What are these?

[idris]

Not sure which board this fits into, but I suspect someone will have an answer.

Just drained a water butt and found these critters in it. I have previously used water from the butt to fill my aquarium, but not recently.

Any idea what they are and should I be concerned?

 

[Riley]

Hi
Do you have a pixel phone you could do an image search via lens option

 

[idris]

Hi
Do you have a pixel phone you could do an image search via lens option

No.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Not sure which board this fits into, but I suspect someone will have an answer.

Just drained a water butt and found these critters in it. I have previously used water from the butt to fill my aquarium, but not recently.

Any idea what they are and should I be concerned?

They are the tubes made by Chironomid midge larvae, usually called "bloodworms", so nothing to worry about.

Cheers Darrel

 

[idris]

Ah! I assumed those were much smaller. Thanks Darrel.

Am I right in thinking these can be a useful food source for an aquarium? ie As I'm replacing the water butt, is there any value in seeding the new one?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

... right in thinking these can be a useful food source for an aquarium?

They are, you need to wash them out of the tubes. The tubes are quite tough, and you may need to pull them apart, some people are allergic to them so best not to handle them.

As I'm replacing the water butt, is there any value in seeding the new one?

You don't need to. The adults are winged, so they find new "ponds" fairly efficiently.

Cheers Darrel

 

[louis_last]

If you know that the midges are laying in there then rather than trying to individually harvest bloodworms I find more utility in going out at night with a torch and collecting the egg masses they deposit at the surface as they lay huge numbers at once. You're looking for spiral of hundreds of eggs coated in jelly about 2cm long. You can suck them up with a pippette and hatch them in a jar or just add them to hatch in the tank.
I do the same thing with mosquito egg rafts. A bucket of water with some rotting bannana peels in it will be very attractive to both mosquitos and midges.
For seperating Tubifex and detritus worms from mud and silt you can use a gentle heatsource beneath the container which causes them all to accumulate at the surface and something similar might also work for bloodworms.