Tubifex Worm's Insight

As an aquarium hobbyist in Malaysia, I am sure that you have heard about tubifex worm or "cacing merah". Tubifex worms are common live fish food in this country.

Tubifex worms are near-perfect live fish food; they provide proteins needed by fishes. Fish fry that eat tubifex worms grow faster than their counterparts which feed on artificial food. In Malaysia, the worms are fed to discus as a staple diet due to their low cost compared to that of pig hearts or beef hearts.

Tubifex worms in fish shops are mostly collected in the wild. They must be kept in clean water for few days before being used as fish food - wild caught tubifex worms might carry diseases or parasites that could be fatal to fishes. You could often see aquarium shopkeepers cleaning their newly received tubifex worms like mad (wo)men, but if you buy your worms from irresponsible shopkeepers, you may bid your fish farewell.

Aquarium hobbyists are advised to clean any tubifex worm that they purchase to prevent any "accident." This could be done by keeping the tubifex worms under running water for few hours or by changing their water every three hours.


We do sell frozen dried tubifex worms instead of live ones! Click Our Product for more information!

Hatching Brine Shrimp

Brine shrimp are among the few available live food source that is suitable for small fish fry, it is small enough for most livebearers' fry to eat, for example, mollies, guppy, swordtail and platy.

Buying brine Shrimp egg

  Brine shrimp come in bottles containing their eggs, it is often brown in colour and powder-like, you will need to keep the eggs in cool and dry environment, a refrigerator is a good place to keep them.

Hatching Brine Shrimp (Malaysian Home Method)

  Hatching brine shrimp eggs is actually very simple, you will need to have a water container (plastic or glass),  a liter of dechlorinate water, two tea spoon of marine salt, aquarium aeration accessory and any amount of brine shrimps egg (depend on the amount you need).

 First, pour the dechlorinate water into the container and then add in two tea spoon of marine salt. Next, stir the water and then add in the brine shrimp eggs before putting in the water aeration. Lastly, put the container in a well-lit place (but not under direct sunlight) under room temperature, it should hatch in around 24 hours or shorter.

Feeding the fry

 Once the brine shrimps hatch, you should be able to see lots of tiny pink moving creatures in the water. You will need to filter them out from the salty water using a piece of cloth or suitable net before feeding them to your fish fry. This is to prevent the egg shells of the brine shrimps from entering your fish fry's tank, it will potentially choke the fish fry if they eat the egg shells.

Availability in the market

Brine shrimp eggs can be fins in some huge retailer stores and it is not very expensive, normally they will stock up frozen brine shrimp too.

Tips and Warning

-Brine shrimps can only live for around a day or two, so only hatch the amount you needed, a little amount of eggs can hatch into lots of brine shrimp already, just like the pearl sago.

-Remember, you need MARINE SALT! Not the cooking salt or aquarium salt.

-Frozen brine shrimps cannot be used as an alternative to life brine shrimp when feeding small fish fry, this is because the fish fry need  live food.