the feed can be used. In this form in the cuvette in a cooler and with a double change of water per day trumpet can be stored two – three months. So in summer there will be live food for your pets and for winter you can stock up, if you collect it in the last warm autumn days.
If the food trubuchnik stored in the refrigerator, it should be taken out of there a few hours before feeding, so that he had time to warm up and your fish do not catch cold, swallowing strongly chilled food. In the aquarium trubuchnik, falling to the bottom, quickly buried in the soil. Dying, he begins to decompose there and spoil the water. To prevent this from happening, you should use special feeders. Floating on the surface or bottom mesh feeders through the cells of which the worms crawl out gradually and the fish have time to eat them before they burrow into the ground.
Is it ok to give tubeworms fish to small fish?
Fry or small fish can be given tubeworms, pre-cut with scissors, a blade or a special cutter. After cutting it, it should be washed in a net made of capron stocking cloth under running water.
Here we are and we have learned how to extract and long-term preserve one of the basic and relatively affordable live food for our aquarium farm. I hope this article will help you to diversify the diet of the inhabitants of your indoor lakes. Now the independent extraction of tube feed will not be difficult for you. In the next article we will talk to you about another universally available form of live food – earthworms.
