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Re: Live Foods Digest V2 #62



Good Morning...!

	Every summer I begin collecting a few glass worms with my mosquito
larvae in the later part of July. They are an excellent food for fish
big enough to consumer them and last far longer in the frigerator than
brine shrimp or daphnia. However the cautions alluded to in LFD V2-#63
are worth noting.

	The time I first noticed them was when a huge batch of mosquito larvae
was harvested and brought in in a jar with clean water in it. As I got
ready to sort them by size using a couple of plastic mesh sifters, I
noticed a goodsized mosquito larva (well half of one) suddenly take a
sharp right turn. Two or three others did the same in quick succession.

	That was when I took a closer look and saw the glass worms, about the
same size as the mosquito larvae. They had inhaled about half of the
mosquito larvae, which were about the same size as they were! As far as
the mosquito larvae went, the glassworms (white mosquito larvae in the
European literature - take a peak at Baensch Atlas vol.1) were voracious
predators.

	I don't put live glassworms in any planted "natural set-up" as a result
of this. I suspect they would do just fine out of sight and out of mind
and could pose a threat to small fry.

	I have long wanted to experiment with some extra paradise fish or
gardneri fry by putting them with a few glassworms and watching to see
what happened. I have never had the fry, glassworms and time
concurrently.

	Sadly no commercial source handles glassworms in Chicagoland anymore.
However a local frozen fishfood outfit called Fish King (Fishking?)
sells packages of frozen ones. I always keep a package or two in the
freezer for moments when I need to feed the fish something almost live
and have nothing swimming. Defrosted like frozen brine shrimp in
lukewarm water (hot water causes the b.s. to disintegrate more), some
will float and the rest will sink. After being rinsed through a fine
mesh, they are placed in a pickle jar of clean water. The floaters go to
surface feeders such as Aplo. lineatus. Generally they are welcome fare.

	They are also useful if a fry eating livebearer is about to drop. The
idea is to so fill the stomach of the livebearer and pending parent with
frozen glassworms (while the parent's tank is just stuffed with hornwort
or Najas) that they are too sated to pursue fry. This has worked with
fry eaters like the red tailed goodied, Gambusia and Brachyrhamphis.

	If anybody knows of a commercial source which would ship to the
southern suburbs of Chicago, several of us would be tickled to know of
them.

				All the best!

				Scott Davis