# Live fish food "Red hairlike worms"



## jjaaxx44 (Oct 14, 2012)

Hi Friends,

As a newbie I got one more question.

So a pet shop owner near place sells some worms under name blood worms.
I know they are not blood worms, as blood worms are small larvas (correct me if m wrong). Worms i got from pet store are like long strands of strings, red. and they form a hair ball like structure.
I did not argue much as the same person gave my friend feeder gold fish telling they were Koi's *r2, as we were newbies we didn't knew what they were.

so i have uploaded the images can any1 tell me what are these? 
and is there any way i can harvest them at home?





My black mollies, dalmatian mollies and albino rainbow shark loves these worms, also I have two molly fries(rest got eaten by other mollies while i was in office) loves them.

*thumbsup thanx in advance


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## Sherry (Nov 22, 2011)

Yes that is blood worms. Thin stringy worms. 
Mine look exactly like that.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Agree, they look like blood worms to me too! I found some live ones in the mulm in my pond a few years back. Best fish food ever! All the bettas went absolutely nuts for them!


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Best way is to get a starter culture of them, either find them in the wild or purchase them from someone that raises them. You could probablly take some of what you buy to feed with and start your own culture. Just google raising blood worms and you should get some hits.


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## susankat (Nov 15, 2008)

Here is one that I found. http://www.ehow.com/media/ad.html?divId=DartAd_4680299&w=990&ad=http%


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## jjaaxx44 (Oct 14, 2012)

ohh....
So are dried blood worms are costlier than line ones?
cause i get handful of these for less than 50cents, 25 indian rupees,
while i get way less amount of dried worms for a doller, ~50-60 indian rupees.

when i do google images search for tubifex worms...i get these... my worms looks same...even i have dried blood worms they dont look the same as thses....

https://www.google.co.in/search?hl=...N&tab=wi&authuser=0&ei=RBCnUMDrDJDirAel44CABQ


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## tbub1221 (Nov 1, 2012)

Wish I could get those live locally , my fish love them as well.


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## Donald Hansen (Jan 21, 2011)

Because the photos look like what my lfs calls black worms, I did some research. I googled "blood worms", "black worms", and "tubifex worms". From what I found, I would have to say your photos are either of black worms or maybe tubifex worms but not blood worms. Actually, the name blood worms seem to refer to a number of different types of "worms", some of which are not "worms" but either a mosquito or fly larva.

I do know it gave me a bit of a headache. If they see this, maybe California Black worms can help us.

DLH


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## jjaaxx44 (Oct 14, 2012)

@donald:
yes, see what wiki has to say about blood worms,

Blood worm or bloodworm is an ambiguous term and can refer to:

The larva of a non-biting midge (Family Chironomidae) containing haemoglobin
The polychaete Glycera (genus), often used for fishing bait
Lumbriculus variegatus, more commonly called blackworm, but often misnamed by pet stores
Strongylus vulgaris, also known as the blood worm, a common horse parasite
Angiostrongylus cantonensis, a parasitic nematode that causes of Angiostrongyliasis and the most common cause of eosinophilic meningitis


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## Donald Hansen (Jan 21, 2011)

jjaaxx44 said:


> @donald:
> yes, see what wiki has to say about blood worms,
> 
> Blood worm or bloodworm is an ambiguous term and can refer to:
> ...




Yes, that covers what I found. I tell you. What did we ever do before Google and Wiki.


The two that I found the hardest to tell apart, by looking at them, were what my lfs calls blackworms and the tubifex. In my research I found where it said that blackworms will try to swim away by repeatedly forming a coil while the tubifex will not. The others seem to have some kind of appendage that separates them from the blackworm and tubifex.

DLH


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

I wish I could find live ones locally, but those damn things creep me out. I just use the frozen ones.


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## LTruex (Nov 8, 2012)

jjaaxx44, looks like tubaflex worms as I remember them, and my discus loved them as did most fish in my tanks. Larry


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## jjaaxx44 (Oct 14, 2012)

Thanks everyone for your input...

Just for an overview of my fishes,
3 black female mollies, 
2 yellow male dalmation mollies, 
1 odd colored female dalmation molly (Black patch around eye not damaged but natural, with skin, pink and black colored dots),
2 red swordtail male n female 
2 albino rainbow shark (not sure male/female)

I feed them live worms at night, 
and in the morning any 1 of "floating fish food, dried tubi fex and blood worms"


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Just so you are aware if you weren't, those male Mollies will mate with anyone of your female Mollies.


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## jjaaxx44 (Oct 14, 2012)

@jrman83,
Yes they did and I got 2 fries.
I mentioned this in earlier post in this thread
"I have two molly fries(rest got eaten by other mollies while i was in office)"
number of fries my molly actually gave birth to i'm not sure, but may be only 4-5, sadly i saw 1 getting eaten. reason why i'm saying 4-5 is none of the molly was bigger than normal size.


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