Red Wigglers

[LizStreithorst]

Anyone else here feed them?  My Discus are spoiled, they get them every day.  The Angels are becoming spoiled as well.  The more I work the culture the more the little buggers reproduce.  I can hardly feed enough of them to keep up.  BTW, my worms' favorite food is horse shit.  YUM!

[Mugwump]

I've never used them....sounds good tho....

[BillT]

They are in my compost. Raccoons try to get them. My fish are too small for them.

[LizStreithorst]

What kind of fish, Bill?  Even my Endlers go for them.  The trick is to pick through the culture and choose the ones that are the correct size for your fish.  For my Discus and Angels I feed juvie worms.  The ones with the band around the body are sexually mature and go back into the culture to breed.  I leave the little baby ones to grow a bit.

I have two worm bins (actaully I've just started a third cause they are reproducing so fast I can't keep up)  I pick through a bunch of worms and toss the tiny babies and the breeders into the other bin along with their dirt.  That way I'm not constantly disturbing them.  They have time to grow and reproduce without being constantly bothered.

[BillT]

Really, endllers can eat them?
I have a variety of Danios and Devarios.

I guess I have not considered picking out the small ones.
The adult worms I see are about 3" long. Checking to see if we are talking about the same thing.
There times when I almost get a solid layer of worms at a certain level in the pile.

How big are the little ones you feed your fish?
Do you chop them up?

[LizStreithorst]

Are the ones in your compost red or grey.  The red ones are the Red Wigglers.   The grey are ones called Night Crawlers.  If they're in your compost you likely have the Red Wigglers as they are also called compost worms.

It's hard to measure a Red Wiggler.  They can stretch out really long or pull themselves in and get short.  A small diameter worm would be best for the smaller fish.  Their bodies are tender and the fish kind of chew them up little by little.  The Endlers are funny with them.  A fish will grab this long worm and another fish will come up, grab the other end and steal it.  Eventually, the worm gets eaten.

I don't chop them.  The fish don't like them chopped.  It's the wiggle factor that turns them on, I think. 

[wiggs]

Liz, how do you raise your red wigglers? I have wanted to do this, but didn`t think that the smaller fish would eat them. i know that the worms are really good for the fish, lots of protein for growth. could you let us know how you do this and what kind of bin?

[BillT]

Another question is how to separate the little worms from the dirt.

I used some compost while planting tomato plants yesterday and saw a lot of tiny ones, they were all gooped up in the rather moist compost dirt.
I'm thinking maybe dissolve everything in water???

[LizStreithorst]

I use any kind of plastic container that will hold dirt.  The ones I'm using now are approx. 3X2X2.  Put a layer of dirt on the bottom.  Any old dirt will do.  The worms need the dirt for their digestion.  Then mix in fresh horse turds if it's available to you, or torn up news paper or cardboard, and all your vegetable waste.  They like coffee grounds and tea bags.  Crushed up eggs shells are good for them, too. 

Then add your worms.  You can get them from your garden, from your compost, from a bait store, or buy them on line.  Or I can send you some.  Leave them alone for 3 weeks so they can get comfortable and start producing baby worms.  Then start picking through them.  I put the ones I'm picking through in a shallow plastic container.  You should have another deep container on hand that you dump the too tiny ones and the breeding age ones into, along with their dirt.

I keep mine cultures in the fish room where the temperature is fairly stable.  Still, I find they really take off in the Spring.  How they know it's Spring is beyond me.  Once they start breeding, the more you work them and feed them, the more they produce.

[LizStreithorst]

Another question is how to separate the little worms from the dirt.

I used some compost while planting tomato plants yesterday and saw a lot of tiny ones, they were all gooped up in the rather moist compost dirt.
I'm thinking maybe dissolve everything in water???

I just throw them in, dirt, horse shit, and all, but I have BB tanks.  Some people rinse them.  I believe that the dirt contains stuff that is good for the fish.  I had a group of Discus once that had just gone free swimming and eating their parents slime coat.  They were still too young for BBS.  On a whim, I tossed in some vermicompost (the stuff the worms had been living in).  The baby fish left their parents sides and ate the good stuff they found in the vermicompost.  I think I still have a pic somewhere.  If I can find it, I'll post it.

[wiggs]

Thanks for telling me how you raise your worms. How do you keep them from getting to wet? I read somewhere that they make compost tea with the liquid that the worms make. Do you get any liquid or do you just drain it off of your worms? This is what i was worried about ,some said to put a drain in the bin so you can drain off liquid. Also they used really large bins and I don`t have the room for a really large bin. Yours sound like what I could use.

[LizStreithorst]

Mine don't get wet.  They produce some moisture because they're slimy things, but they don't get wet.  I actually have to add a bit of water every once in a while to keep them moist enough.  You can make compost tea from the worm castings but it involves adding a large amount of water to the vermicompost and using the liquid that precipates out from the compost.

[wiggs]

I really didn`t want the tea as much as just the worms. Do you think that cow manure would work? if not I can ask  someone that has horses for some extra manure. I know horse manure is very good for your garden, but it has to have been worked in to the dirt first, because it is very strong. I haven`t used it in years, but when I did my plants really grew .

[shatanka]

Try to get the dried older horse poop that has been sitting for awhile if you do get some from your neighbors. That is better for gardens and for probably starting your worm culture ( and not as smelly too! lol) as fresh stuff.  I had a bag of it ( old stuff that my daughter collected from her horse from awhile back) I was going to throw in my flower bed. I had left it sitting and forgot about it, and when she went to go shovel into it to put in the garden, we had already started my own worm farm in it! Yes, the fish LOVED the wigglin' wormies. I did rinse them though, ( worried about the poop ). I also split them in half ( gross, but nuthin different than going fishing I guess! still gross! lol)  cuz the there would be half in one angels mouth, and half in another...like on Lady and the Tramp! Kinda funny! The Severums and Frontosa though..gulp..gone in a second! lol

[wiggs]

Looks like i`m going to Walmart for some bins. Will also have to ask someone who has horses for some manure. We have a couple of farms in the area that have horses. I would like to try this and see if i can get it going. I know I can use it in my veggie garden if the fish don`t eat the worms. I already have plants growing. Not as good as Scotts friend Dan, in Rockford, but I think that I didn`t have enough light on them. Well, I will know next year, to have more light also to start earlier.