Are bloodworms ok for fish long term?

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys! I have a scooter dragonet, it’s doing well constantly grazing my rocks. I’ve been trying to feed it 1-2x a day however in order to give it the best health. It’s eating brine shrimp (spits out the occaisional piece but usually swallows), and also pellets. It seems to do this weird thing where sometimes it’ll eat heaps and other times it’ll nibble on 6-7 pellets and then lose interest. Mysis I’ve tried, it nibbles bits by spits out the majority of it.

Recently I tried bloodworms, and wow! I’ve never seen such a feeding response it actively swam around trying to eat them.

Is bloodworms long term ok? Or is there some sort of problem with it? I don’t really hear about many people feeding blood worms regularly.

 

[Diesel]

Bloodworms are good just give your fish a variety of balanced food.

 

[dbl]

I feed blood worms every day as part of the food mix. I don't know, or have never read, of any long term issues, so I'm interested in others responses as well.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Bloodworms do not reproduce quickly is their main drawback. Dragonets in the wild feed almost constantly. Pods and brine shrimp are the staples in captivity because of their price and the number you can culture in such a small time frame.

Bloodworms have a good nutrition profile and make a good supplement feeder for anything that will eat them.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ok thank you team that’s great to hear that I can feed them regularly and that others have been feeding them daily as part of a balanced diet

I think I’ll mix mysis brine shrimp and blood worms together and feed that together to the dragonet. Hopefully mix things up.
It gets its pellet feed every morning separately usually. I’m not sure why it likes pellets so much, it’ll eat them over frozen food.

Yeah thank god for my refugium, keeps those pods coming for my scooter, I’ve noticed the pod population did initially crash when I added him. But it’s bounced back up since I increased how much I feed to my other fish and it stable again.

 

[saltyhog]

I feed them pretty often. They do get an impressive feeding response. Remember....you wouldn't be in the best health if you ate the same exact thing every day. Variety is the key.

That said blood worms are a great way to get picky fish eating if you don't have access to live foods.

 

[Diesel]

Just make sure you feed the right BW’s











Just not the meanies

 

[Katrina71]

Never tried blood worms. Are these frozen?

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Yup they’re frozen!

 

[mort]

If the scooter is eating pellets and bloodworm then throw some other foods into the mix. Mysis should be readily taken and is a great food and if you can get some small krill and lobster eggs, give them a go as well.

I put clams on the shell and mussels for my tobie puffer and the scooter rushes over to them and tears chunks off. Once you get them feeding on substitute foods they normally do really well.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ahh that’s a good idea! Some sort of food that will sit there on the ground so the dragonet can come over and eat at its leisure.
I still can’t figure out if it’s eating stuff off the rocks or not. Oh well it’s getting one to two feedings a day so hopefully that keeps it going. I realize 3-4x is better but I’m unable to give it that much due to work.