Live food problem

[Fella]

Hi


Today I went and rid myself of some loose change in the local petstore by buying some live food. I've only kept goldfish before I got my shelldwellng cichlids (lamprologus multifasciatus) and they ate live food no problem. However, the cichlids aren't so keen to feed on them, and the brine shrimp and bloodworm are now just living in the tank. I've seen a couple of bloodworm get eaten by the bravest fish, but the others, including the biggest male, just ignore them, or worse, pick them up and move them out of their territories.

My question is,

will they do any harm if they're left to float around in the tank? That goes for both the bloodworm that hav buried themselves, and the brine shrimp which are free floating. They ate live daphnia the other week no problem, I dunno what the deal is with these guys.

Also, I plan to get these little guys to breed, I certainly don't want that to be interfered with by creatures that were meant to be food. Will they be a problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

[BigC]

You need to give you fish time to get used to feeding live food. They have probably been tank bred and are only used to commercial flake and granular foods. Given time and introduced on a regular basis the fish will gradually take to the new strange foodstuffs. They shouldn't be a problem with the food left in the tank as long as it's still alive. Any uneaten or dead food should be removed for obvious reasons.

 

[spanishguy111]

Freakishly enough, the bloodworms are likely to survive in there for months. Brineshrimp not so much. They'll likely be dead in a couple of days. As long as you didn't add too many I wouldn't worry. Have you tried vaccuuming them up?

 

[Fella]

Freakishly enough, the bloodworms are likely to survive in there for months. Brineshrimp not so much. They'll likely be dead in a couple of days. As long as you didn't add too many I wouldn't worry. Have you tried vaccuuming them up?

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The bloodworm have buried themselves in the sand, and I turned some sand over and vacuumed them out, but I do't think I'll have got all of them. What is the eventual state of the bloodworm? Isn't it the larval stage for some bug?

Either way, I hope they learn to eat them soon. From what I can tell, all the brine shrimp are dead, and I've vac'd those out too.

 

[BigC]

What is the eventual state of the bloodworm?

Bloodworm are the larval stage of the Midge (Chironomus species)

http/www.naturegrid.org.uk/biodiversity/invert/midges.html