# Culturing Tubifex and Blackworms



## dr.tran

I was asked by another forum to write about how I cultured these worms. I didn't want it to be limited to just one forum so I hope this information can help someone here too.

I am sorry if this is not the right place to put it. But its was the closest I can get to inverts

Anyway I have been culturing blackworms and tubifex worms for years and its been a long journey to learn to culture them when I first started, there wasn't much information let alone on the web about culturing them at home. I guess it wasn't worth it. 

And after all this, I don't think worth all the work to do. However, I have no local access anymore to blackworms or tubifex so I have no choice but to. 

After I found out my LFS was closing down and it was the only one selling any live foods, I scrambled and tried so many methods to culture them. I only had a month to do so. 

So I learned from trial and error. First step is to keep them alive. Lucky from years of buying, I learned the can be kept in the fridge. Blackworms longer than tubifex. As long as the water is clean and declorinated, it can surive for at least a week. 

Blackworms much longer. My record was 1 month 2 weeks. Not sure if it could go any longer, my fish needed to eat. 

So I got lots of worms from my LFS before the closed and I got to work. I couldn't culture any in the fridge so i kept them in a fish bowl. 

*Lesson 1:* Do not let the temp reach higher than 80 or you may have a massive die off. It seems best around 75 degrees or so. In the summer time, find a cool area in the house. I like to place them in a bucket, and put it in my backyard underneth a tree. The shade keeps them cool. 

*Lesson 2:* Only keep them in cycled containers. It doesn't matter if you are keeping them in a 10 gal tank or a rubbermaid but it must be cycled if it is placed in room temperture. I learned that the hard way many times over. Even in temporay holding trays. 

So now that we know the general guide lines of keeping them alive, lets move on to housing and care. 

*Lesson 3:* Always change the water. The water must be changed daily. at least once every 2 days. Every day to be better. I change about 30 percent for blackworms and 20 percent for tubifex. More if the water looks or smells bad. You will smell it if the culture goes bad. I found that the drip aclimator is the best for water changes and has become a permenent fixture in my worm tanks. Just let it siphon out the amount and pour in old aquarium water. 

*Lesson 4.* Blackworms like the water to be shallow. They can live in deeper water but they always seem to do best in shallow water. No more than 5 inches. For tubifex it doesn't seem to matter. Also they can be kept in small containers but I find 5 gallon tanks to be the best. The water quality is more stable in there than a rubbermaid. Also I keep one major culture going and a few smaller ones for insurance. 

*Lesson 5.* What is the medium to keep them in? That is a hard question to answer. It is all about how much labor you want to put in. At first, I put gravel on the bottom because I always saw that the tubifex always surived in there in my main tanks. Which always made me angry to see a carpet of worms in your main tanks. Although you can keep them like that, the method of harvesting becomes very very hard. Unless you let there be a huge out break, its going to be hard to seperate the gravel and the worms. The same goes for blackworms. I tried newspaper or other paper substrate but can you imgine the work to clean the worms? Not a good idea. 

The best substrate so far for me, is a mixture of gravel and java moss. Yes thats right, java. It eats up the nitrates and helps keep the water quality good. Also the worms like to travel through it. I harvest them with a pipet. Its a great investment if you plan to do this for a while. I just put them in a brine shrimp net and rinse. I also use the pipet to feed them. My endlers go crazy for them and I get to see the health of each one closely. 

Now the hard part is done. All you need now is to feed them. 

*Lesson 6:* What to feed them? I use to keep fry in the worm tanks so that the left over food feeds the worm. Also they seem to like fish poop. I liked doing that so nothing is wasted and I always strive to be fully independant of all means. However, once in a while, I would have a massive die off and the water would be so bad my fry would die. Lately I haven't have that problem. I believe it may have been a chain reaction of one worm dieing and spiking the amonia to kill the rest of the population. Then I leaned something, THEY EAT DEAD FISHES! So they have become my recycling center, when ever I have a fish that died from old age, I throw it in there. However, if it was a sick fish, then I always flush. Never compermise the other fishes. 

