Loaches Online Forum

For loaches etc...
Have finally got brood stock of earth worms.
Suggestions on gut-clean-out method to minimize pathogen introduction potential.
Also food and care options etc...
A

you might want to look up care for white worms or grindal worms.. They smaller (much smaller) relatives of the earthworms.

I wouldn't worry too much about pathogens from earthworms.. They don't live in the same environment, so there aren't parasites that use worms as a intermediary host to get to fish.

But people usually leave the worms in damp paper towels for a few days before feeding... The worms would excrete everything out by then. And the towls remove excess mucous too.

I have heard of feeding lettuce to the worms to clean them out, but I do not know how good that is.

Is there any benefit to gut loading them before feeding them to the fish?

I find small earthworms in the garden and run them into the tanks with just a quick rinse to get most of the dirt off them,

Google 'vermicomposting' for info on worms. You can set up your own bin to deal with your leftover food waste and feed your fish at the same time.

On the verge of being hillbilly the best small wormfarm I have seen was a deep freeze buried in the ground with a few inches left sticking out and the top exposed. This kept out unwanted water and pests and maintains temp.Then you can feed them your compost .
I used to keep and fatten them up with worm food purchased for that purpose before feeding to increase mass much like you do with reptiles to get them the proper nutrients as Diana referred to as gut loading .
The risk is from pesticides with feeding wild worms even from your garden.Inside this container you add the peat mix and control all the outside influences to safely feed yer fish.