# Could Frozen blood worms kill aquarium fish?



## Overwatch (Nov 26, 2016)

Last time a few month ago that I feed my fish some frozen bloodworms, the next day I had a dead fish in the tank. 

Yesterday I feed them frozen bloodworms and today I have another dead fish in the tank. 

Could this be a coincidence or could the frozen blood worms somehow be killing the fish? Maybe from some disease or something? 

Thanks.


----------



## aquaBender (Aug 18, 2016)

I have been experiencing nearly the exact same situation as you and my research has shown that some aquarium fish will overeat frozen bloodworms to the extreme, causing them to bloat. I believe I just lost a guppy a day after feeding frozen bloodworms because of this. It could also be some parasite in the bloodworms, but I thought this was less likely as I used 2 different brands and one had great reviews and still caused a fish death. My cory cats seem to have no problem with them whereas my guppies are not going to be fed them more than once a week and a carefully dosed feeding at that.


----------



## bacon5 (Jul 25, 2011)

What kind of fish are dying? Have you only fed bloodworms twice? If so, not quite a sufficient sample size. Are the bloodworms expired?


----------



## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

It is a high protein food that converts into a lot of ammonia. Feeding a quarter of a cube or so at a time probably won't foul things too much.
I for instance, have some local fish that live half of te year on those little bugs with the two arms that swim underwater in pools and the other half off bloodworms.
It is a very sparsely planted tank to imitate the biotope. I hope to share pics soon, but it is still a work in progress. Now I feel the need to feed those fish bloodworms a few times a week even though they take flakes just fine immediately after capture.
But I wash it first, some people would wash with ammonia then use a dechlorinator, and a final rinse before feeding. That discus dude (forget his name now) has a nice video where he shows his decontamination process. You can indeed put nasty stuff in your tank along with bloodworms.


----------



## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Most of the frozen bloodworms are sterilized of any diseases.

The only way your fish could die in relation to the bloodworms, is as mentioned, pollution of the water (usually never an issue unless your filtration isn't very good or feed extremely too much)

or as I have experienced one time, I had a panda garra that gobbled down bloodworms and one bloodworm managed to get stick inside the garra's throat with the other end of the blood worm hanging out of it's gill. The fish was in distress, rapidly breathing and constantly flashing/rubbing it's body/gill against objects to dislodge the bloodworm, but didn't manage to get it out, so I had to net the fish and use tweezers to pull out the bloodworm and he was fine then. I bet he would of died if I didn't help him. Was a strange occurrence and has never happened again to any fish (varying sizes) in all my years of fish keeping and I feed my fish frozen foods quite frequently.


----------



## Overwatch (Nov 26, 2016)

bacon5 said:


> What kind of fish are dying? Have you only fed bloodworms twice? If so, not quite a sufficient sample size. Are the bloodworms expired?


bloodworms are not expired. 

I think the first time it was a black neon tetra and the second time it was a scissortail rasbora. 

I have feed bloodworms more than twice, I can't recall if the fish died after the other feeding.


----------



## Dman911 (Nov 24, 2016)

Overwatch said:


> Last time a few month ago that I feed my fish some frozen bloodworms, the next day I had a dead fish in the tank.
> 
> Yesterday I feed them frozen bloodworms and today I have another dead fish in the tank.
> 
> ...


Like was stated blood worms are a very high protein foods and some species should be fed sparingly such as several cichlid species as they have a longer digestive track. Feeding too much and too often of these types of foods can lead to bloat which in my experience do not have a good rate of curing the condition. Its unusual for bloat to kill that fast so as others have stated its quite possibly something else such as water quality or a previously existing condition.

Oh and the frozen part I have never come across an issue feeding frozen foods as the fish can only bite off the thawed portions.
Dan


----------



## Tessa (Dec 8, 2015)

I lost a few hengel's rasbora like this. Fed bloodworms, next day - one dead hengel. Seems like the cause was internal bleeding. I also have similar looking espei and harlequin rasbora and none of them were affected, neither were the corys or cherry barbs.

Bloodworms were fresh and from a reputable company; thawed before feeding a small amount.


----------



## Overwatch (Nov 26, 2016)

Tessa said:


> I lost a few hengel's rasbora like this. Fed bloodworms, next day - one dead hengel. Seems like the cause was internal bleeding. I also have similar looking espei and harlequin rasbora and none of them were affected, neither were the corys or cherry barbs.
> 
> Bloodworms were fresh and from a reputable company; thawed before feeding a small amount.


What do you think caused this? Perhaps an internal parasite or overeating? Have you stopped using frozen blood worms because of this? What brand were these from if you don't mind my asking? 

I got mine from Petco where they have frozen food. 

Thanks.


----------



## roadmaster (Nov 5, 2009)

I stopped feeding blood worm's long ago after unexplained issues with some young Discus,as well as Angelfish and corydora's.
I do not believe these to be as high in protein as some believe, but mostly moisture (by content) with relatively small amount of protein compared to say Ocean nutrition flake or pellet (high protein %) and some other's.
Would not be much of a stretch to consider issues with this food considering where it is collected and possible thawing /Re-freezing during shipment's where it may set on airport tarmac ,or in back of non refrigerated truck for portion's of transport,or back room of pet store before unpacking.
In any event,I have had zero issues with fishes since searching out more nutritional commercial food's or live food's. ( black worms,meal worm's as example).
I might still offer the blood worm's (sewer larvae) as a treat once in a blue moon but not as staple of diet.
Much more nutritional high protein food's out there.
My two cent's.


----------



## Nordic (Nov 11, 2003)

The main reason I buy it is because I own fish that naturally eat this as a major food source.
That tank definitely needs more water changes than my other tanks, despite me only feeding moderate amounts.
Growing your own here is as easy as scooping some clean greenwater and dumping it in a bare bottom tank with fresh water... the little larvae set up house and you have tell-tale "cocoons" all over the tank bottom in a matter of days.
These are quite high energy fish, so I can't feed much less. Sometimes if I know I'll be doing water changes later in the day I feed some fish, boiled egg yolk.

I'd grow some, but we have quite a water shortage and major fires burning all around the area so water is being used for that. SO, I don't feel good about starting up another pond. I have another one standing empty collecting leaves at the moment. I do have some growing in the baby glowlight tetra tank as I feed them green water. 1 Cory will finish them off in an afternoon. The barbs I keep specialize in sifting sand so they also keep a tank clean. I hope I can breed them successfully next spring. It is a conservation issue.


----------



## SwissCheeseHead (Dec 24, 2014)

I feed my fish frozen bloodworms as a treat, and I always thaw with some tank water in a bowl and cut them up into tiny pieces before feeding them. Rainbows, cories, shrimp, CPDs, my betta (he gets tweezer fed, that little baby. All in different tanks) they all love them. Could be that the blood worms are causing an obstruction somewhere and killing them? My rainbows are probably just big enough to eat whole bloodworms, but I do it mainly for the other fish.


----------

