earthworms

[electric eel]

i have finally got another culture producing after 3 attempts.i had assumed it would be easy cause i had the last one going for over 2 years -no problems.tried twice back in the winter with organic potting soil(could'nt find anything else in the off season) and it just does'nt work well.they really seem to do best in cheap old hyponex(1.99 a bag i think) i've already had a nice gold pair of rams spawn that i got at the aca from eric bodrock.i know its the worms and am looking forward to the larger spawns i got before.i talked to Ron Coleman at the aca about it again and he said they have verified it definitively that diet plays a very important role in spawn size but negligible or no affect on egg size.i can't help but think that the fry are hardier as well when the female is on a really high quality diet.blackworms(they scare me anyway) and other live food just was'nt getting the job done for me.i noticed one of my yellow gold/orange cac females staying in her cave and also one of my macmasteri females.

 

[Mike Wise]

To me, one of the big advantages to using earthworms as a live food is that it comes from a totally different environment from fish. This means that it is less likely to introduce fish parasites and diseases from live food.

 

[electric eel]

its no panacea for sure, Mike.its kind of a pain to harvest the little tiny guys(i got tired of chopping up the bigger ones) that you need for dwarfs but i feel like its worth it.i sure had a lot more fish spawning when i was feeding almost exclusively earthworms and as you said i did'nt have the worry of introducing something nasty into my tanks.

 

[georgedv]

Hi electric eel,

I am setting up for live foods these next few weeks. Got some tanks started to keep batches of daphnia. I want to get some cultures of earth worms but just like you the idea of cutting to size is not appealing. Where did you get your worms and how do I ask for them to get the small sized ones? Any other info on their propagation will be usefull.

thanks
g

 

[Mike Wise]

If you don't feel comfortable chopping them, then only feed the baby worms. You will have to do something else with the adults, of course. Otherwise, they will take over the container.

 

[dw1305]

"Red worms" (Lumbricus rubellus)

Hi all,
I do the same I just feed the baby worms. I collected my starters from the compost heap in the garden, but you can buy them. I keep "Red worms" (Lumbricus rubellus), and that would be my suggestion for the easiest species to culture. I also have Brandlings or "Tiger Worms" (Eisenia fetida) in the compost heap, but the fish don't like them. Both worms naturally live in (and degrade) leaf litter etc. The red worm are very red worm, with a purple sheen, and very lively, they really jump about when you disturb them.

I culture them in large plant pots, placed in a bucket with a lid, the pot needs to wedge about 2" from the bottom of the bucket. I use a small amount of equal volumes of garden soil (a limy clay loam) and wood chippings, and then I chuck all my vegetable bits, fruit peelings, corn husks etc in until the pot is 3/4 full. I just keep it topped up then, if I'm short of material I chuck some grass cuttings and cut newspaper in. I was never very successful until I started to keep the cultures wetter than you think they should be.

I used to collect the worms that had fallen through in the base of the bucket, but now I just dig down until I come to wet, disgusting layer of banana skins, potato peel etc. There should be 100's of worms of all sizes and you can just select the size you want. I leave the buckets on top of the compost heap unless it is a prolonged cold spell (when I move them into the house).

cheers Darrel

 

[electric eel]

hi g,sorry i missed this.i've always kept mine in a large shipping styro(bottom duct taped up to keep it from leaking) with maybe 5 inches of hyponex in the bottom.the idea of rooting thru garbage was unappealing to me and i keep them in the house so i did'nt want the smell either.i feed mine spirulina flake food that i buy just for that purpose.ken(from ken's fish) told me that the liver flake he sells was originally developed as a food for earthworms but i have'nt tried it. i originally got interested in culturing them after i saw Al Anderson give a talk for the greater cincinnatti aquarium society.i believe he kept both his white worms and earthworms in fairly large but shallow(6" ?) plywood boxes he built for the purpose.Al kept and bred over 100 dif. species and had a big fishroom so he needed big cultures(which are probably much more unlikely to crash then smaller ones also)i originally got my first starter culture from a kilifish breeder in cleveland(a long time cultured strain of european redworm or so he said anyway) they were very easy to culture.this last time i just bought some from a wholesale bait supply place and also threw in some i picked up out of the yard after a big rain.it really does'nt matter the ones that live,live and the ones that don't,don't.i'm sure as you keep raising whatever survives that they get more and more acclimated to being grown in a culture.i have no problem cutting up the bigger ones but it gets extremely tedious to do it day after day.as Darrel said they need to be pretty moist.maybe just a little drier then the point where they want to start climbing out of the culture.it'll take (i'm guessing) a couple months before you will be able to start harvesting the baby worms which are very small(smaller then grindal worms)you just harvest the small ones for dwarfs and as the culture matures you will have worms in there that are size appropriate to feed to everything from dwarfs to large fish,if you don't harvest too many of the tiny ones.you always want to leave some so you always have new breeders anyway.once you get your culture going it is really easy and is well worth the effort.where you are at(unless its too hot not sure) you could keep them outside much of the year and if you fed rotting vegatation and household garbage you would pretty much have free food(not counting your time)hope this helps a little!
craig

 

[georgedv]

Thanks for the reponses dw1305 & elecric eel. Im glad you gave me two percpectives and strategies to this. Both are feasable in SC. My main goal, other than having thriving cultures, is less work. I have quite a bit just w/the fish.

Again thank you both.

g