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Feeding a California Blackworm culture - Lumbriculus variegatus

Simon Cole

Simon Cole

Member
Joined
25 Dec 2018
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840
Location
Snowdonia
I have kept a small culture of California blackworms (lumbriculus variegatus) for quite a while and I tend to feed them boiled broccoli. The population growth is still a bit slow. Could anyone recommend a different food for them so that I could try to expand my culture?
 
I've kept them too, they were slow to increase too. The trick seems to be damaging them, two halves grow into 2 new ones. They feed on bacterial growth, i ,as stated in many articles, "fed" them on paper.
Sexual reproduction is stated to be very slow.
Darrel and more have them as permanent colony growing in many tanks/filters.
 
Hi
I keep Californian black worms for about year and a half now.I have them in all my tanks (mainly my shrimp only) and outdoors in 3 unfiltered bare bottom tubs with sizes from 15l to arround 80l.The ones i keep in tanks eat fish food(tetra tabs,spirulina shrimp pellets .......) not picky at all I can clearly see them piled up on the spot where food drops on substrate.The outdoors are unfed full with moss live and dead grasses (leaf litter)and floating plants.Reproduction is faster with substrate as Edvet said it helps break the worms =more worms.The thing is in tubs without flow(filtration) any substrate will go bad.Mine did for about 7 months and was less than 1cm thick. Ended up with stinking bucket of milky water.But I have snails ,asselus aquaticus and Crangonyx Pseudogracilis in them tubs too so more bioload.I use Daphnia in the tubs as indicator for water quality.
From tank I harvest with gravel vac after feeding when they cluster together(Thanks Darrel for the tip)
I got my cultures from Darrel(dw1305).I know he keeps them in unfiltwred buckets with fox tail (Ceratophyllum demersum )
Regards Konsa
 
Thank you both for your replies. I think I'll try some fish food. Great idea about adding some daphnia and it's good to hear they don't mind cooler temperatures. I'm looking forwards to dividing the colony.
 
Hi all,
Konsa said:
Think Darrel keeps some indoors over winter months too.
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I do. At the moment I've got a tank full of them, because I don't have any fish in there. It has also had a bit of population explosion of Asellus and <"Crangonyx">.

I'd recommend using Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum) in the cultures, it works really well. Have a look at <"Blackworms and Asellus..">.

cheers Darrel
 
Cheers Darrel. I've got some Hornwort (Ceratophyllum Demersum) so I'll give that a go. I used to love collecting Grammarus spp. and Asellus spp. locally when I was a child and I can see a use for them in quarantine tanks - do they eat fry?
 
Hi all,
Simon Cole said:
I used to love collecting Grammarus spp. and Asellus spp. locally when I was a child and I can see a use for them in quarantine tanks - do they eat fry?
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Asellus are fry safe. I was originally told about them as a "tank janitors" for use with Corydoras eggs and fry.

I'd be a bit more concerned about Gammarus spp., they are much more omnivorous, and I'd be particularly worried about accidentally introducing Dikerogammarus spp.

You are more than welcome to some Asellus and Crangonyx, they have been in the tanks for several generations now, and <"they post OK in wet moss">. I'll try and get a video and post.

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
You are more than welcome to some Asellus and Crangonyx, they have been in the tanks for several generations now, and <"they post OK in wet moss">. I'll try and get a video and post.
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Hi Darrel. I would be very grateful for some, if you don't mind posting them. It would save a huge amount of hassle doing water changes to remove uneaten food.
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all, Asellus are fry safe. I was originally told about them as a "tank janitors" for use with Corydoras eggs and fry.
Click to expand...

Sorry to jump in but are these the same Asellus sp I'm likely to have in my pond? I did once consider adding some to a tank but read they can be predatory, so wondering if I got my wires crossed.
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,Yes they are Asellus aquaticus. I think they are entirely vegetarian detrivores, and so are Crangonyx.

Gammarus are definitely more opportunistic and omnivorous.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...

Thanks Darrel, I might slowly warm a few up and see how they do.
 
