How do I get my bloodworm population to grow?

[accidentalfan]

I put some frozen bloodworms in my salamander tank about 3 months ago, and now have live bloodworms. I want to feed them to my Axie hatchlings, but I don't want to over-harvest. Is there a way I can encourage them to increase their numbers?

 

[Abrahm]

Is this an aquatic salamander you are speaking of or the terrestrial animals most people consider to go by that name? Blood worms are the larval stage of midges and will eventually metamorphose into full midges and fly away. There is no good way to culture them indoors that I know of.

More importantly, I think there is a next to zero chance of frozen bloodworms producing live bloodworms in your tank. It could certainly be possible that a female mosquito laid eggs in the water of your animal's enclosure in which case you should feed them out immediately or be prepared for a mosquito swarm.

What do these worms look like? We could possible help identify them for you, especially if you can provide a picture and tell us about the enclosure they are being kept in.

 

[jcb118]

I've gotten live bloodworms after feeding (thoroughly) frozen ones to my taricha. They live ones were all of very small size which indicates to me that they hatched from frozen eggs in the bloodworm batch.
I know for certain they were not mosquito larvae, and their presence correlates hand in hand with the times that I've used this bloodworm batch.
That might give the impression that these guys are reproducing in the tank, but as Abrahm said, that's not the case. blood worms are larvae.

 

[peterj]

Bloodworms are midge larvae and all the attempts at trying to culture them in captivity that I've heard of have failed because the adul insects won't mate/spawn unless they swarm which doesn't seem to happen in a confined area.

 

[accidentalfan]

Well, I have noticed odd flies in there. I'm afraid being quite new to the world of insects that I don't know what a Midge is, lol. They are very small, and I thought maybe they could have come from a frozen egg.
I'll get a picture if I can and get it in here. I want to know what I've been feeding my babies!

 

[Abrahm]

Those odd flies are most likely midges. They (should be) a non-biting fly that is reasonably small. If you want to see what they look like just do a search at Google Images for midge and you will get all sorts of pictures of them.

I also had no idea that there were eggs captured with the larvae and they were viable after freezing and shipping. That's pretty cool.

 

[accidentalfan]

Yes, I would say these are Midges. I did have a few bloodworms in there that survived for at least a while. I used some of this water(turned out to be a mistake..) to put in my daphnia culture, and there was a wiggling little blood worm.
I haven't seen one since though. I found a picture of these (Midges)on this site where it talks about safe food for hatchlings.
I knew I had seen the picture somewhere, I just remembered it wrong.
Thanks for your help, I'll learn this one mistake at a time! I'm very determined!
Thanks again.