Fantastic Whiteworms

[Paul B]

This Whiteworm culture is a few years old and the original worms were very small and skinny. In time the new generations are much longer and fatter. I don't know why. But these new worms are also much harder to separate from the soil they live in. The original worms used to swarm by the hundreds on a piece of plain cracker but these no longer like crackers or anything else that I can figure out. I feed them bread with yogurt on it along with some nutritional yeast and I am not sure they eat it as I don't find them on it like they used to be. I know they are eating something and it may be the products of decomposition from the bread as my blackworm culture does.
I Have been looking at them under a microscope with various types of food around them and so far have not seen them lick their lips at anything. Their "bellies" are full of something as I can clearly see that when magnified, I am just not sure what it is.
Whiteworms live for many hours in salt water, unlike blackworms which croak almost instantly with even a mention of salt.
These Whiteworms are a fantastic food for mandarins as I would imagine they have much more nutrition in them than pods and mandarins will eat them until they come out of their ears, if they had ears that is.
I built a whiteworm feeder for the mandarins along with my new born brine shrimp feeder because the other fish will eat the white worms before the mandarins will even blink because as we know, mandarind don't do anything fast. They are not exactly tuna.





Here is a video of the whiteworm feeder. I put the worms in the tube above the surface, they go down into the feeder and the mandarin could stay in there until he finishes every worm. Of course my copperband isn't speaking to me because whiteworms are his favorite food and he can't get them so he has to eat cake.

 

[Jim]

love that vid, I suppose you can only keep out the wide-bodies. Id like to eventually try a mandarin in a half year or so but in whats probably too small a space with company

 

[Paul B]

Mandarins are extremely cool and I have been keeping them for many years. They are a long lived fish if you know their requirements and not a get and forget fish. They do need a little help but the beauty of them make them worthwhile.

 

[diana a]

Where did you find the white worms? How difficult are mandarins to keep? It's a beautiful fish. I was keeping my current tank reef only but my daughter asked to add two Ocellaris Clownfish.

 

[Paul B]

Diana, I wrote this about mandarins. Paul B’s Unique Perspective on Keeping Mandarins

They are not a beginner fish or a new or small tank fish. You need to feed them every day or have a very large, mature system, more than a few years old.
I got the whiteworms on like, I just Googled White Worm Culture