Feeding too much microworms is no good?

[Setsuna]

I just had a recent discovery that feeding microworms to Betta frys is no good. Plz shed some light if you guys know more about this. Some of my betta frys are ventral finless due to feeding microworms too much is that true?

[LebronTheBetta]

Microworms in general have nothing bad for the fry. The fry being ventral-less is due to the microworms on the bottom of the tank. Technically, the bacteria on the bottom makes fry ventral-less. I suggest cleaning it more often than usual. Which might be daily. :(

[Oldfishlady]

That is my understanding as well...Its not the MW per se-but the bacteria that is created by the MW as they decay.

I never used MW until last year and I found it hard to feed them without getting too much of the culture medium in the tank. I had to experiment a lot until I figured it out....lol....

I didn't have any missing ventral fin problems, however, I did see growth/development issues as well as more die off and even disease in the one experimental tank that I was feeding MW alone. (I haven't had a disease in my fry tanks in well over 7 years.)
In the MW and NHBBS fry tank-I didn't have as many issue and I had pretty good growth-but it wasn't as good as the NHBBS only fry tank. NHBBS-newly hatched BBS.

With this said-I think some of the issues I had are more related to user error (me) with feeding the MW and not the MW themselves and plan to repeat the experiment this winter-using 6 different common cultures used to feed Betta fry.

[Sena Hansler]

Agreed! Just bacteria, that causes it. I prefer BBS (now that I have used it), less messy and they can survive longer in the water that MW.

[marktrc]

i fed MW to my current spawn. the fry were actually having a hard time eating the bbs. i think my newly hatched fry were extra small so the bbs was too big. the MW were the right size.

i was worried about missing ventrals so i siphoned daily if i could and wiped the bottom with a small piece of paper towel weekly. when the fry grew slightly, i alternated feeding bbs and mw. i had no missing ventrals and as far as i can tell, the fish are healthy.

i cultured the MW in oatmeal and water that i microwaved for one min. let it cool and sprinkled yeast, then added some MWs. after the culture grew and climbed up the sides of the container, i scraped them off the sides with a piece of plastic. i then dipped the plastic with the MWs on it, in the grow out tank with the fry. the cloud of MWs floated down and that was that. IMO the MWs are easier to keep and feed then bbs. im going to feed MWs again with my next spawn.

OFL suggested i use a small airstone and turn the air very low to help with the ventral/bacteria problem. i did this as soon as i thought the fry would tolerate it. unsure of the effectiveness of this but i had no missing ventrals. ty OFL.

[Sena Hansler]

I find a small airstone does help - especially in another way with keeping the surface broken, to avoid thick sludge from building!

[LittleBettaFish]

I grew out my first ever lot of fry from birth to their current size in a barebottom tank. They were fed essentially strictly microworms with maybe one or two feedings of BBS until they were big enough to take grindals.

Everyone has grown their ventrals in and they are all actually growing at a considerable rate.

However, there are two variables in this scenario that might have made a difference. One, these are a wild species of betta and I have not yet read about any issues with missing ventrals occurring in wild species, and two, I kept the bottom of their tank scrupulously clean with daily cleanings so as to avoid the build-up of any decaying MWs or bacteria.

I myself only use MWs as I am very lazy at hatching BBS and have never had an issue with deformities, disease or lack of growth. I personally find that grindals along with chopped up blackworms (surprising how small a fry can be to take blackworms) give a very good growth of rate once fry outgrow BBS and MWs so I try and get them switched onto them as soon as I can.