20 gallon breeding tank?

[smh2847]

I recently moved my yellow bullhead catfish out of his 20 gallon long aquarium, and into a 55 gallon aquarium. now i have an empty 20 long. i was thinking that i could start breeding some feeder fish for my catfish in the 55, and i was wondering if any of you catfish geniuses know how to go about it. for species to breed, i was thinking crayfish, rosy reds, or wild minnows in the creek that i found. the wild minnows look like they are breeding because the bigger ones are red and the smaller ones aren't. any more species suggestions/ help? thanks!

[apistomaster]

Raise earthworms. I know no better food for conditioning fish large enough to eat them.
They may be grown in many different containers. No need to tie an aquarium up.
Note: Avoid "Red Wrigglers". Breed Lumbricus terrestris AKA "Night Crawlers".

[syno321]

Raise earthworms. I know no better food for conditioning fish large enough to eat them.
They may be grown in many different containers. No need to tie an aquarium up.
Note: Avoid "Red Wrigglers". Breed Lumbricus terrestris AKA "Night Crawlers".

I don't mean to hijack this thread but I'm just curious as to why you avoid Red Wrigglers, otherwise known as compost worms. I've raised them for years, and they're the easiest of all live foods to produce in numbers. All the myriad of fish and caudate species that I've raised over the years have eagerly consumed them. I had a good friend who was an excellent breeder of discus and Zebra Plecos use the red wrigglers as a protein staple. He raised literally thousands of Zebra plecos feeding them to his breeders.

[apistomaster]

I should have written: Avoid the "earthworm" species Eisenia fetida.
They can be confused with some of the tastier species of smaller worms.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Avoid the "earthworm" species Eisenia fetida

All the myriad of fish and caudate species that I've raised over the years have eagerly consumed them. I had a good friend who was an excellent breeder of discus and Zebra Plecos use the red wrigglers as a protein staple. He raised literally thousands of Zebra plecos feeding them to his breeders

You are both right, Eisenia fetida (syn. E. foetida) is the earthworm to avoid.

The problem is with the common names. Eisenia fetida is the "Brandling" or "Tiger Worm", and it isn't really the true "Red Wriggler" at all. That is probably Lumbricus rubellus (or L. castaneus), which is red and wriggles ("Tiger worms" are pink, stripy and noticeably sluggish). There is also red species of Eisenia, again also sometimes sold as the "Red Wriggler" E. andrei, and these aren't eaten either.

If you aren't sure what you've got, an Eisenia ssp. will exude yellow coelomic fluid when broken open, Lumbricus rubellus/castaneus don't exude fluid, and the pinched off section will thrash around vigorously.

If you can get Lumbricus rubellus/castaneus they are excellent food for all sorts of fish, and easy to culture using a box of compost and fed with vegetable peelings etc. Lumbricus rubellus is native to Europe and a very widely spread "invasive alien" in N. America. I collected my worms from our compost heap (in the UK), you are looking for a very lively dark red worm with a lighter yellow/brown underside. Some of mine might actually be Dendrodrilus rubidus (also dark red and lively, with a purple sheen), if they are they don't exude coelomic fluid, and the fish are very keen on them.

If you are in the UK there is a good earthworm ID resource at <http://www2.uclan.ac.uk/scitechmedia/ea ... 0index.swf>

Another worm that is OK, which you can buy for feeding herpetiles or fishing bait is Dendrobaena veneta, it isn't as good as L. rubellus etc., but the fish will eat them. They produce a small amount of coelomic fluid when broken.

cheers Darrel

[Narwhal72]

I agree with everyone else that earthworms are better for growing than breeding feeders.

I should also point out that you will need multiple tanks and much larger ones in order to breed in quantity enough to feed. You can't raise fry in the same tank as your adults so you will need a separate fry tank as well as a larger tank for juveniles to grow out in. So that is a minimum of 3 tanks right there.

Also minnows breed seasonally so they will only generally breed at certain times of the year. Livebearers are better as they tend to breed year round. But their fecundity is much lower so you will need to setup multiple tanks of breeders in order to breed sufficient quantity.

For reference sake, When stocking a pond you need 100,000 gambusia (or similarly sized prey) to sustain 1000 bluegill, 1000 bluegill to sustain 1 largemouth bass or bullhead catfish.

Andy

[apistomaster]

Darrel,
Great information about the worms.
I began collecting "Nightcrawlers" about 55 years ago. "Nightcraweling" on my hands and knees through wet lawn with a red filtered flashlight. They are very light sensitive and quickly withdraw into their tunnel but they aren't as sensitive to red light. I never grew mine since our yards usually provided an abundant supply.
These worked wonders for conditioning all sorts of basically carnivorous fishes.
About 20 years ago I bought and tried Red Wrigglers sold as bait and none of the fish would touch them. I just assumed they were the stinking worm. It all makes more sense to me now.

