earthworm living underwater

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Tjend;4452748; said:
i thought the same thing but i guess it might be that they cant live in mud because they will rot in it, maybe it has to be just moist im not really sure. but i also noticed the worm isnt slimy it has no slime on it at all ? and sorry i assumed axolotl was a fish haha i googled it and thats a crazy looking salamander/frog lol
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no its cool. most people never heard of him. they is awesome tho. he has flat glass rocks as substrate and he could get to, and or see the worms in there, but i think ill just keep feeding him normally. getting lazy wouldnt be the proper care he deserves. but its really cool that worm lived that long in the water. i didnt know that could happen and you learn something new everyday.
 
you learn something new everyday.
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agreed. and im guessing earthworms can absorb oxygen through water as well because idk i mean this thing has been living underwater for over a month and hasnt drowned. and it cant swim upward at all if it wanted to go to the top for air
 
Richie_ELP;4452796; said:
Earthworms absorb oxygen through the skin. Eventually underwater they do drown.
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but after how long?

I used to feed my old sculpin worms. after it died, i drained 90% of the water and took it outside. got distracted, forgot about it. nearly 7 months later(yes i know forgot about it for a long time) i finally got around to gutting it and reusing stuff out of it. there was a worm still alive.
 
Tjend;4452748; said:
i thought the same thing but i guess it might be that they cant live in mud because they will rot in it, maybe it has to be just moist im not really sure. but i also noticed the worm isnt slimy it has no slime on it at all ? and sorry i assumed axolotl was a fish haha i googled it and thats a crazy looking salamander/frog lol
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The slime is there to help them get through dirt. The only time my feeder worms have slime on them is when they are distressed...By me cutting them into pieces for feeding my bichirs!
 
Q. Why do worms come onto driveways and sidewalks when it rains?
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A. Dr. Dennis Linden, Cindy Hale, and other worm experts say that worms do NOT surface to avoid drowning. In fact, they come to the surface during rains (especially in the spring) so they can move overland. The temporarily wet conditions give worms a chance to move safely to new places. Since worms breathe through their skin, the skin must stay wet in order for the oxygen to pass through it. After rain or during high humidity are safe times for worms to move around without dehydrating. It is true that, without oxygen, worms will suffocate. But earthworms can survive for several weeks under water, providing there is sufficient oxygen in the water to support them.[/FONT]​
 
Today is the first time I have ever been on this site but I've been looking for info about earthworms and them being able to live under water in aquariums. I have a 130 gallon freshwater aquarium that has two large mouth bass, 4 crawdads, that breed with each other, and snails that came in on my plants that I got from a pond by my house. Everything from the plants to the rocks I have gathered from the earth around northern california. Anyways, I feed my fish mosquito fish from ponds and canadian night crawlers from Wal-Mart. Last night I was watching the tank after I feed everything and saw these little worms coming up through the gravel and along the sides of the glass. I started looking more and I have baby earth worms all through the tank, like hundreds of them. So I guess that worms do live in tanks and they will breed too. That's the only thing that could of happened. The gravel does have a lot of fish poo and plant matter that is breaking down and slowly turning to soil, in a small fashion.
If anyone has anymore info or questions I would like to find out more on this. I'm also going to continue looking on the web too.
 
I took some pictures but the worms are to small in diameter to be able to see in the pics. I can see some that are atleast two inches long but only as thick as about a 1/3 of the thickness of mechanical pencil lead. If I can get some pics to turn out I will post them because there is a cluster of about 20 small worms that are sticking out of the gravel about 1/2 inch and they are waving back and forth. They go down when a crawdad goes over them, but they come right back and start waving again. It's kind of weird. Oh well, that's it for now.
 
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