This was a study done quite some time ago with using different food to get guppies to produce more fry.Beef heart and earthworms were also found to increase the guppies lifespan up to 50%.

I have never had much success with whiteworms with my guppies.I have been using earthworms every other day with my guppies and I am very happy with the results.Very strange to see the position of the witeworms on the list considering they are related to earthworms.

FOOD TOTAL YOUNG MALES FEMALES

1: Earthworms, chopped 178 87 91

2: Earthworms, chopped frozen 164 81 83

3: Beef heart 143 64 79

4: Tubifex 141 61 80

5: Brine Shrimp, Hatched 101 48 53

6: Gordon’s Formula (Liver) 79 39 40

7: Brine Shrimp, Adult Frozen 76 37 39

8: Dry Food, flake & regular 52 24 28

9: Freeze-dry (brine shrimp & tubifex) 40 23 17

10: Leaf lettuce 37 21 17

11: Peas 28 19 9

12: Farina 18 9 9

13: White worms 16 7 9

14: Oat Meal 12 5 7

15: Bran 9 5 4

16: Bread 6 5 1

just to add to this.

17. Earthworms and dry food -194

18. Earthworms, beef heart and lettuce- 221

how do you prepare them Peter? Wouldn't they be full of dirt?

sue

you can starve them??? or you can do what we did at primary school when we used to have contests on who could eat the most worms?? and theyd win a lollipop which was alot to me then, and grab them from the top get you thumb and index finger and run it down the worm tightly, it sqeezes out all the dirt and poo!

cheers Shae

I use a sharp single edge razor blade.I chop the worms up roughly then put the bits into some fresh water.The slime forms ito clump once they are added to the water.I then put them into an old fish net and rince them under a hose.Then back onto my chopping board for more chopping.I rince them again in a brineshrimp net and the bits are small enough for the guppies to eat.

I'd have a problem chopping up live worms :-? is there a way to humanely kill them first?

sue

Yeah, by chopping them up. They've got about as much brains as your average potato, so do you worry about humanely killing your potatos before peeling them? hehe. I suppose you could freeze them. Might make them easier to chop up too.

Go out on a showery night and collect ya nite crawlers into a margy container, then place into a deep freeze. Don't bother cleaning, that just takes away food that can be utilized by the fish.

When the worms are frozen into a solid block, just use the cheese grater.

Don't tell the missus or mum before you clean it and put it away.

You could refreeze the "gratings" into a thin flat sheet to be fed later by snapping off the size required for your fish.

Alan 104

very cool idea alan!!

You can also thoroughly soak a hessian sack and lay it on the lawn. There will be heaps of worms congregate under it.

Bill.

Thanks so much for that suggestion Alan!!! I was struggling with an idea of how to "put them to sleep" and secondly how gross it would be to cut them up... So freeze n grate is cool!!!!!!!

Oddly, hacking up tubifex doesn't worry me, but theres something so big and slimy about earth worms.

I have tried whiteworms with my guppies and they don't agree with my guppies so I stopped feeding them whiteworms.

Has anyone got any idea's on why earthworms don't give me any problems.So closely related but have a different effect.Even females that were not giving birth or not having many fry are getting so fat now it's not funny.I had a young female three and a half months old from my H/B red strain give birth to at least 40 young yesterday.

were does daphnia sit on that table?

Shae 250

does this apply to all livebearers or just guppies?>

you can now get an earthworm flake food , its cheep under $8

its mixed with Tubifex and blood worms as well.

who makes it, i.e. what brand?

nutra fin max , man does it stink!!!!!

Ok, I bought some Nutrifin Max stuff that was a combination of flake and tubiflex the other day, no bloodworms in it though - is that the same stuff?

yes , i think if you read the back of the pack it will say blood worms , i could be wrong