Blackworms & Fish Behavior

[YellowFinsReef]

I enjoy feeding a variety of foods several times a day to my fish, which includes pellets, frozen, and live pods. Recently, I've gotten into feeding them with blackworms. The first few days, I was met with rejection, however the fish quickly turned around and gobble these up within several days of feeding.

Then, I noticed there was a slight change in behavior. My fish usually are peaceful and timid with each other prior to my feeding with blackworms. However, now they are flashing, displaying like peacocks, getting darker/lighter, and aggressively chasing each other. They would swim, freeze, flash/display their fins like peacocks, then do a quick chase. One even lost a patch of scales.

So, the question is, did the blackworms affect their behavior or was this just coincidental to me feeding them blackworms?

Thoughts anyone?

The fish are: 2 red tail tamarin, 2 blue spotted tamarin, 2 yellow tail tamarin, 1 black back tamarin, 1 yellow twistii tamarin, 1 melanurus tamarin, 2 bella goby, 3 harlequin filefish, 1 flame wrasse, 1 potter's leopard, 1 guinea fowl leopard, 1 ornamental leopard, & 1 radiant wrasse.

 

[eatbreakfast]

The blackworms have excellent nutritional value. Live foods often can be used to incite spawning behavior. This combination is invigorating your fish to mature and vy for a better position in the hierarchy.

Depending on the degree of aggression affects your course of action. If fish are forced into hiding or getting badly damaged some may need to be removed. If it's mostly just posturing then you can leave things be.

 

[YellowFinsReef]

The blackworms have excellent nutritional value. Live foods often can be used to incite spawning behavior. This combination is invigorating your fish to mature and vy for a better position in the hierarchy.

Depending on the degree of aggression affects your course of action. If fish are forced into hiding or getting badly damaged some may need to be removed. If it's mostly just posturing then you can leave things be.

That sounds good. I didn't know that it could have that effect. Really, what happened was, I was at a reptile show, saw some blackworms, and thought I read somewhere blackworms were good for marine fish, so on impulse, I bought it to diversify their diet.

Now, the other question is, if I stopped feeding them blackworms, will their hormones tune down or am I kinda stuck with a bunch of moody fish forever?

 

[gonzo620]

I love feeding black worms. I on the side of coincidence. All my fish swarm the 10 ml syringe when they see the worms. However once the bust of worms hits the water column they do their own thing. I guess they just fill up on them but I don’t see any unusual aggression. I’m talking about an an Achilles tang, Powder Blue tang, Yellow tang, Naso tang which even without worms are considered to be aggressive. But you do have a list of wrasses there so m,a,y,b,e. I say keep feeding worms they’ll work it out.

 

[jd371]

The wiggling drives the fish crazy. My Spotted Dragonet hangs out below the fish and eats the worms that make it to the sand. Just recently my Rainford's Goby after months and months of just sand sifting and eating algae of the rocks has started to eat the Black worms also, he used to be timid and hang back when the fish were being fed, but now after having a taste of the worms he gets right into the mix of things along with the other fish and is not timid anymore.
I also cultivate White worms in case the lfs runs out of Black worms, I always like to have some live worms on hand to feed them. White worms are really easy to cultivate you don't need much and they stay alive longer and don't die right away in the saltwater like Black worms do.

 

[YellowFinsReef]

I love feeding black worms. I on the side of coincidence. All my fish swarm the 10 ml syringe when they see the worms. However once the bust of worms hits the water column they do their own thing. I guess they just fill up on them but I don’t see any unusual aggression. I’m talking about an an Achilles tang, Powder Blue tang, Yellow tang, Naso tang which even without worms are considered to be aggressive. But you do have a list of wrasses there so m,a,y,b,e. I say keep feeding worms they’ll work it out.

That is really interesting. So, it seems to have a calming effect on your fish especially that blue powder and Achilles tang that can often be bullies. I guess it was just a big concern for me because it was so out of the ordinary as I spend several hours in increments every day to observe my fish.

 

[eatbreakfast]

That sounds good. I didn't know that it could have that effect. Really, what happened was, I was at a reptile show, saw some blackworms, and thought I read somewhere blackworms were good for marine fish, so on impulse, I bought it to diversify their diet.

Now, the other question is, if I stopped feeding them blackworms, will their hormones tune down or am I kinda stuck with a bunch of moody fish forever?

Rivalry between closely related fish is normal. Feeding the blackworms may have sped up the time table but this sort of behavior was an eventuality.

 

[gonzo620]

Yeah they’re definitely some pretty chill guys. Maybe I got lucky, maybe they’re just in a constant food comma. Lol I’ve read many times that well-fed fish tend to be less aggressive.

 

[YellowFinsReef]

Rivalry between closely related fish is normal. Feeding the blackworms may have sped up the time table but this sort of behavior was an eventuality.

That's an interesting outlook. I do agree that these fish are a similar species and maybe it was gonna eventually happen. Let's say I just was taken aback when my girls were starting to act more like boys a week after feeding--which is totally cool. Lol