How to Culture Live Blackworms Like a Pro! Live Food for Newts, Axolotls, Corydoras Bottom Feeders

[@gregjonesonline]

Have you tried live blackworms? what do you feed your worms? Let me know below!

[@jonayvvv494]

I’ve and I absolutely love them, just found them a tiny bit tricky to maintain but your video has clarified a lot of questions to me , thanks a lot!!

[@AndreasKiefer-cv6rh]

Might be a little late but how do you get them to reproduce or do they do it on their own?

[@fritzwilhelm8258]

How large was your starter culture? Does their number double in one or two months, and what enables that? Do they cut themselves in the rocks as they travel to food? Sorry for the barrage of questions, but you, pretty much alone on the internet, seem to know what you're talking about on this subject. Subscriber.

[@gubnavnania]

11111111111111111111111111111¹111111111111¹1111111111¹111¹1¹11¹¹11111¹11¹11111111¹1111¹¹¹1¹¹¹1¹1¹1¹1¹1¹¹¹11¹¹11¹11¹½1😊😅​@@jonayvvv494

[@pelhamsaquatics]

As a fish breeder I must say, this is the best black worm culture process I have ever seen.. so good! I’m beginning to breed wild type bettas soon and I will, if I can find some California black worms, I will try to mimic this as closely as I can thank you. mr jones🙂 just found this channel this has more than earned a subscriber ⭐️

[@Fraggy901]

My local pet store sells live blackworms, ask around and you may find an unexpected source…

[@pelhamsaquatics]

@@Fraggy901 I will do that thank you!🙂

[@FatherFish]

excellent system. You have found answers to difficult problems. VERY impressive.

[@terrywood2593]

This helps a lot I just bought some baby axolotls and literally every aquarium store and even the store I bought my axolotls didn't have any live blood or black worms, so I bought 1/4 pounds of black worms from eastern aquatics and will be making my own farm.

[@AndrewFishman]

Don't confuse blood and black worms. Blood worms are in fact not a worm, they are the larvae of a chrominid midge. They can be cultured in your own yard by putting a tub of water with some leaves and stuff in the bottom in the shade of some trees. You will be able to harvest mosquito larvae and blood worm in a short period. Blood worm will be found in the leaves at the bottom of the tub, They make little tunnels of mulm and mud to hide in. Swirling the leaves around will dislodge them for netting. If the tub gets a bit of light, it might go green, this is great. Green water is good to feed small fish and fry. Daphnia might also colonise the tub, or you can set up a culture in a similar way, just use a lid with some fly mesh covered holes to keep out mosquitos, sawflies and dragon/damsel flies and introduce the daphnia to green water. Careful feeding daphnia to Axys though as they can get caught in the gills and irritate the animal. However, you won't find a food that will put weight on a young fish or amphibian like daphnia will. You can put them into the fridge to chill them and slow them before feeding.

[@Laserloungemaker]

Hi Greg. Can you do an update video on these?

[@suenosdeltanganyika]

awesome farm! I use spinach as a main food. 😊

[@finsterhund]

Incredibly envious of that newt

[@Cycnoches2012]

Thanks!

[@gregjonesonline]

[@shelbytaylor4634]

Honestly, thank you! I just started a 10gal tank a week or so ago... And... my worms migrated into the filter sponge and what not. 😂 I came across this video while searching for how to get them out. This is very informative and helpful. I'll be readdressing this tank asap.

[@claywise43]

Great idea and video. I just wish I was one of those local friends lol

[@karenhansen388]

I loved your video. I had a culture for almost a year and it crashed. I haven't had a successful one since. I am going to try again with many of your recommendations, but I do not have a sump system. I fed spirulina, yeast, and Bacter AE. I will try the veggies or spirulina wafers. I had a valve at the bottom of the bin and drained about 60% of the water weekly to replace with fresh. I had an air stone. They were for my Africa dwarf frogs.

[@NYGOLD]

I really like the set-up, it looks like you can even go 2 high with that.

[@TMAquatics]

Nice. Was just talking about this topic yesterday.

