Home-grown worms?

[marti]

Has anyone tried culturing black worms? I would feel much better about feeding them if I knew that they had been grown in clean media. Also, I have to special order mine and I can only get them in 2 oz. or more. This is a lot more than I can keep healthy in the refrigerator. Any suggestions? ::)

[BombCat]

I have tried to keep 1lbs alive with no problems until the stupid City added a lot more Chlorine and other Chemical in my water. Which killed off all my worms. Now I am going to start again. I am aging my waters, add stress coats (to remove Chlorine and other Chemical) and keep them in room temp. I have always keep them in room temp which is around 65F. I know they have grown from 1lb to 1.25lbs since I remeasure it 2 weeks afterward. Just make sure you clean them and add an air stone which generate O2 for them. I am doing more experiements. I will found out if they work or not.

HTH

[BlueTurquoise]

Hi there,

I asked this question before. It seems that John (aka Darkdiscus) has tried this many times before in experimentation without much success. Please read the thread below. There is another link inside that thread to another thread regarding extensive conversation on the topic.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=6396

If you ever do get it right and are successfully doing it, let me and the rest of us know. In the mean time however, the CBW banner on top of this page is apparently pretty darn good in terms of the method in which they are raised and many people regard their CBW's highly. It may be a costly, but better colution for now...

Chong

[marti]

BombCat:
How much water do you keep them in? I was going to keep them in my garage which is probably 50-60 deg. How about putting them in a 5 gal. aquarium? I could also get a 1 gal or 2 gal. How often do you change the water? Do you think I could use a sponge filter with some kind of sleeve on it so the worms would not be pulled in? ??? I would like to keep them as clean as possible! ::)

[BlueTurquoise]

Try using a sponge filter that has smaller pores, that way they don't get sucked in there. What type of substrate are you thinking of using? Apparently one part of the problem is the substrate. Brown paper is what is traditionally used, however this breaks down easily and is hard to clean apparently.

There are some other ideas about substrate. But bascially that is how the worms get their food, eating the micro organisms that form when the substrate breaks down.

John keeps them moist but with hardly any water at all. You do get escapees though...

The other thing is the way that the worms reproduce. They split into 2 parts and basically duplicate themselves. This is one reason why it is hard to have a continually harvestable culture. For a hobbyist with a few fish maybe, but 2-3 tanks and you will need many lbs of black worms to keep up with the demand.

I am working on a earthworm solution which is much easier and a very much sustainable solution. They are supposed to be one of the best, relatively safe foods you can get from what I hear.

HTH
Chong

[BombCat]

Sorry marti, I was out for a few days. Didnt check this board while I was out.

To answer your question, I sometimes has 1" something has 2" of water. I add them in a 5.5 gallon tank. I think its 15 X 8 X 10 inches. Since I am doing experiments, I slowly added more water to 2". So they are still fine w/ 2" of water.

I change water once a day at first, and now I am doing it once every 3 days. I know the water smells. :P

I feed my worms banana skins (small 1" cube) maybe 5 - 10 pieces.

For now it works. But it is still too slow before my fish eats all the worms. Like I said, I weight them, I can tell the amount has increased. Oh, I weight the worms without water. I have something that drains all the water out and then I weight the worms. ;D

Oh, I have 2 tanks so one is gone before the second one doubles.

At first I use brown papers, but I dont like them either. it melt very fast thats why I am using only banana skins.

One more thing I found out yesterday by surprise is that worms are more active when you put them in water with temps around 75 - 80. I washed my worms in that temp. water and I can see that the water are cleaner the next morning. But you will smell a very bad smell. :-X (like ****)

But I will test that again next water change.

Other then that, I have nothing more to say.

HTH