I have tried everything to get my GT to eat something that isn't a nightcrawler so I decided to try and make a fish food that looks like an earthworm to feed him and this is what I did.
Step 1 was to gather all the foods I intended to include in the recipe. I used the following foods and went very heavy on the YFS earthworm sticks to give it a nice wormy scent.
Next step was to secure permission from my girlfriend to irreversibly stink up the coffee grinder which will need to be replaced after doing this even once. I ground up the foods into a fine powder and used 1/4 cup of finely ground food mixture packed tightly into a measuring cup.
After the food was well ground and measured, I put the 1/4 cup of dried food powder back into the grinder and added about 1 and 1/4 packets of Knox unflavored gelatin. I proceeded to use the grinder to mix the food and gelatin powder together very well.
After I had my dry mixture all together, I brought a little over 1/2 cup of water to a boil in the microwave and added the dry mixture to the water. It is important to mix this foul smelling goop super well and be prepared to apologize for your significant other for stinking up the kitchen. The YFS earthworm food in particular gives it a very pungent odor. When your done mixing it should look something like this. Try your best to get every little chunk of food broken up into the mixture.
This next step should actually be performed before any of the other steps are started. What you need to do is get some drinking straws. Take a bundle of straws and use rubber bands or in my case zip ties, to hold them together so all of the openings are very close together. You will then want to take another rubber band and a zip lock baggie and secure the bag to the bottom of the bundle of straws. You will be pouring the food into the straws to form the shape of a worm so the bag will help catch any excess food slurry.
I then placed the straws up-right in a cup so they were sitting vertical and spooned my food slurry down into the the straws. If this is difficult you may want to add a little water to the food slurry along with some extra gelatin and mix thoroughly to thin the mixture out. I also used tooth pick to help push the food mixture down into the straws when they started to get full to eliminate any voids inside the straw.
After this messy step you will treat this like you're making jello and place the cup of straws in the refrigerator for a few hours. Let them set for a good long time, I ruined my first batch by trying to get them out of the straws too soon.
To remove your worms from the straws, grip one end of the straw with a pair of pliers and pinch just above where the pliers are holding the straw. Now slowly use your pinched fingers to push the worm out of the straw onto a paper plate or into a zip lock bag. The finished result will look like this.
My GT finally ate something that wasn't a worm and although he's still shy about eating them they do disappear from his tank if I leave the room. These worms are incredibly stable under water and will not foul your tank like regular pellets so leaving them in with a picky eater is much less worrisome then letting pellets turn to mush. Hope this helps someone get a spoiled worm eater onto a more nutritious diet.
I also made a ton more of this stuff for my nanoluteus grow outs and they go insane over it. Since they aren't as picky I just spooned the liquid food mixture into an ice cube tray and pop one out when its feeding time. Since they are small I give them like 1/4 cube and its more then enough.
Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo4t72Q8V7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1-gMOsFeSQ
Step 1 was to gather all the foods I intended to include in the recipe. I used the following foods and went very heavy on the YFS earthworm sticks to give it a nice wormy scent.
Next step was to secure permission from my girlfriend to irreversibly stink up the coffee grinder which will need to be replaced after doing this even once. I ground up the foods into a fine powder and used 1/4 cup of finely ground food mixture packed tightly into a measuring cup.
After the food was well ground and measured, I put the 1/4 cup of dried food powder back into the grinder and added about 1 and 1/4 packets of Knox unflavored gelatin. I proceeded to use the grinder to mix the food and gelatin powder together very well.
After I had my dry mixture all together, I brought a little over 1/2 cup of water to a boil in the microwave and added the dry mixture to the water. It is important to mix this foul smelling goop super well and be prepared to apologize for your significant other for stinking up the kitchen. The YFS earthworm food in particular gives it a very pungent odor. When your done mixing it should look something like this. Try your best to get every little chunk of food broken up into the mixture.
This next step should actually be performed before any of the other steps are started. What you need to do is get some drinking straws. Take a bundle of straws and use rubber bands or in my case zip ties, to hold them together so all of the openings are very close together. You will then want to take another rubber band and a zip lock baggie and secure the bag to the bottom of the bundle of straws. You will be pouring the food into the straws to form the shape of a worm so the bag will help catch any excess food slurry.
I then placed the straws up-right in a cup so they were sitting vertical and spooned my food slurry down into the the straws. If this is difficult you may want to add a little water to the food slurry along with some extra gelatin and mix thoroughly to thin the mixture out. I also used tooth pick to help push the food mixture down into the straws when they started to get full to eliminate any voids inside the straw.
After this messy step you will treat this like you're making jello and place the cup of straws in the refrigerator for a few hours. Let them set for a good long time, I ruined my first batch by trying to get them out of the straws too soon.
To remove your worms from the straws, grip one end of the straw with a pair of pliers and pinch just above where the pliers are holding the straw. Now slowly use your pinched fingers to push the worm out of the straw onto a paper plate or into a zip lock bag. The finished result will look like this.
My GT finally ate something that wasn't a worm and although he's still shy about eating them they do disappear from his tank if I leave the room. These worms are incredibly stable under water and will not foul your tank like regular pellets so leaving them in with a picky eater is much less worrisome then letting pellets turn to mush. Hope this helps someone get a spoiled worm eater onto a more nutritious diet.
I also made a ton more of this stuff for my nanoluteus grow outs and they go insane over it. Since they aren't as picky I just spooned the liquid food mixture into an ice cube tray and pop one out when its feeding time. Since they are small I give them like 1/4 cube and its more then enough.
Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo4t72Q8V7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1-gMOsFeSQ