[@KayHalliday-yf3ms]

My original blackworm culture is in a 10 gallon tank( 2+ years now- thought it had crashed several times) that also now has snails and daphnia. I mostly feed mine the same as you, but also any algae I remove from other tanks. I also seed all my new tanks with them and can then harvest them from other tanks. The best other tank is mostly rabbit snails and neocaridina shrimp . Great set up, but not in my space in UK

[@gregjonesonline]

My first culture was 10g with large gravel and it was never enough to feed from on a daily basis, UK space is at a premium though so I get it

[@johnowilliams3699]

looks good mate

[@Mae-nr7wr]

cool setup, love the worms and the cute snails

[@jc.5537]

Can you do an update on these? This is probably the best black worm culture setup Ive seen on YT. Cheers.

[@gregjonesonline]

Yes I've been meaning to do an update

[@az_street_walker4181]

I would also like an update just now learned about black worms (I own goldfish and gold dojo loaches) and been wanting to upgrade their diet slowly but surely and would like to begin farming black worms for them I don’t think I’d be able to get the black worms to hold in their tanks respectively although that would be cool I’d love to have them to be able to “hunt” for their food

[@pauledwards5607]

Best video on the subject I've seen. The advantage to doing it this way in a large shallow tub is water conservation for one, but a larger body of water is far more stable; it doesn't need air stones, nor do you have to worry about the water going stagnant. Doing it in a sump is the way to go. Did some research last night and took 3 black worms and cut them all in half. They are all doing well the next day. The dbl their numbers every 4 weeks anyway without cutting them up. I'd set up more than one tray like he has here, maybe ne above it on a rack if you do Cories or something that takes a lot of worms. I fed my CW 106 Cories, which I rarely see eating and BOTH of them ( I only have 2, looking for more) shook their heads violently before eating several. I've never seen that. I'm taking the remaining worms I do have a starting a little culture. They LOVE zuchini.

[@Glasshouses-tp7gm]

After seeing your video on blackworms, I pretty much did my setup for farming. Mine is similar to yours, but I use a Fluval 307 to filter the water and use the overflow as a secondary tank.

[@sherryjarecki1701]

I use silica sand. I had a fired bellied toad breeder tank. I have 3 baby fbt in the tank now . I added 2 cups of black worms to my tank with silica sand sub straight. They are doing fine. I use a low water filter on the opposite side

[@dshobe720]

Thank you for the inspiration I have been looking for a proven technique for black worms for a long while!

[@soulfulhysteria3066]

I have a question. How do you keep them from reaching the overflow drain? I will be setting up a colony soon but i wanted to make sure they didn't escape... Expensive as they are right now.

[@audio1484]

Stellar step up bro awesome!

[@janeicewgu5620]

Hello! Great execution, can we get an update video?

[@Junkbox_Aquatics]

Thank you so much for this video it was very helpful

[@markfranklin8831]

Awesome thanks for sharing 💗💯✌️👍

[@censusgary]

That’s a nice look at how you raise the worms. I’d like to see how you harvest the worms and feed them to animals, if you feel like making that video.

[@kelvinsoto3553]

Thank you for the great information

[@alethea9778]

Thanks for the advice!

[@spoiledsushi7400]

Great advice! Thank you!

[@Jen.K]

There were some useful tips here, thank you. Waiting for my culture to arrive and I'm going to adjust my setup based on what I learned here. I don't have the room or equipment for something like this, but I'm going to change the substrate I was going to use, and feeding routine. I'm going to add pothos to my tray to help keep the water clean, along with sponge filter and air stone. But one question, why are they called black worms when they are red?

[@gregjonesonline]

They look quite dark against dark substrate, good luck!

[@Jen.K]

@@gregjonesonline thank you.

[@C-Hirsuta]

Thank you for this fantastic video. How often can you harvest from a setup like this, and what kind of quantity do you expect from each harvest?

[@gregjonesonline]

I pull around 1-2 oz per week, depending on how heavily I feed, sometimes I do less, but I can also put little isolation cups inside with 1 baby newt or 1 crayfish and drill holes so they have an unlimited live food auto feeder, makes life easy

[@redpaulhus]

I love it !

[@J.Olivers_Guppies-Aquatics]

Great information 👍

[@Flyingdinosaur69]

You are on the money my friend. The black worm farm in Australia uses this method, but in the ground. Pretty much shallow high flow riverbeds. The common tank method on youtube is 100% a waste of time.

[@Flyingdinosaur69]

I wish I could find a tray like that here though

[@gregjonesonline]

@@Flyingdinosaur69 any aquaponics store should carry them

[@davidschluter6639]

We use morter mixing trays from hardware store.

