Storing live blackworms IN my tank, good, bad?

Fire bellies seem to like blackworms. I buy them from a fish store and keep them in a shallow pan in my fridge, changing the dechlorinated water once a day, actually I use water from my tank thinking that it will have bacteria for them to eat. I can never seem to get them to live for more than 2 or 3 days. It do not really mind buying them twice a week but the store is not that close and it is a pain.

After the death of my newt I was cleaning the tank and lifted a small pot and found that there were a large number of blackworms hiding under it. The batch they came from had died 2 or 3 days ago but a large number were healthy and out of sight. I put small groups of them in hiding spots around the tank hoping the newt would find them and they all ended up hiding under that one pot.

I am setting up some new newts in the tank. Is there any reason to not simply put a weeks worth of food right under a pot where they like to hide and remove some every day for my newts to eat? I have no idea how they got under the pot, it was one of those cheap brownish red pots people use. I am guessing that there were very small gaps big enough for them to get through.

Healthy blackworms can be kept alive in the fridge for months, not days. See instructions:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/worms.shtml
Where you might be going wrong is (1) the shop may selling you worms already in bad condition (2) rinse them with chilled water, not room temp water, (3) keep the water (and worms) shallow enough that the worms can get their ends to the surface, otherwise they die.

I know you are going to tell me that point #3 doesn't make sense because the worms in the tank were under deep water and didn't die. But trust me, in the fridge they need to be kept in a shallow layer under just enough water to keep them wet.

Blackworms are able to hide under anything in a tank. They seek the most secluded place, like that pot. It's OK to keep some blackworms in the tank, but you don't want to overload the tank with worms, as they will have a negative impact on water quality.

for some reason my blackworms refuse to stay in the water in their container, they climb up the sides and stick to the cover. they dont like the water for some odd reason, but ive had them for over a month!

Mine do that sometimes. I always have blackworms in my fridge and it just happens. It's always the same water, the same container. I just rinse them daily and rinse them off the cover, back into the water. Sometimes then they stay, sometimes crawl out again. Either way, blackworms are gross and you just have to get over it.

Also I wanted to add, when I first started using blackworms, I would add too many sometimes and they seemed to colonize my tank, growing up from the bottom through the gravel like thin grass. I thought that was great, they seemed to survive there fine and were accessible for the newts to forage and eat.
However, I stopped using gravel in my tanks because I had a problem with leeches getting in (my fault for using plants from ponds) and plus I feed most of my newts chopped earthworms now.
In tanks where I do use blackworms (I just use them for feeding larvae now), I notice they congregate in certain places when they're not all eaten (like you said, under clay pots and such). When I feed my newts, I check those places, and if there are blackworms there, I swirl them around the tank to make them accessible to the newts again and then I don't have to add more. It's hard to gauge how many are too many, but if they survive in the tank without dying and fouling the water, I think that's OK.

otterwoman said:

Mine do that sometimes. I always have blackworms in my fridge and it just happens. It's always the same water, the same container. I just rinse them daily and rinse them off the cover, back into the water. Sometimes then they stay, sometimes crawl out again. Either way, blackworms are gross and you just have to get over it.

Click to expand...

Mine do the same thing.

I keep them in the fridge, rinse daily even sometimes skip a day, and they live for well over a month. Usually the newts eat them all before they start dying off.

I keep them in a container just like this one:
http://www.livefishfoodshop.com/images/products/blackworm_keeper.jpg

My only gripe is there isn't a cover for it so I use aluminum foil. But sometimes the worms find gaps in the foil around the edges and escape.

I thought I would mention a couple of things here.

One is that blackworms usually try to escape from the container in the fridge if something is covering the top of their container - try keeping a lid or other objects off of their container and you will probably find there is less escape.

Also a note of caution on keeping/storing large amounts of blackworms in tanks. They can live in your tank long term with no problems, however, if for one reason or the other they start dying - they will quickly all die and turn your water toxic in a matter of just a few days or less. It is also kind of hard to see if this has occurred in a highly planted or gravel covered tank. I have also found that it seems my newts rarely search for the blackworms in their tank. It may be that they are used to being fed differently but......
Also there seems to be evidence to believe that newts that are very sensitive to water quality to not to well with a blackworm colony living in tank - which makes me believe that they do polute the water more than it may seem.
Also watch your filters, sometimes they will move in and establish a colony in there as well.

audrey said:

They can live in your tank long term with no problems, however, if for one reason or the other they start dying - they will quickly all die and turn your water toxic in a matter of just a few days or less.

Click to expand...

I have also had this happen. It isn't pretty! If you see even a hint of cloudiness in a tank with "resident" blackworms, clean them out and don't add more until you're sure the tank is OK.

My newts like small earthworms just fine and they are SO much easier to take care of and remove from the tank if uneaten. I chopped up a few, put them in the water and the newts found them easy. I'll get bloodworms once or twice a month to vary their diet a little bit, but my guys are going to be living on earthworms. Thanks for the advice though guys . The fact they liked earthworms was a pleasent shock, I thought they would just be too big for them.

audrey said:

I thought I would mention a couple of things here.

One is that blackworms usually try to escape from the container in the fridge if something is covering the top of their container - try keeping a lid or other objects off of their container and you will probably find there is less escape.

Click to expand...

Took your suggestion and removed the cover. It's been two days now and lo and behold they are no longer climbing the sides and are perfectly content! Thanks for the advice!