Over the years I learned that it is best to feed them sinking food. I have a ton of extra guppy pellets that turned out to be too large for my endlers. So I use that to feed my worms. I also sometimes throw in cucumbers and other vegetables that was going to be tossed out anyway. Basically they can eat just about anything thats organic as long it doesn't break up very much. This is to perseve the water quality. 

*Lesson 7:* Have patience. You have to let the population grow to a good size before harvesting. This is because the population needs to be at a cetain age before having a stable amount of offspring and become self sustabable. It depends on the tempeture amoung other conditions but I say 3 weeks should be an average time. Then just harvest some for your fishes. 

A few last things, 

They don't need light and I only use sunshine for the java moss to grow. 

There is concern about parasites and diseases from tubifex, I was lucky to have a clean culture from the LFS free of disease and hitchikers. So if you plan on feeding your fishes long term on tubifex or blackworms, it is a good idea to culture your own so you know its 100% safe. 

2 years ago, I started seeing them in Petland. I was tempted to buy and stop culturing but my biggest reason is I don't know how good they are. Plus from culturing, I have some very healthy worms which is reflected on my fishes. 

I feed my endlers tubifex regularly and they grow very fast with it. I chop it up and feed it to the fry. But they colors don't show up as fast on just tubifex. I have no confirmation on other fishes but I believe it is the same. So I feed them a combination of perpared foods with lots of plant and animal matter for coloration. The tubifex boost there size quickly. 

Heathy blackworms are great for larger fishes. They always love a treat and their health becomes wounderful. They have never been more healthy since I have been feeding them live foods. 

I learned all these from many years of mistakes. I hope this may help anyone out there thinking of starting there own worm cultures.


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## Flyingtim

Thanks for the information. I might have to try it.


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## dr.tran

no problem. good luck culturing


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## James From Cali

Thanks a bunch. This has been helpful.


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## cyankal.i

wow, very interesting!


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## waterfaller1

That is great information Dr. Tran.:thumbsup:
I culture Grindal worms. For me, they are better because they are tiny for all my small fish. They do not smell like blackworms.


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## SearunSimpson

Any photos of your set-up?


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## jimsuy

pics?


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## Arakkis

I culture mine in an unheated 10 gal tank with an airstones. The california blackworm is more temperature tolerant than tubifex. I learned that when the temperature is above 60, you can get better rates and was getting population doubling sometimes within 3~4 days. though in a 10 gallon I only let the population get to appox 3~4oz and then feed off till I got back to about 1oz. It's really pretty easy as long as you change the water bi-weekly at least. Pretty much what Tran stated. I did however use the whole 10 gallons of space instead of a shallow water culture.


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## zoologist101

I culture tubifex worms in an old 3 foot tank in the back garden. The substrate is a two inch layer of glass marbles, and I feed them on mulm, deterus, fish poo, and the crud from the sponges of my internal filters. Once a week I change two gallons of water for fresh rainwater.
They do not like the water too warm, but I live in England, so that has not been a problem since the last halfway decent summer we had in 1976.


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## southerndesert

EXCELLENT reading!


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## dr.tran

Thank you guys for ur kind words. Its amazing to get ur comments now after about 10 months after this was made.


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## ZooTycoonMaster

Have a couple quick questions - 

1. Are you sure they don't need to be refrigerated? Because this site says they do.

2. Can I keep them in a worm keeper?

3. Is once or twice a week too much to feed blackworms to fish?

4. Are _Boraras _species mouths' too small to eat these?


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## ath3ist

Since I just bought a few juvenile discus, I'm really tempted to buy 1/2lb of blackworm and 2 worm keepers on that site to start my own culture. Just wondering why the wormkeeper doesn't have a cover on top and I don't know if my family would let me keep the worms in the refrigerator.


