How to keep tubifex worms for more than one day

**chand72** · 20th Dec 2008, 14:24

Does anyone know how to keep TB worms for more than one day?

**vinz** · 20th Dec 2008, 15:04

What are TB worms? Tubifex?

**chand72** · 20th Dec 2008, 17:28

Oh yes tubifex worms.

**vinz** · 20th Dec 2008, 17:53

Then call them tubifex worms... if we keep inventing shortforms, the forum will become harder to search. Title edited.

**vinz** · 20th Dec 2008, 18:00

To keep tubifex worms alive for more than one day, you need to use a water drip. Put a tray of them under a dripping tap. The edge of the tray needs a small notch to allow the water to overflow. Slow drip is enough, a drop a sec perhaps. Change the water once a day.

This is what my dad used to do and we kept the worms alive for a week at least. Great waste of water though... I have a dripping tap at home and we can collect a quarter pail a day. We save the water for laundry and watering plants.

I wonder though... the worms just need fresh water, so I guess a filtered tank is probably a good solution... but probably larger than what we are willing to spare for "mere" worms.

**zyblack** · 20th Dec 2008, 18:15

What I do with my tubifex worms when I get them home is to first "clean" them up. The cleaning process involves running them under tap water to remove debris that sometimes accompany the worms. Then next, I add a small quantity of mouthwash like "Listerine" to some tap water and swirl the worms in the solution for a couple of minutes. This will help disinfect the outer surface of the worms. Another round of flushing under the running tap water will remove traces of the "cleaning solution" and TA DA! Clean worms

What I do next is to immerse the tubifex worms in water taken from my tank. The water in my tank has already been treated for chlorine and chloramine and is in a way "matured/aged". Chlorine is deadly to tubifex worms if they get immersed in it for too long so this method ensures that no chlorine gets to them.

Next thing to do is to suppy loads of oxygen. Get an airpump and make sure the water gets loads of aeration. Just by this method alone I can keep the worms healthy and red for over 2-3 days.

To get them to survive longer, I need to feed them. Feeding them can be done by either dumping old ketapang leaves into the water or adding ketapang solution which I made from boiling ketapang leaves in water treated with anti-chlorine and anti-chloramine. The ketapang solution can be kept for some time in the fridge but I found out that the "Miracle Leaf" from Ocean Free (which is actually ketapang leaf tea bag) lasts much longer since it contains presevatives.

This is the way I keep the tubifex worms for the past 1 year. So far so good.

**chand72** · 20th Dec 2008, 20:02

Thank you very much for the valuable advise, sorry for using the short form too.

**raglan** · 21st Dec 2008, 03:30

has anyone tried keeping them in the toilet tank ?

**scarnhost** · 22nd Dec 2008, 08:53

no i will not do it as is gross when you flush the toilet
bowl and worms come out.

**raglan** · 22nd Dec 2008, 09:16

Originally Posted by scarnhost

no i will not do it as is gross when you flush the toilet
bowl and worms come out.

Bad if you have a bidet, huh ?

I guess they use some fine netting around the container to prevent that ! I've never tried it, myself.

**scarnhost** · 22nd Dec 2008, 15:54

I managed to keep them alive for a week by changing the water 2 times a day and feeding them fish poop when i change the tank water

**CK Yeo** · 22nd Dec 2008, 16:33

Vinz is right about filtering the water. Nobody will consider an equal amount of bioload in such a small pool of water if they were fish. The trick is to keep the water fresh. Running water dilutes the ammonia produced.

ck

**scarnhost** · 22nd Dec 2008, 21:56

but dripping water from the tap contains chlorine that would kill them

**freshfish** · 23rd Dec 2008, 16:52

keeping worms in the toilet good one !

**raglan** · 23rd Dec 2008, 19:14

Originally Posted by freshfish

keeping worms in the toilet good one !

I googled chlorine and tubifex and got this.

I wouldn't mind getting some from a farm , as it sounds as though these come from. but that is Australia.

http://www.wormborough.com.au/tubifex.html

**Viper007** · 16th Jan 2009, 19:05

Originally Posted by zyblack

What I do with my tubifex worms when I get them home is to first "clean" them up. The cleaning process involves running them under tap water to remove debris that sometimes accompany the worms. Then next, I add a small quantity of mouthwash like "Listerine" to some tap water and swirl the worms in the solution for a couple of minutes. This will help disinfect the outer surface of the worms. Another round of flushing under the running tap water will remove traces of the "cleaning solution" and TA DA! Clean worms

Wah Listerine will not kill the worms meh??

**zyblack** · 16th Jan 2009, 19:51

Originally Posted by Viper007

Wah Listerine will not kill the worms meh??

Nope. Even other brands of mouthwash also won't. But I think if you leave them in the mouthwash overnight should be able to kill them all.

**Viper007** · 16th Jan 2009, 21:10

Originally Posted by zyblack

Nope. Even other brands of mouthwash also won't. But I think if you leave them in the mouthwash overnight should be able to kill them all.

Hahaha thanks buddy!

**tetrakid** · 17th Apr 2012, 23:44

Anyone keen to revive this neglected thread?

I notice many lfs these days have stopped selling Tubifex. This is the only food that my group of Cory Sterbais think of.