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Breeding California Blackworms 
 
 
 
Blackworms are a great source of live fishfood. You can buy blackworms at most fish stores, but they aren't cheap! You can breed your own blackworms at home and save yourself a lot of money!
 
Here you will learn how to breed Blackworms, the easy way. 
 
 
 
This picture is close-up of a California Blackworm. 
 
You can see how the blackworm has one-end sticking out of the aquarium gravel.  
 
 
 
These worms are a tasty treat for fish of many sizes. Extra or leftover Blackworms can be dried out and fed whole to large fish or crushed up and fed to smaller fish. Extra blackworms can be frozen and saved for future use. Having blackworms that are free from parasites, home grown and healthy is well worth the small amount of effort that it takes to breed them.
 
Blackworms are completely aquatic. They live out their entire lives underwater. Blackworms will not survive cold temperatures for long. Some people think that since blackworms are usually found in the fridge at your local fish store that the fridge seems like a good place for them to be stored.
 
Putting the blackworms in the refrigerator is only used for prolonging the shelf life of the worms. Since they are housed or transported in such small containers, the worms would dirty up the water quickly. To prevent the worms from fouling up the water , they are kept in the fridge which slows down their metabolism. In the fridge at such cold temps the worms should produce less waste. Using this method the blackworms will need to be drained and rinsed daily and will still starve to death. They can't be fed in the container that's kept in the fridge or else the water will foul up even faster.
 
If you store blackworms in the frige, this most certainly isn't the easiest way and definitely not the cheapest way of keeping blackworms. The fridge method is only used for blackworms that are to be sold commercially for resale.
 
Anybody that is in the business of blackworms, from the breeder to the local fish store and even the online fish store, won't tell you that it is easier to breed blackworms than it is to breed guppies or rabbits. Why would they if it means they won't be able to keep selling you weekly shipment of half dead, stinky worms.
 
Blackworm cultures over the internet are usually expensive. Unless your able to resell the extra blackworms. You will need to have many hungry fish in order to feed off one half of a pound of live worms before they start to die off.
 
Believe me, dead blackworms smell foul! So foul in fact that I almost gave up on using them forever. That is until I found out how easy they are to breed. Now I breed my own blackworms right in my fish room. They don't even take up a whole tank considering that in that tank I am also breeding Apple snails, Bristle nose plecostomus, Trumpet snails, Physa pond snails, Giant Columbian ramshorn snials, Planorbis pond snails, red cherry shrimp, several species of aquatic plants and Ivory Mystery snails all in the same 50 gallon tank.
 
All of these species get along fine with the blackworms because the worms retract into the gravel when threatened and the other species in the tank don't like to chase or hunt down their meals since they are all scavengers.
 
  
 
    
 
 
 
Here you can see a few California Blackworms. 
 
These blackworms are sticking-up out of the aquarium gravel. 
 
 
 
You most likely won't find a starter culture of blackworms that's for sale any time soon. This is because it is "impossible" to breed enough blackworms. I hate to say this but that is just what 'they' want you to think. They make good money because nobody knows just how easy it is to breed blackworms.
 
With that being said, look on the internet for some reasonably priced blackworms or buy a small portion from your local fish store. Either way you will need to obtain a clump of live California black worms.
 
 
 
Learn More About >> Setting-Up a Breeding Tank to get complete information and instructions for setting up and maintaining a breeder tank.
 
 
 
The breeder tank set up
 
This type of set up will encourage instead of hinder the breeding process of California black worms.
 
A breeder tank should have the following :
 
• Gravel
• Live aquatic plants or plastic aquarium plants
• An air stone driven by an air pump (if necessary)
• Decorations safe for an aquarium
• A clump or two of filter floss
• Pond snails to clean up any left over fishfoods
• A thermometer
• A heater (if necessary)
 
The blackworm breeding tank must NEVER contain any of the following :
 
* Predatory fish (even small guppies)
* Water Pumps that suck up and push water
* Internal or external filters
 
 
 
See my Breeder Tank article and My article Titled :
 
 
 
Once you have your aquarium all set up and ready to be a breeding tank, instead of adding fish or shrimp you will only add in the clump of live blackworms.
 
 
 
Blackworm breeding instructions and information
 
It will take a while before you start to see the worms sticking their heads out of the gravel. This might even take a few weeks. Don't worry if your blackworms are hiding because that just means that they are comfortable in their environment and this will entice them to start breeding.
 
Continue to feed your blackworms once or twice daily. Stay on top of the water quality in your blackworm breeder tank. Blackworms will eat algae wafer debris that your snails leave behind as well as sift and pick through the detritus. Don't forget to feed the other critters in the tank. Feed the snails and other critters; fish food flakes and shrimp pellets.
 
 
 
If the blackworm breeder tank is 40 gallons or larger you can add the followng tankmates :
 
• Giant Columbian Ramshorn snails
• Asolene Spixi Snails
• Pond Snails
• Trumpet Snails
• Apple Snails
• Mystery Snails
• Bristle Nose Plecos
• Freshwater Shrimp
 
ventually you will start to see small blackworms moving through the water. I guess you can say that they will be wiggling or swimming through the water. At this point your California blackworms are successfully breeding.
 
Increase the amount of food that you are feeding to accommodate the new born worms. The baby blackworms don't seem to want to hide as much as the older blackworms do.  
 
  
 
Harvesting California Blackworms 
 
Patiently wait and take good care of your blackworm tank. Once the blackworms are forming clumps on top of the gravel you can harvest them.
 
Make sure that you always leave plenty of worms in the breeder tank to continue making new generations of blackworms. Harvest in moderation, don't wipe out your entire blackworm colony in a few feedings. If you notice the blackworm population getting low, stop harvesting from them until the worm population gets bigger.
 
 
 
How to Harvest California Blackworms
 
To harvest your worms you can use what I call a baby-sucker (which is just a turkey baster) or you can also try to do a careful gravel vac to get the blackworms out of the gravel.  
 
After harvesting, you can feed the blackworms directly to your fish. 
 
 
 
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