[@mikemclain8871]

Could you post exactly how you made your set up for black worms

[@Aiken47]

This could be done using air powered sponge filters, 2 shallow stackable storage trays or maybe better one tray nests inside the other so water level can be adjusted for bubble lift. The lower tray holds filter media and sponge filtration bubbles water up to the top tray containing the worms, Then overflows back down into the lower tray - Might not get the head height though

[@donteague614]

Thanx for all the info! When I begin to raise fire sally larvae this will be the way I do it. Do you have a sump build video?

[@gregjonesonline]

It's on my to do list

[@donteague614]

Thanx for the quick response! It will be a year or two before I need to build one. Hopefully you make that video when you get the time. Pretty sure a store bought may cost a lot more than a diy.

[@censusgary]

I’ve seen the advice to put brown paper towels in the black worm breeding tank, and I don’t quite understand it. Is it supposed to be a substrate for the worms to live in? Food for the worms? If the latter, how? How can they live on paper? And even if they can, what nutrition do fish or amphibians get from worms fed on paper?

[@gregjonesonline]

@@censusgary ignore the brown paper bag advice, give them fine gravel substrate and spirulina wafers food

[@smncowardyahoo]

GENIUS !!!!!!!

[@Rews-fish-shed]

I like the setup Greg, my problem I had with my ten gallon setup was leeches getting into the cultures. How do you keep them (leeches)out of the pond you have manually take is a chore and they do decimate the culture. As far as foods I the same thing as well. I have maybe a small bit of worms left so I’m going to try your setup. I’ll use a mixing tub instead may not be as long but should work. Thoughts!!! By the way great video, I was just trying to get B. Worms from LFS everyone is out

[@gregjonesonline]

I washed my worms when I first got them and split them up into several trays to spread them out, I picked out a few leeches, you could also turkey baster out pure worms and leave all the junk behind in a tray to start a clean culture. I think Leeches are more common during a summer order than a winter one

[@Rews-fish-shed]

@@gregjonesonline my Cory’s loved the leeches as well so it wasn’t that bad but, never really checked into the health benefits or dangers of feeding leechs

[@christophergonzalez6290]

What are the water parameters and temp for your black worms ? Also. What about husbandry ? Love the set up. If you have a video on a tutorial for the complete build, I will try to get it as close to your set up as possible

[@gregjonesonline]

75F, hard water, haven't tested pH in a while, have never tested TDS. I feed them the cheapo spirulina wafers every few days and they are on an auto water change system, doing extremely well. Go visit an aquaponics store and look at the flood and drain trays

[@christophergonzalez6290]

@@gregjonesonline Thank you very much

[@JOhnDoe-pi9jj]

Been told they don’t like warm water. That’s for the info!

[@fritzwilhelm8258]

How large was your starter culture? Does their number double in one or two months, and what enables that? Do they cut themselves in the rocks as they travel to food? Sorry for the barrage of questions, but you, pretty much alone on the internet, seem to know what you're talking about on this subject. Subscriber.

[@lucasfaley]

I really enjoyed this, but do not have a sump or auto water change system in my fishroom. Do you have an idea of how you would modify this if you did manual water changes?

[@gregjonesonline]

For manual water changes I would position an empty bucket under the overflow pipe to collect excess water, then pour or drip a 5 gallon bucket of fresh water up above

[@thedampestcrib6004]

Hello so i habe separate worm tanks but i put them in all tanks and id like to harvest but whats best way? I seen some say Electric but idk what they are useing

[@NantThananan]

GREAT VIDEO. Are you related to Michael from Michael's Fish Room by any chance?

[@gregjonesonline]

Not related, but acquainted

[@LushSaltyAquariums]

Black Gold :)

[@cococalm]

Can you show us how you harvest them please ?

[@MsJimbo1960]

Great set up, can you tell me the temperature of the water please ?