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## RandomKayos

ZooTycoonMaster said:


> Have a couple quick questions -
> 
> 1. Are you sure they don't need to be refrigerated? Because this site says they do.
> 
> 2. Can I keep them in a worm keeper?
> 
> 3. Is once or twice a week too much to feed blackworms to fish?
> 
> 4. Are _Boraras _species mouths' too small to eat these?


1. Storing them in a small space such as a worm keeper requires they be kept refrigerated because it slows their metabolism. To culture them requires fresh filtered water at a normal temp for them, 65-75F if I remember correctly.

2. The worm keeper is for short term storage in a refrigerator. They don't have lids because they need the oxygen.

3. I feed my fish blackworms almost every day. But I feed my fish 3 times a day. Small amounts, Brine shrimp in the morning, flakes/pellets mid day and blackworms in the evenings if I'm home.

4. I cut up the worms for my small fish. I have seen some fish swim around for several hours with part of a worm hanging out of thier mouths as the part they have swallowed digests and they swallow more of it. 

Hope this helps.


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## captmicha

I know this thread is super old but thought I'd comment anyways.

I've found a better way to culture black worms, and probably tubifex the same way.

I got a small aquarium and put sand, then gravel in it. Just gravel should be fine, or just sand. I filled it with cycled water and ran a small air pump to it. I also dumped in a clump of java moss. With both of these things, the air pump and the java moss, you don't need to keep the water shallow. My water level is almost as high as the rim on my aquarium. I keep it at room temperature. I make sure not to over feed them and I do a water change about once a month, although maybe once a week would probably be better. The more they're fed, the more worms you end up with, but that also requires more water changes. They would probably benefit from a small sponge filter.

When I need to harvest some, I turn off the air pump for about an hour and the worms, starved for O2, climb out of the gravel trying to get to the top of the water.


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## Sherminator

yet another comment, what is meant by cycled containers? Do I need to setup a tank and let it do its thing for 3-4 weeks and then its cycled?

I got a fairly large amount of blackworms from a LHS and I doubt my Bee Gobies are going to be able to finish them off before they die off..and I've been considering raising my own since I have to drive 45 minutes to an hour to get them.


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## diwu13

Sherminator said:


> yet another comment, what is meant by cycled containers? Do I need to setup a tank and let it do its thing for 3-4 weeks and then its cycled?
> 
> I got a fairly large amount of blackworms from a LHS and I doubt my Bee Gobies are going to be able to finish them off before they die off..and I've been considering raising my own since I have to drive 45 minutes to an hour to get them.


Cycling just means to let the beneficial bacteria build up so that they break the ammonia down into nitrates and nitrites, which are less toxic to inverts and fish a like. You can speed up the cycling process if you have ANYTHING from a cycled tank (plants, decorations, gravel, etc). As with shrimp, I assume the worms will have very low bioload so you could potentially instantly place them into a container (granted you have something from a cycled tank). As long as you keep up with the water changes, maybe daily, you shouldn't get an ammonia spike. Good luck raising them!


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## EESDA

dr.tran said:


