Re: [GSAS-Member] What is this red worm? (Bug Tank)

["Clifford Miller" <clifford@clevergeek.com>]

I tried to take about 60 photos of this tank tonight...and got nothing. 
=)  It's an acrylic tank with medium/low light, and has a lot of floating
plants.  Flash pictures come out as glare, and non-flash pictures come out
as blur.  I took a small horrible video, so I'll try to get it uploaded to
youtube and at least provide a vague idea of what it looks like.

Really it's just a 30 tall that started from two scoops of pond water and
some leaves/sediment from a park around a mile away from our house.  I
haven't added anything since last fall (other than the cherry shrimp, and
some fairy shrimp eggs that didn't ever do anything that I saw), but new
things keep popping up (or I finally notice them, more likely).

I've had several kinds of daphnia (one is moina, I think...they swim in a
very smooth motion, without the jerky movements I'm used to with
daphnia...), cyclose, ostrocods, several kinds of aquatic worms, several
kinds of scuds (although the larger species seems to have lost out, I
haven't seen any in a while).  There are a few different kinds of
freshwater arthropods (kind of look like 3/4 inch freaky sow-bugs), moss
animals, and several kinds of random bugs-- beatles, an aquatic spider
(which I think also lost out), etc...

I considered trying to catch some dragonfly larva or some larger beetles
to have something bigger to watch, but I was afraid they would wipe out
all the smaller life, and I frequently use the scuds for killi-food.  They
crawl all over everything, and jet through the water on their backs alot
like fairy shrimp do.

I spend as much time watching the stuff in the shoreline-pond tank as I do
any of the fish...it's got me thinking I need to start a shoreline-ocean
tank as well, and start snatching critters off the beach by our place
(which with my luck is probably against the law, although it's perfectly
legal for hundreds of people to smash them under-foot all day...).

Cliff



> Thanks for your comments Cliff.  I gotta tell ya though, the thing that
> most
> got my attention is the bug tank.  Would you share more about this totally
> interesting idea of yours?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com
> [mailto:gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com] On Behalf Of Clifford Miller
> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 5:19 PM
> To: Greater Seattle Aquarium Society member chat
> Subject: Re: [GSAS-Member] What is this red worm?
>
>
>
> I use a (dollar store) turkey baster to grab individual detritus worms
> (see
> http://www.aquarium-pond-answers.com/2007/03/trematodes-and-nematodes-in-fis
> h.html
> for a photo) from my gammerus tank when I'm using them as killi-treats,
> but I haven't found the magic trick to getting them to reproduce in
> numbers similar to (non-aquatic) redworms...
>
> I've seen plenty of diy how-to's on blackworms and tubifex, but I think
> it's hard to produce sufficient amounts without a pond...   Someone on
> killitalk posted some photos of a "professional" setup (it looked nicer
> than anything I've set up for my fish!) a month or two ago for culturing
> blackworms...but I think for the size of the rack, I'd stick with the
> redworms that will produce all the food my fish can eat for the price of a
> free bucket or two from the grocery store bakery.
>
> I kind of like the way they "float" on the substrate surface (um,
> poor-man's coral, anyone??)...they're a little mezmorizing.  I'm
> embarrased to say one of my nicest aquarium (29gal acrylic eclipse) now
> housing nothing but worms, bugs, shrimp, and other pond-life.  It actually
> makes a fairly cool display.
>
> Cliff
>
>
>
>> Thanks, Bryan.
>>
>> Indeed, they are in a  tank I have been ignoring.  Is there an easy way
>> to
>> harvest them and feed them top my other tanks?!
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com
>> [mailto:gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com] On Behalf Of Bryan Nichols
>> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 2:49 PM
>> To: Greater Seattle Aquarium Society member chat
>> Subject: Re: [GSAS-Member] What is this red worm?
>>
>> Tubifex
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Size: 2 - 5 cm, 3/4 - 2 inches
>>
>>
>>
>> Red, yummy worms (used as fish food too) which live inside the
>> substrate. If disturbed and dig up, they will form a ball, if left
>> alone, they will gather pieces of sand/gravel around their body forming
>> a sort of tube where they live in and they'll stick their head out of
>> the substrate looking like red hairgrass. If there's lots of them, the
>> substrate is too dirty and might be good idea to do something about it.
>> Only a few Tubifex in the substrate isn't anything to worry about
>> though. They are harmless.
>>
>> --- On Mon, 6/30/08, Shango Los <Shango@shangolos.com> wrote:
>> From: Shango Los <Shango@shangolos.com>
>> Subject: [GSAS-Member] What is this red worm?
>> To: "'Greater Seattle Aquarium Society member chat'"
>> <gsas-member@thekrib.com>
>> Date: Monday, June 30, 2008, 2:38 PM
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> In the same tank that I found that small white worm-like creature last
>> week,
>> I now find some sort of red worm.  They are protruding about ¼ to ½ of
>> an
>> inch out from the substrate.  They don?t seem to move; just sway back
>> and
>> forth in the current. They are red.  They are all over the place and
>> have
>> all arrived in the last 7 days.  Any idea what it would be?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Shango
>>
>>
>>
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