[@gregjonesonline]

65-70F

[@MsJimbo1960]

Thank you ..@@gregjonesonline

[@justfnqlife]

is there a preferred temperature for them? i live in a hot tropical climate

[@GrumpyGillsFishing]

Hey Greg, I just got my order of blackworms. I’m trying to maintain the culture as long as possible. I’ve got a plastic shoebox with just enough gravel to fill the bottom, and a cycled sponge filter keeping the water good for them. I’ve got a tank full of algae, can I just feed them the algae from my algae farm or should I get wafers? Also can I feed them regular fish food as well? I’ve got a lot of foods I don’t use anymore. Thank you for this amazing video ❤

[@GrumpyGillsFishing]

Also wanted to add I’m working towards getting a large plant starter tray like you’ve got, but in the mean time I’m just working with what I’ve got.

[@gregjonesonline]

In the short term a shoe box size will work and you can feed them spirulina flake food if you want. Be careful not to spike your ammonia in such a small container, good luck!

[@GrumpyGillsFishing]

@@gregjonesonline awesome, thank you! That’s what I’m mostly concerned about. I’ll be monitoring it daily like I do with my fish. With any luck hopefully they’ll be fine until I get it something more suitable. I started with just an 1/8lb. I didn’t want to get too many for that reason.

[@oinaw]

great setup :D would you say that the pest snails have benefits or would you rather remove them all if it was easily possible?

[@gregjonesonline]

The snails compete for the food fed to the worms but it's not that big of a deal

[@Laserloungemaker]

Update please Greg!!!!!!🎉😂😢😢😢🎉

[@stevenlucas6905]

CAN YOU TELL WHAT THE NAME OF THAT TUB WHAT BRAND I THINK ITS ASTI AQUA AM I RIGHT ALSO GENERIC NAME I LOOKED EVERY WHERE ON LINE FROM AQUAPONICS STORE AMAZON LOWES YOU NAME IT . I SAW SOME SIMLER THEY WANTED 300.00 OR MORE WHAT DID THAT COST . I GETTING BLACK WORMS AND I SAW YOUR CHANNEL FOR 1 ST TIME WHEN LOOKING UP ABOUT KEEPING BLACK WORMS I SUBSCRIBED THANKS STEVE

[@johnjrkean7008]

U suggest a temperature or does it even matter??

[@tingchan2049]

Great video! Is the tray levelled or slightly tilted?

[@gregjonesonline]

Tray is level, the overflow screen keeps it at 1-2 inches deep water in a 4 inch tall tray

[@leenguyen6130]

How do you go about cleaning up the detritus and worm poop that will build up over time?

[@gregjonesonline]

6 months in, haven't touched it, I suppose I could deep clean it once a year, but it's on an auto water change system so it won't crash from nitrates

[@TheMrcooldjbigones]

Ok I'll agree to your method of farming black worms, however I've had a feeding turn into a colony in my ten gallon breeder of Black Emperor Tetra's. 😮😮 I had to break down the tank and either, flush and boil the substrate or add a fresh substrate...🤔🤔 Been awhile, but I definitely had to remove them as the family of fish weren't eating enough of them nor the Cory's. In addition to them degrading the water quality much faster than normal. 🤦🏿‍♂️🤷🏿‍♂️🤷🏿‍♂️✌🏿💯

[@gregjonesonline]

Sounds like you need more fish haha!

[@rezaprasetya1844]

Love it

[@zlatanista]

What kind of gravel donyou keep them in?

[@xKenn]

Brb let me get a 700 gallon sump system 😂 Jokes aside, awesome setup. Wish I could do the same. In Canada they sell them in grams like it's some kinda drug lol If you manage to import them from the states you can probably 10x your money, easy 🤣 I have a small culture, but sometimes I feel like I'm losing money feeding them these worms...

[@gregjonesonline]

any size sump is better than nothing imo, the larger the water volume the more stable your water parameters, the larger the surface area the more worms will grow and spread out. they are insanely expensive because only one place in the US is farming them, we need more suppliers.

[@DuzzyDobbin]

Hi might seem a silly question but how do you harvest them for feeding? Great vid, I’m a subscriber now! Regards Duzzy 🇦🇺 P.s. got my answer I wasn’t at the end of the vid yet when I commented 😜🤣

[@Hooker-mma]

I'm not quite sure if you know this but if you cut a blackworm in half, they turn into two worms, if you cut them in half again, they turn into 4 worms... as in each bit turns into it's own entity AND survives... they're fascinating as fuck and if you don't believe me - TRY IT!

[@fxestevez7309]

What temperature can they be kept? My fish room is kept between 76-80 year round.

