Feeding small larvae blackworms?

fishkeeper

fishkeeper

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Joseph S
I'm currently raising some Triturus and Pleurodeles waltl larvae. They are just getting to the feeding stage. Some in a warmer area have been growing fairly fast and almost have full front legs...but this tank has lots of mulm and food for them. Other tanks/larvae may not be that fortunate though I've added lots of plants and seen them snapping at things.

I've added in finely chopped blackworms, but I can't tell if they are eating them. Usually I would use microworms,daphnia, or artemia nauplii. But on CC it mentions that their are cases of larvae being raised only on blackworms. Are such small larvae conveniently able to consume blackworms? Or do I have to get some artemia(not a problem, will likely do in any case).
 
I have had great success using only blackworms when feeding newt larvae. At first I chop them finely into like a "soup" if you will. Later chopping them less and less. The great thing about blackworms is that even cut down to a 1/16 or less they still wiggle! I have had no problems with losing larvae this way.

A word of caution, this makes the water dirty fast and along with changing the water daily, the excess that was not eaten must be taken out after awhile.

Mitch
 
Although the are people who report great success raising their larvae with just blackworms i think it´s always good to err in the variety side. Variety in diet is important, and i think it should be encouraged...
 
Have you actually seen newly hatched/very young larvae eat the blackworms?

It seems when young part of the problem is they are very sedentary and I've never seen them move much more than a few mm to get in range of something. Usually they prefer to wait for stuff to almost bump into them.
 
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