> I was asked by another forum to write about how I cultured these worms. I didn't want it to be limited to just one forum so I hope this information can help someone here too.
> 
> I am sorry if this is not the right place to put it. But its was the closest I can get to inverts
> 
> Anyway I have been culturing blackworms and tubifex worms for years and its been a long journey to learn to culture them when I first started, there wasn't much information let alone on the web about culturing them at home. I guess it wasn't worth it.
> 
> And after all this, I don't think worth all the work to do. However, I have no local access anymore to blackworms or tubifex so I have no choice but to.
> 
> After I found out my LFS was closing down and it was the only one selling any live foods, I scrambled and tried so many methods to culture them. I only had a month to do so.
> 
> So I learned from trial and error. First step is to keep them alive. Lucky from years of buying, I learned the can be kept in the fridge. Blackworms longer than tubifex. As long as the water is clean and declorinated, it can surive for at least a week.
> 
> Blackworms much longer. My record was 1 month 2 weeks. Not sure if it could go any longer, my fish needed to eat.
> 
> So I got lots of worms from my LFS before the closed and I got to work. I couldn't culture any in the fridge so i kept them in a fish bowl.
> 
> *Lesson 1:* Do not let the temp reach higher than 80 or you may have a massive die off. It seems best around 75 degrees or so. In the summer time, find a cool area in the house. I like to place them in a bucket, and put it in my backyard underneth a tree. The shade keeps them cool.
> 
> *Lesson 2:* Only keep them in cycled containers. It doesn't matter if you are keeping them in a 10 gal tank or a rubbermaid but it must be cycled if it is placed in room temperture. I learned that the hard way many times over. Even in temporay holding trays.
> 
> So now that we know the general guide lines of keeping them alive, lets move on to housing and care.
> 
> *Lesson 3:* Always change the water. The water must be changed daily. at least once every 2 days. Every day to be better. I change about 30 percent for blackworms and 20 percent for tubifex. More if the water looks or smells bad. You will smell it if the culture goes bad. I found that the drip aclimator is the best for water changes and has become a permenent fixture in my worm tanks. Just let it siphon out the amount and pour in old aquarium water.
> 
> *Lesson 4.* Blackworms like the water to be shallow. They can live in deeper water but they always seem to do best in shallow water. No more than 5 inches. For tubifex it doesn't seem to matter. Also they can be kept in small containers but I find 5 gallon tanks to be the best. The water quality is more stable in there than a rubbermaid. Also I keep one major culture going and a few smaller ones for insurance.
> 
> *Lesson 5.* What is the medium to keep them in? That is a hard question to answer. It is all about how much labor you want to put in. At first, I put gravel on the bottom because I always saw that the tubifex always surived in there in my main tanks. Which always made me angry to see a carpet of worms in your main tanks. Although you can keep them like that, the method of harvesting becomes very very hard. Unless you let there be a huge out break, its going to be hard to seperate the gravel and the worms. The same goes for blackworms. I tried newspaper or other paper substrate but can you imgine the work to clean the worms? Not a good idea.
> 
> The best substrate so far for me, is a mixture of gravel and java moss. Yes thats right, java. It eats up the nitrates and helps keep the water quality good. Also the worms like to travel through it. I harvest them with a pipet. Its a great investment if you plan to do this for a while. I just put them in a brine shrimp net and rinse. I also use the pipet to feed them. My endlers go crazy for them and I get to see the health of each one closely.
> 
> Now the hard part is done. All you need now is to feed them.
> 
> *Lesson 6:* What to feed them? I use to keep fry in the worm tanks so that the left over food feeds the worm. Also they seem to like fish poop. I liked doing that so nothing is wasted and I always strive to be fully independant of all means. However, once in a while, I would have a massive die off and the water would be so bad my fry would die. Lately I haven't have that problem. I believe it may have been a chain reaction of one worm dieing and spiking the amonia to kill the rest of the population. Then I leaned something, THEY EAT DEAD FISHES! So they have become my recycling center, when ever I have a fish that died from old age, I throw it in there. However, if it was a sick fish, then I always flush. Never compermise the other fishes.
> 
> Over the years I learned that it is best to feed them sinking food. I have a ton of extra guppy pellets that turned out to be too large for my endlers. So I use that to feed my worms. I also sometimes throw in cucumbers and other vegetables that was going to be tossed out anyway. Basically they can eat just about anything thats organic as long it doesn't break up very much. This is to perseve the water quality.
> 
> *Lesson 7:* Have patience. You have to let the population grow to a good size before harvesting. This is because the population needs to be at a cetain age before having a stable amount of offspring and become self sustabable. It depends on the tempeture amoung other conditions but I say 3 weeks should be an average time. Then just harvest some for your fishes.
> 
> A few last things,
> 
> They don't need light and I only use sunshine for the java moss to grow.
> 
> There is concern about parasites and diseases from tubifex, I was lucky to have a clean culture from the LFS free of disease and hitchikers. So if you plan on feeding your fishes long term on tubifex or blackworms, it is a good idea to culture your own so you know its 100% safe.
> 
> 2 years ago, I started seeing them in Petland. I was tempted to buy and stop culturing but my biggest reason is I don't know how good they are. Plus from culturing, I have some very healthy worms which is reflected on my fishes.
> 
> I feed my endlers tubifex regularly and they grow very fast with it. I chop it up and feed it to the fry. But they colors don't show up as fast on just tubifex. I have no confirmation on other fishes but I believe it is the same. So I feed them a combination of perpared foods with lots of plant and animal matter for coloration. The tubifex boost there size quickly.
> 
> Heathy blackworms are great for larger fishes. They always love a treat and their health becomes wounderful. They have never been more healthy since I have been feeding them live foods.
> 
> I learned all these from many years of mistakes. I hope this may help anyone out there thinking of starting there own worm cultures.