Hi all
Yes they are Asellus aquaticus. I think they are entirely vegetarian detrivores, and so are Crangonyx.
+1 for that
And thay are awesome janitors and algae eaters.When I had them together with blackworms and Ramshorn snails used the tank to clear my buces and anubias from any form (excluding GSA) of algae including BBA :D.Perfectly clean plants in few days.
Regards Konsa
 
Hi all,
Konsa said:
+1 for that. And thay are awesome janitors and algae eaters.When I had them together with blackworms and Ramshorn snails used the tank to clear my buces and anubias from any form (excluding GSA) of algae including BBA
Click to expand...
I found the reference for Asellus as a safe "tank janitor", it was from the Parosphromenus project <"Invertebrates in a breeding tank">.

cheers Darrel
 
Quick update - I found some in a local stream. Thank you Darrel for your kind offer, but I just couldn't resist a quick survey to see what was living, and I bagged about ten specimens to bring home. I have been surveying this stream since I was about 8 years old. There was a very good population of bullheads (Cottus gobio), that I returned carefully because I seem to remember that they are protected. It all looked very healthy.

I was reading this study about using seasoned ash leaves (Fraxinus excelsior) to feed Asellus aquaticus, and it got me thinking about the role of fungi as a nutritional source for many other shrimp. So here is my question: does anybody here culture specific microbes in their foodstuffs in order to provide nutrients to certain grazing or detritivore species?

I did use some fish food, broccoli, and celery leaves to feed the California blackworms, before adding them to a larger container. I wondered if they would grow faster on vegetative foods that were cultured with fungi? I sense an experiment coming.
 
Hi all,
Simon Cole said:
So here is my question: does anybody here culture specific microbes in their foodstuffs in order to provide nutrients to certain grazing or detritivore species?
Click to expand...
Simon Cole said:
I was reading this study about using seasoned ash leaves (Fraxinus excelsior) to feed Asellus aquaticus, and it got me thinking about the role of fungi as a nutritional source for many other shrimp
Click to expand...
I asked Ian Thornhill and he said that the carbon:nitrogen ratio is a pretty good proxy for palatibility, so soft leaves are usually more favoured than more lignified leaves. All the detrivores will be getting a lot of their nutrition from the fungal content of the leaves, but you don't need to try and culture the fungi, they are universal in fresh-water (including in soil pore spaces etc). I have that paper and it is an Alder, rather than Ash, one.

The standard foodstuff for experimental ecocosm studies on aquatic detrivores is Alder (Alnus glutinosa). Because Asellus is used as a <"model organism"> in ecotoxicicological studies there is a standard experimental methodology using dried and re-hydrated Alder leaf discs.
Simon Cole said:
Quick update - I found some in a local stream. Thank you Darrel for your kind offer, but I just couldn't resist a quick survey to see what was living, and I bagged about ten specimens to bring home. I have been surveying this stream since I was about 8 years old. There was a very good population of bullheads (Cottus gobio), that I returned carefully because I seem to remember that they are protected. It all looked very healthy.
Click to expand...
Nice. You usually get Cottus gobio where you have <"clean water, woody debris and a lot of Gammarus">. Are you sure they are Asellus or Crangonyx not Gammarus pulex?

This is my spare tank at the moment, I've got my "insurance invertebrates" in there (the rest are outside in the buckets).

This is last night when I put some cucumber in, the crustaceans swimming around are Crangonyx:



and this is the Lumbriculus and Asellus on the sediment.



cheers Darrel
 
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Hiya Darrel, you are right it was alder leaves I got - last night I collected some from underneath the trees down at Padbury Brook. There is both Asellus and Gammarus - but I haven't checked the species - I assume it is the common one. I'll check to see whether there are any Crangonyx. I read your post about feeding ornamental shrimp conditioned alder leaves, and I've been giving that some thought too.
 
Hi all,
Simon Cole said:
There is both Asellus and Gammarus
Click to expand...
Perfect, I've never <"had much joy"> with Gammarus, but Asellus are resilient tank inhabitants.

The ones you've collected are probably Asellus aquaticus, these differ from the other species (Proasellus meridianus) by having two obvious lighter dots at the back of the head (when you look from above). Proasellus has a continuous line.

You get P. meridianus in streams, but I have no idea how it does in the aquarium, although it is much less tolerant of pollution (and much less common) than A. aquaticus.

cheers Darrel
 
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