Banana worms for baby newts

[vincent]

Hi all for those of us who rear newts/salamanders .I have always found rearing baby brine shrimp a pain ,a lot of messing about and very time consuming however ! a friend of mine who breeds fish, gave me a colony of banana worms. They are microscopic worms that feed on banana ,the colony itself is sat on a base of damp porridge and a piece of banana is placed on top, the colony itself is housed in a margarine tub and fed every month.The worms themselves are hard to visualize with the naked eye and appear as a velvet coating on the fruit .The worms are best removed using a kiddies paint brush and can be lifted of the surface of the fruit then washed out in your fry tank, they will live a couple of days in the water if you place your fry tanks on black paper the worms can be seen easier. When not needed any more just let the colony dry out to restart your colony just place a piece of banana back in the tub. My Italian crested, alpine and sharp ribs will take these until they are big enough for white/blood worm. Saving you money especially if you are buying daphnia from shops Hope this helps the worms can be bought through the net

 

[Dasher]

wow that sounds like a great idea. ill look into it thanks.

Dasher=

 

[Jennewt]

These worms are also called microworms. In my experience, larvae don't grow as quickly on microworms, but they are certainly an option if Daphnia or baby brine shrimp are not available.

 

[michael]

I started using banana worms where I would use baby brine shrimp. I switch to chopped blackworms when the larvae put a little size on. Those fish keepers have 3 kinds of microworms they use. Banana worms, walter worms, and, regular microworms. Banana worms are supposed to survive longer in water than walter worms or regular microworms. I just raise my banana worms on oatmeal. I'll have to try tossing some banana in one of the cultures.

 

[eljorgo]

Hey Vincent. I am raising 100 marmoratus larvae and 30 Cynops orientalis. I can tell you that if i didnt have the baby artemia to hatch my larvae would be all dead by now. This because i have several banana worms [Microworms] and the baby animals that feeded on them started to die. So i just quit that and let all the cultures dye.
Like Jen said BBS are much more recommended and cause a bigger growth rare in the first days of life.
Cheers,

 

[vincent]

Microworms are a lot smaller than banana worms, so I'd check to see if I had the right ones,raised loads of Alpines and sharp ribbed last year and found these were good for the first day or so then went on to daphnia and white worms then frozen blood worms. Just found it easier than BBS pots of aereated salt water. Plus as they will survive dormant in a pot until needed and they live quite a while in water so the babies have time to feed. Its just more thing to try and hopefully achieve success
Cheers.