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Small species of worms and nematodes

J

jesper

Guest
Doesn't newly hatched small newts like c.o. take white worms? White worms are about 1mm long right?
Why use grindals or micros?

I was also wondering about the use of C.elegans as food for larvae? It's a free-living nematode of about 1mm...
 
H

hayden

Guest
Jesper,
Baby whiteworms may be that small but adult whiteworms are bigger than 1 mm...
 
J

jesper

Guest
Ah, yes thought it was funny that they should be so small... Found another source stating that they become 2,5cm big....
 
J

jesper

Guest
Grindals become about 1.25 cm, microworms 1-2mm...correct?
I am a little bit interested in what is used to feed larvae, from hatching to morph.

I've raised my first batch on bbs(artemia) the first week and then small copepods. I could probably start them directly on small copepods..
So if I would like to replace with worms, do I need several types or is one type or worms ok?
Say grindals all the way?
 
J

jesper

Guest
Wait, how can I have forgotten about the article at CC?
blush.gif


Anyway I'm interested in what you personally use to raise your larvae(depends on size I know but...).

(Message edited by Jesper on November 28, 2004)
 
J

john

Guest
You can use white worms or grindal worms once larvae hit about 18 mm; less if you use the smaller worms in the culture. Microworms are a first food. I'm using microworms to supplement my low Daphnia numbers.
 
J

jesper

Guest
Isn't it a pain feeding Daphnia to small larvae?
I suppose you have too get newly hatched daphnia for larvae, mine still can't eat Daphnia(magna..)(they try though
biggrin.gif
) or are you a Moina man?

Guess I'll have to go for microworms then. It must mean a lot of work finding the small worms in a white worm colony....

So John, what do you think about trying to feed C.elegans?
 
J

john

Guest
With Daphnia you put the adults in the larva tank a few days before feeding begins and the adult Daphnia produce young over the following days. Just add more every day or so. Easy peezy
happy.gif
.

Small worms in a white worm colony, well, I just put a pile in and probably 50% in a growing population are under 1 cm long. The larger ones make for interesting entertainment - like a man trying to swallow an anaconda...

C.elegans? Rings a bell, but species name is totally unhelpful without the genus name. It makes me so mad that people quote "T. bla" and "C. whatever". On the first mention of a species name you should include the genus. Only after the genus has been mentioned once can you use the abbreviation of the genus name :p.
 
J

jesper

Guest
You should know what C.elegans is John....
lame.gif

It is quite famous in the scientific(biology/bioscience) community.
Everybody just refers to it as C.elegans, so I assumed you knew what I meant.
 
P

pin-pin

Guest
White worms do indeed get past 1mm in length, although they are about 1mm in width/diameter.

Grindals are often used with larvae because of their size, but also their reproduction rate is much faster than that of white worms. There's a few good pages by the Bug Farm (http://www.livefoodcultures.com/) about the differences between grindals and white worms.

If you're raising c.orientalis from larvae to metamorphosed juveniles, there's discussion about how the red belly colour of cynops requires other types of food besides white worms. (Talk to Nate and Jen.)

I'm a big fan of white worms, I usually gutload the worms with fish flakes for 24hrs before feeding to my animals. They're easy to care for and quite sturdy if you don't heat them past 80F. They also survive a few days in the water with no problems.
 
E

edward

Guest
When I was breeding Notopthalmus, Cynops cyanureus, and Pseudobranchus axantha at work, I just chopped blackworms or sorted them quickly for small individuals.

Ed
 
J

jesper

Guest
Yeah, wish I could get blackworms...
On the other hand my goal is breeding all my newt food myself and I heard that blackworms reproduce quite slowly eh?
 
E

edward

Guest
Its not worth the time and effort for me as I can buy .25 lbs (.11 kgs) of blackworms for $6.99 (I don't know the current conversion rate for Euros) locally.

Ed
 
J

jesper

Guest
Blackworms are not available here, I think one online store in the UK have them that's about it.
 
J

jeffrey

Guest
Hi Jesper

The first batches of larvae I successfully raised I fed small Daphnia and introduced Grindal worms after the first couple of weeks.

The larvae I have at the moment have been on Grindal worms from the outset plus a few tiny bloodworms that came in the bags.

I do have Moina culturing but not enough to feed to the larvae yet. Plus I am finding it interesting seeing how light these larvae are in comparison to the ones that were fed on Daphnia.
 
J

joseph

Guest
My C. o were raised on daphnia and microworms. The microworms worked well except that if you fed to many into one spot it apparently annoyed the larvae. It takes a while for them to grow out of microworms and some will still take them even with all four legs. The only annoying thing is that microworm cultures require lots of attending to to keep running as you need to set up new cultures regularly. I've almost lost mine a few times when I forgot to set a new culture before going on a trip of when one crashes. Thats why its important to have at least 2 running at one time(i usually have 3) of different ages.

BTw, my biggest larvae is showing some adult like characteristics...Whoot!
 
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