Is there a difference in nightcrawlers and blood worms?? Are nightcrawlers safe to feed my O? Thanks!

nightcrawlers are the American term for garden earthworms, normally the ones you find crawling on your grass at night, or coming out after it's been raining.

Blood worm are actually the larvae of the midge fly. I suppose they are called blood worm because they look like worms and are red

Worms are perfectly safe to feed your fish as long as they haven't been harvested from anywhere that has been sprayed with insecticide

im no expert but im thinking bloodworms are midge larva and are aquatic, while earth worms are terrestrial and will drown in the water, and are just a worm, but dont let that stop you! oscars love them both! i used to have a video o my two oscars when they were young playing tug of war with a nightcrawler that was longer than they were! have since lost it in a reformat or i would post it for you.


edit - lol u beat me to it OFL! ur on the ball today!!!

I buy earthworms and dump them into a tupperware tub filled with damp compost... Toss your old coffee grounds and egg shells in there too.... I feed earthworms regularly along with shrimp,mealworms(which is only worth being a snack), and other bugs.. Im trying to get them to eat pellets again but it seems to be more of a PITA then its worth at this point///

where i am from Canada.
We catch nightcrawlers easy at night.(hence the name)
but it is just my thoughts that they are just way bigger earthworms,,,usally 5 to 10 inches,,,before they start stretch themselfs.

yea i live on a lake here and when it rains the ground gets really soggy and u can quickly get a dozen or more off my sidewalk, and there is this tree in my back yard we dump our leaves and lawn clippings around kinda like mulch i guess, but after a good rain i can go back there and pick 75 worms off the base of that tree bc they are trying to get out of the water and not drown.

In summer I search for earthworms together with my 2 year old daughter.
Then we feed them together to the Oscar.
If she sees a worm she points at it and shouts: FISHFOOD!

Noddy wrote:

you've better watch out for your baby girl. she could stuff all food
in your tank when nobody is watching.

that is what my 5 year old grand daughter did recently. she had seen
my wife get the cup of fresh frozen shrimp in the ref, and dumped them
in the tank.... that 5 year old girl did the same... she told me
" i saw mama do it too".....

Don't worry.
I keep my kids locked in the basement when I'm not around.

No, I'm pretty sure that will happen sometime, but she's got her own Guppytank tp practice.
and she put in cotton wool, took out the plants and fed them with pieces of the cover of my speakers.

hey Noddy, you make make day today.... i have a good laugh

lololol good stuff

Thanks everyone for the info!! I was just curious because I had bought some nightcrawlers to go fishing and I had some left over. I do wonder though if the companies use any kind of insecticide on fishing worms. Another quick question, I don't have to wait until my O is bigger to give worms right? He's about 3 inches.

Thanks again for all the info!