[@gregjonesonline]

Mine are between 65-70F water temp

[@marie-linevillers7105]

do you do anything to encourage them to split/multiply?

[@gregjonesonline]

Nope, when the culture is large enough that doesn't seem to matter

[@NateK-MN]

Do you have any parasites that come from them? I farmed them for a little while but never that successfully.

[@gregjonesonline]

So far I haven't noticed any Ill effects

[@LakeMissoulaAquaticsandPlants]

Any updates on this system?

[@gregjonesonline]

still running strong, ill do a vid soon

[@KathyLankford-u1h]

What temp are you keeping the water at?

[@gregjonesonline]

65-70

[@CapnChemo678]

I recently got a culture of black worms and unfortunately didn’t see that there were leeches in the bag until I put them in their tank. Do you have a good way of removing them? I have read that they will eat the worms and I fear they will multiply and crash my culture.

[@gregjonesonline]

what i did to remove leeches originally was divided the worms into many shallow dishes, picked out the leeches - i would recommend trying that

[@CapnChemo678]

@@gregjonesonline Thank you so much for the response! I’ve been picking through leeches all day and must have pulled out close to 100. I’ll just have to keep on top of them until they’re all out.

[@greenrazor2]

What kind of newts do you keep? I have a few rare species. Paramesotriton, laotriton, tylototriton and so on hit me up and let's chat!

[@gregjonesonline]

I have P.Watl because they are 100% aquatic, learning how to breed them now, may do other species later as space allows

[@Kuriakos81-m7b]

This is sea water bloodworms????

[@JR-lo2ei]

Put some assassin snails in with the worms. That will keep the pest snails down. You can feed them small fish pellets from time to time.

[@susmus123gaming2]

Is black worms and tobifix the same

[@gregjonesonline]

they are different

[@susmus123gaming2]

@@gregjonesonline ok thank you

[@gq_aquatics]

Do u breed/ sell your newts!???

[@gregjonesonline]

Not currently, I have wholesaled them in the past, it's a lot of work

[@gq_aquatics]

@@gregjonesonline I’ve been trying to find newts here and there but haven’t had any luck. I used to have some when I was a kid back in the day, wayyyy back in the day lol, I’m 37 now. But if you ever feel like you could let a couple go if u get over stocked I’d love to have some. Or, do u know of a reputable dealer/breeder? Thanks and have a blessed day

[@spotlightinspect5540]

I don't have a sump OR this much space

[@toutanglor]

You have any for sell ?

[@gregjonesonline]

Not set up to ship at this time

[@jonayvvv494]

Just I quick question…. By feeding them the dead fish, aren’t you afraid of using them as “vectors” of potential diseases or parasites????

[@gregjonesonline]

I haven't had any noticable diseases in a long time, I attribute it to buying hobbyist bred fish, QT, and continuous water change. If something was noticably sick I wouldn't feed it to the worms

[@alexandrevaliquette3883]

Worst pickup line ever: "Would you wanna see my blackworms"

[@christopherstaples6758]

that is pretty large gravel , what you do not want is stuff like sand

[@hardybryan]

Ok. So now I know what my black worm culture is going to look like. A seriously bootleg version of this.

[@reelthing4u]

i'm glad i get blackworms for $26 a lbs

[@Rews-fish-shed]

Where from $26 a pound wow I’d be in for a few pound on that

[@reelthing4u]

@@Rews-fish-shed my lfs

[@Rews-fish-shed]

@@reelthing4u ok I’m going now to order if you still have them

[@Rews-fish-shed]

@@reelthing4u what’s your store address so I can order

[@gregjonesonline]

At that price you could flip them for double your money, stuff is hard to find in any quantity

[@MoreChannelNoise]

and the cost of all this? probable equal to 10 years of just buying live food

[@turnitupmike]

I think his point is that when the supplier has a glitch being able to supply then you have your own supply.

[@andygirone7442]

off topic but do you know of an alternative to Sachs aquaculture since they've closed?

[@gregjonesonline]

For what products?

[@andygirone7442]

@@gregjonesonline just all the live foods they offered fresh and salt.

[@gregjonesonline]

@@andygirone7442 for saltwater I've heard good things about algaebarn, for freshwater check the live food Facebook groups for hobbyist cultures

[@sedghammer]

I miss Sachs! They were awesome.