Feeding flake foods?

[Essad96]

Does anyone know if its a good idea to feed african nightcrawlers flake food? No supplements or anything, just crushed tetra min flake foods. Is it more nutritious, and if it is, why haven't I heard of people doing it. Currently feeding earthworms a mixture of shredded oats, carrots for beta-carotene and powdered calcium, blended together.

 

[Blackbun]

Hello, gut loading food prey is well documented because the health benefits to the various animals they are being fed to is well known both by scientific study and observations made by hobbyists. I understand most literature refers to insect food such as crickets and meal worms but if you type into Google 'gut loading earthworms' you'll find a whole bunch of different forums where people have tried to address this. Some of these are aquarists as well as herpetoligisgs. In addition if you put the same search into Google Scholar you will find many scientific papers too.

Gut Loading Night Crawlers?

Incidebtky it's on this forum too.

 

[Methos5K]

You can stuff a high-quality newt pellet into a piece of nightcrawler. Boom! Fortified

 

[Canecorsonewt]

Thanks for bringing this up I never thought about it. Is there anything I can feed my white worms,that my newts could benefit from. I just feed dog food, doesn't seem to good to me. Half the dog food out there they say isn't good enough for dogs.

 

[Essad96]

Thanks for the replies guy! Does anyone know if there are any long term benefits or consequences to feeding the ANC's flake food? I plan to breed them and add another culture, I dont want my worms to lessen their productivity

 

[jewett]

Is there anything I can feed my white worms,that my newts could benefit from. .

I like to feed my white worms a high quality fish food that's high in carotenoids such as Hikari brands. This colors the worms up nicely - enough so that their gut content is often easy to see through their skin as a nice red or orange color. I also think Hikari is just a good brand with nice nutrients for the worms. Hopefully, those nutrients and carotenoids benefit my newts when they eat the worms.

 

[Canecorsonewt]

Thank you for the info, I've been feeding my white worms fish food. I only have some cheap tetra fish food I had laying around but they worms seem to like it better then dog food. That's crazy they changed to orange pretty quick.

 

[seandelevan]

Thank you for the info, I've been feeding my white worms fish food. I only have some cheap tetra fish food I had laying around but they worms seem to like it better then dog food. That's crazy they changed to orange pretty quick.

Exactly. I've been using regular ol flake fish food for years. You will also be surprised that the fancy expensive fish food doesn't offer all that much more health benefits vs the average kind according to some studies I've seen.

 

[ntny]

hello folks
i am trying to breed Earthworms in a plastic tub with damp soil and some coco husk
but i don't see any new smaller worms appear after a few weeks..how long they take to breed baby worms?
i am feeding some normal fish pallets.may i know if feeding them with zoomed turtle pallets is better?
i read zoomed turtle pallets contains calcium and vitamin D3. are these necessary for newts?
thanks

 

[seandelevan]

hello folks
i am trying to breed Earthworms in a plastic tub with damp soil and some coco husk
but i don't see any new smaller worms appear after a few weeks..how long they take to breed baby worms?
i am feeding some normal fish pallets.may i know if feeding them with zoomed turtle pallets is better?
i read zoomed turtle pallets contains calcium and vitamin D3. are these necessary for newts?
thanks

Depends on which kind of earthworm you are trying to breed. If it's the typical garden worm you find outside that nearly all critter big and small love, then it's going to take awhile. Those are the rubellus variety. For years I too have kept them in a tote. They breed slowly. But I don't have that many animals I feed them to. I always stick a few pieces of bark from a tree in there. They love it. The more rotted it is the better.

If you have the other variety popular around here, Hortensis, they breed like rabbits and will quickly overtake your tub. They are your composting worm. When I had them I could pretty much throw anything in that tub and it would devoured in no time. Bad thing is the only critters that ate them were my axies. My newts(Cynops pyrrhogaster and Triturus dobrogicus) and even my large south american cichlids would spit them out in disgust.