Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Earth Worms!
- Nozebleed (Anders Van Cranlers)
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- MagiC (Maciek Czarnota)
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i used to feed my Uarus earth worms and they loved it.all i did was just rinsing them and then throwing them in, and they were fine.
maybe if they come from soil that was fertilsed or sprayed with some stuff,they might not b good but my ones were clean from the field.
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- Frontosa (Tim kruger)
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I leave the earthworms over night with damp newspaper-that cleans them out.When they are from clean soil-it`s a great treat to your fish.
Regards,Tim
Midlands - in the heart of Ireland.
Keeping and breeding : Frontosa Blue Zaires , Synodontis Petricola , Tropheus Red Rainbow (Kasanga) , Tropheus Moliro . Regulary fry for sale.
Community tank with P.Kribensis and different livebearers.
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- Andrew (Andrew Taaffe)
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- JohnH (John)
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I used to feed the worms with fish food too, but I would have them in a bin of moss from the shaded part of my garden lawn. There's a lot down in the bog so that will my future source as not much of the lawn here is shaded.
Daily I would take out the moss, worms and all, and turn it so the bottom was now the top.
This would make them have to crawl back through it, cleansing themselves in the moss as they went.
In more recent years I have been buying Dendrobena worms from the Local Fishing Tackle Shop as the soil in my garden makes for very difficult digging (all bloody rocks!!!).
I never use Maggots (Chandlers) though, although any left after a day's fishing are quickly gobbled up by the fish in my Pond.
John
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Jay
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Earthworms are basically a feeding tube, they eat soil doing two things, removing their nutrition and in doing that they move through the soil.
This exposes them to a lot of things, Fertilisers and pesticides and herbicides. Even in a Garden where none of these are used, there are buried tins of Paint, old cans of Grease etc all left by the wonderful builders, I'd stick with shop cultured critters rather than take a chance.
There are also Tiger worms, recognisable by bands of yellow and they exude a yellowish substance, I'm not sure if it's dangerous but is used to repel predators and these are easily mistaken for the normal Earthworm.
Toxins aren't removed by placing in Newspapers or grass or peat etc, this is used to remove their mucus and the stuff excreted by them, ie, filtered soil.
Kev.
Kev.
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Could be attaining their Teens Jay.
Kev.
You could be right mate, and if their idea of rebellion is biting my fingers when my hand goes in the tank I forsee a pair of feeding tongs on the fishie shopping list.
Jay
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- JohnH (John)
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Jay,I posed a question a while back about growth rates (SA Cichlids) and was told that maggots were an excellent addition to a fishes diet, and that was sound info. My Oscars cant get enough of them and even went off pellets for a while. I could be being a bit paranoid here, but I have noticed increased aggression form the two Oscars since I started feeding them maggots, waxworms and prawns but that could just be down to the fact that they are still growing and getting even hungrier. Gits.
Jay
I personally wouldn't use maggots in a confined area such as an aquarium, I find them to be skins filled with digestive juices!
This may not be a problem, but before coming here one of my chores was to visit a maggot breeding farm and at best they aren't bred and kept very healthily!
I have fed them in the distant past to Tinfoil Barbs...and Oscars...and have witnessed white gunge (what I assumed to be the internals of the maggots) and maggot skins being emitted from the fishes' vents. I also watched the Oscars 'crunching' them with their pharyngeal 'teeth' and saw loads of white discharge from their gill covers too. But if you're feeding them with no problems and are happy to do so then perhaps the ones you're getting hold of must be better quality.
If you do a 'search Forum' and can find Nessa's (Goldy) thread about losing her Silver (Bala) Sharks after feeding with maggots you'll see she shares my dislike of them too.
I would add that you should, as with all terrestrial live foods, ensure all are eaten as otherwise they will crawl into gravel and under rocks and die from drowning. The corpses will decompose and not do your water quality any favours.
A few thoughts.
John
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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. My two O's dont even seem to bother chewing them, but, after reading that I think I will discontinue feeding them maggots. Makes me wonder if this could explain the recent change in behaviour Ive noticed. Thanks for the heads up on this John, much appreciated.Jay
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Mark
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- JohnH (John)
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A good way to remove all the 'unpleasantness' from inside the worm is to do what you recommend, but some people either don't like doing that, either from squeamishness or just don't like handling them, the moss/paper treatment will give them something to purge their insides out into - over the period of a few days.
John
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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i see this is common among reptile keepers would there be any benefit to fish?
mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- Jaffacakehead (John McPartland)
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Do you bite their heads off and suck the juice out?I have been hand feeding my Eels with earth worms, is a community so I don't drop em in though they have to be washed and cleaned (all the crap squeezed out) first.
Mark
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Mark. wrote:
Do you bite their heads off and suck the juice out?I have been hand feeding my Eels with earth worms, is a community so I don't drop em in though they have to be washed and cleaned (all the crap squeezed out) first.
Mark
like some Ozzyesce looney, only ones form the natural confectionery company I do:)
As for the worms, they get left in a bit of tank water wet sand, which they are usually full of when I remove em, Eels don't mind the odd grain I miss here and there when I clean em out.
I just hate diggin them up, can buy em but the hobby is expensive enough already.
Mark
Location D.11
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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it is important that the worms homeground has no added chemicals or pollution. any earth within the worm is quickly passed and probably works as roughage.
fish have to get used to this type of feeding as some will refuse it initially.
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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