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Re: Live Foods Digest V2 #297



Owner-Live-Foods at actwin_com writes:
 Okay, tell us more about Nais and the others.  
 
 Are these fully aquatic? YES
 Are they round worms, flat worms, segmented worms, planaria, ...? AQUATIC
RELATIVES OF THE EARTHWORM
 What do they eat? DEAD PLANTS AND PARAMECIA
 
 They appear to be free-swimming.  Is this so, YES and is duckweed a good
 medium for them? HAVE NOT TRIED IT.
 
 Tell us more, and let us know if you're still culturing them. OK

I am raising the Nais worms in with some of my Daphnia cultures. The Nais eat
the leftover Daphnia food, and sort of scavenge, but not very effectively. I
still have to clean the tanks once in a while. I have not had the other two
worms for years, but they can all be treated about the same way. It would be
foolish for a worm to swim a lot, if fish are around. The worms usually swim
only if disturbed or if the population is very dense. If you culture Daphnia,
there is a possibility you have been throwing one of these worms out with the
mulm and waste from cleaning your cultures. Nais tend to bury themselves in
debris. Dero make tubes like bloodworms do. Aeolosoma (freshwater
bristleworms) are so small, it's hard to say where they are, but if you
disturb the culture, they will swarm near the bottom and be more visible.
Freshwater bristleworms do not reproduce very rapidly.

Nais will grow in shallow containers that you push under the bottom aquariums,
but if they don't get light, they don't prosper. They do fine if the aquarium
has a bare bottom and the aquarium light shines through.