NANFA-- raising (or at least keeping) blackworms

Geoff and Julie Kimber (gkimber2_at_earthlink.net)
Tue, 2 Oct 2001 20:10:06 -0500

When I lived in Tucson, a couple of LFS carried blackworms. I liked to
include them in the diet of my darters and other natives. THey are readily
accepted and comntrary to what I have been told, never caused a problem if
they made it to the gravel alive. In fact, I think the plants did a bit
better WITH blackworms than without them

Anyway, here in Lexington, none of the LFS sell blackworms and they are not
interested in doing so.

There is a website that will sell blackworms by the pound ($13.95/8OZ or
$19.95/16oz)

http://aquaticfoods.com/

I also found a pretty big article on Carolina Biological Supply that
discussed keeping and raising blackworms

http://www.carolina.com/tips/worm/worm.asp

The technique seems to basically be to put the worms in a tank with a couple
of inches of water and shredded paper in the bottom.

Has anyone had any success keeping blackworms? In tucson, I could pretty
much get 1 oz of worms to last a week or so, but I had a fair amount of die
off. If you've ever kept blackworms, you know how nasty this is. The idea
of 15 oz of these critters croaking in the fridge is not amusing. I also
don't want to chuck that kind of money down the sink

Geoff Kimber
lexington,KY

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