Bloodworm extraction ?

[tritus]

Any good techniques for extracting the bloodworms from their mud/silk homes?
Would triturus larvae eat frozen bloodworms left in the tank, or will I have to serve them individually by tweezers?
Thanks
Dewy

 

[peterj]

Where are you harvesting the bloodworms from? If you reduce the oxygen in the water (eg warm it up) they'll head to the surface (usually at night). You can also bait them, a chunky potato peel will attract them after it's been in the water for a couple of days and started to rot.

 

[tritus]

hi Peter, and thanks. i harvest them from different stagnant waters in my back yards and from my dafnia cultures. now i also think of harvesting them from the wild, using your baiting idea !

 

[peterj]

If you have them in daphnia cultures that aren't aerated check first thing in the morning because they'll go to the surface if they're low on O2. If your daphnia cultures are aerated you could leaving the aeration off one overnight and check early in the morning to see if the bloodworms have moved to the surface, doing this could have an impact on your daphnia production though.

 

[Ranid]

Tweezers? Dang I don't know how big your worms are for you to do that, even with 'giant' bloodworms.

What I do if I don't want to use the whole packet is take one of those really small round tuppaware (spl) containers and use either a spoon, or I've used little stick twigs things as a scoop and you can control the ammount that way.