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Thanks Larry it has taken me a long time to get this far with worm ID.

I used to collect night crawlers, (mainly Lumbricus terrestris) when I still went fishing, but I only keep small fish they are a too large to be really useful as food. Since I've had a compost heap in the garden I've found that you get a huge biomass of worms in them, and that they are really easy to culture in a thin layer of potting compost, and fed with vegetable peelings etc. All I needed to be able to do was differentiate the ones that the fish liked to eat, from the ones they didn't.

I've found this that might be of interest to those who are in the USA <http://goliadfarms.com/shop/lumbricus-r ... -red-worm/>

I put Red Worms in the Grindal worm cultures as well now, where they act as a "canary". If all the Red worms are on compost surface it is time to re-culture the Grindal worms, as a crash is imminent.

cheers Darrel

[racoll]

I used to feed Eisenia fetida to my fishes. They had no problems eating them.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I used to feed Eisenia fetida to my fishes. They had no problems eating them.

That is interesting, sounds like it might depend upon the fish species.

It was when I found that Apistogramma wouldn't eat Eisenia fetida I started looking a bit more closely at specific earthworm specicies.

There is quite a lot of evidence from the vermicomposting industry that Eisenia fetida is unpalatable to some fish and that they don't thrive on them even if eaten.

This is from "Literature Review of Worms in Waste Management" <http://www.recycledorganics.com/publica ... eview1.pdf>

Eisenia fetida, the most common composting worm used in worm farming, is unsatisfactory for use as live bait because, when threatened, it will exude a fetid, unpleasant-smelling yellow coelomic liquid (Murphy, 1993; Edwards and Bohlen, 1996). Also, several trials using E. fetida as a vermimeal feedstock for rainbow trout and eels found this species to be unpalatable and will not support fish growth (Stafford and Tacon, 1988).

The references are:
Edwards, C.A. & Bohlen, P.J. (1996) "Biology and Ecology of Earthworms". 3rd edn. Chapman & Hall: London.
Murphy, D. (1993) "Earthworms in Australia: a blueprint for a better environment". Hyland House: South Melbourne.
Stafford, E.A. and Tacon, A.G.J. (1988) The use of earthworms as a food for rainbow trout Salmo gairdneri. In "Earthworms in Waste and Environmental Management" (eds, C.A. Edwards & E.F. Neuhauser). Academic Publishing: The Hague, The Netherlands.

cheers Darrel

[Richard B]

i think you may be right when you say it depends on the species that 'brandlings' are fed to Darrel.

All my Synos eat them without hesitation: as do chaca, liosomadoras, bagroides, mystus, tachysurus, channallabes, heteropneustes, chyrsichthys, anadoras, ameiurus, malapterurus, pimelodus, phractocephalus, batrochoglanis, & probably some genera i've missed - A wide selection of varied catfish genera.

I've also not had a problem with them when carp fishing.

I've collected them from compost heaps & transferred them to bait boxes containing damp sphagnum moss for a couple of days before feeding.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

i think you may be right when you say it depends on the species that 'brandlings' are fed to Darrel.

All my Synos eat them without hesitation: as do chaca, liosomadoras, bagroides, mystus, tachysurus, channallabes, heteropneustes, chyrsichthys, anadoras, ameiurus, malapterurus, pimelodus, phractocephalus, batrochoglanis, & probably some genera i've missed - A wide selection of varied catfish genera.

This is proving a highly informative thread, I wonder if Apistomaster's problem with Eisenia fetida were also with Dwarf cichilds, hopefully he'll come on and pass comment.

A thought occurs that both carp and catfish would engulf the worm and swallow it whole?, whereas the dwarf cichlid might "process it" in their pharyngeal mill, potentially exposing them to the unpleasant taste of the coelomic fluid?

The only catfish I own that get earthworms (but not Eisenia fetida) are a couple of

Hypancistrus

(L333, L129) and I've never actually seen them eat the worms, although all the evidence would suggest that they do.

cheers Darrel

[Richard B]

Darrel - all the quoted genera did indeed take the worms 'whole'and the genera quoted are also not fussy feeders

My synos will 'chew up' large 'terrestris' when they are real big ones - sort of like sawing/chomping off a length to gulp down. The 'brandlings' are generally of a size to be eaten whole by even my smallest synos - Lucipinnis & Robertsi

[unblinded]

Agreed on Eisenia fetida being fed to Synodontis. They eat them up without hesitation. I can understand why a fish with a smaller mouth may not care for them because they seem to be hard to break off into small pieces. My Mbuna fishes from lake Malawi will eat them also.

[smh2847]

this tank would be mostly for fun, and to feed some live fish every once and a while.

[Narwhal72]

If you are only going to have the one tank then you would need to use livebearers like guppies, platies, or swordtails.

These would be the only tanks where you could raise the breeding adults and the fry in the same tank. But the amount of fish produced annualy will be low and never enough to feed the catfish regularly.