Just read this now coz I'm thinking of culturing them myself

What do you think of my plan?

I'll culture them under my tanks in 5 gallon plastic tubs. They will be cool there.
Using a drip system, water from my tanks will drop into them as water change and the movement will aerate the water. The water that overflows from the worms go straight to the soil.
My substrate will be pebbles. I am thinking of about >10mm diameter ones. Small enough to house them and big enough for me to handle easily.


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## dr.tran

I think you would be fine. Its been about 14 years that I have maintained this original culture and I have some more input now. They are more hardy than I originally thought. It was hard because I always had problems with keeping it a clean tank. Free of ammonia and nitrites. I have since added a low flow filter which then enabled me not to change the water as often. But I still have a hard time harvesting them. Its a lot of work and I could never harvest as much as I needed. 

I am actually working on a new system of culturing them. The last few years I maintained it but I haven't really kept up with it enough for it to multiple fast enough to feed my fishes. So I am working on a new system that's low maintenance and easier to harvest. 

I'll update it when I get a good harvest.


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## hobos

years ago i think i did tubifex in a container filled with moist dirt and bread soaked in milk for food kept it in the basement. worked well


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## EESDA

thanks, doc
will set up as soon as I can


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## dr.tran

hobos said:


> years ago i think i did tubifex in a container filled with moist dirt and bread soaked in milk for food kept it in the basement. worked well


I think thats white worms or grindal worms. Tubifex are aquatic and cannot live in a terrestrial environment



EESDA said:


> thanks, doc
> will set up as soon as I can


No prob. Let me know how it turns out for you. Everything I wrote here was my trial and error. There are so many more ways of culturing these worms than when I first started. So I know there are a lot of inefficiencies on how I did mines.


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## Kayla

Hi dr. Tran I'm new to this forum and also new to culture black worm. I just recieve my bw yesterday and put them in a 20g with a cycled sponge filter and sand. Do I need to put a airstone for it? Or just a sponge filter is enough? 


Ps. R u Vnese?


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## dr.tran

Hi Kayla.

No sorry I'm not Vietnamese. My family is originally from china and when they were born in Vietnam, they had to change their last name from Chan to Tran. When I was born here in America, they decide to keep it.

Welcome to the forum. Air stone would be great. I wouldn't use a sponge filter because they tend to live in it. Making harvesting a pain. 

Good luck


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## hobos

dr.tran said:


> I think thats white worms or grindal worms. Tubifex are aquatic and cannot live in a terrestrial environment
> 
> I think you are right I do remember them bieng white


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## EESDA

hi! thought I'd just pass by to say that my drip design is working so far
the water is great and the worms are alive
not sure if they will multiply soon. I'll see if they will


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## Kayla

Dr.Tran

Any update on your new system?

I have another question. How long does it take the bw to double their population?
I had my set up about three weeks everything look good but hard to tell they're multiply.


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