What is the easiest and best way to culture Whiteworm?

[FishKeeper]

I'm wanting to culture some more live food and want to give white worm ago. What is the best way to culture it and how long do I need to wait till I can harvest it?

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I've never got on very well with White worms (Enchytraeus albidus), partially because they aren't very productive, and partially because you need to keep them cool. Have a look here for culture details for all worms: <http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-adva ... nchytraea/>

Grindal worms (Enchytraeus buchholzi) are smaller than White worms, but otherwise similar, and are much, much easier to culture. I keep Banana (Panagrellus nepenthicola), Micro (Panagrellus redivivus), Grindal and Red worms (Lumbricus rubellus), and that potentially provides live worm food for fish from small fry through to medium sized fish.

cheers Darrel

[FishKeeper]

Thanks, How do you culture red worms? I have never heard of them before?

[dw1305]

Hi all,
I got my starter culture from my compost heap, but if you have potted plants on a patio etc, the worms under the pots and that get into the pot bottoms will be Red Worms (Lumbricus rubellus).

They aren't a soil dwelling worm, but live in the damp humus layer of fallen leaves etc. The worms are very active and feel really firm when you pick them up, they are also red coloured with an iridescent blue sheen.

You want L. rubellus, some of the ones for sale (for composting) are actually the Brandling or Tiger worm (Eisiena foetida), which fish don't like eating, it is a much paler, less active worm, with a stripy body and yellow tail, which exudes yellow fluid when broken.

If you can't source any PM me and I'll try to send you some, this is what you are after.
From the wonderful Bioimages <http://www.bioimages.org.uk/html/r163678.htm>

I put a few worms in with the Grindal worm cultures, but I specifically culture them in large plant pots (about 3 - 5 litre for a "normal bucket"), placed in a bucket with a lid (my original was a "nappy bucket"), 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 or potting compost, 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 much 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 towards the top of the compost heap unless it is a prolonged cold spell (when I move them into the house), so far I haven't brought them in(to the house) in 2012-13.

cheers Darrel

[catfishcapers]

White worm are not hard at all but you do need to keep them coolish around 60/66 always keeps them produceing fast,I harvest hundreds a day every day and they are from 2-3 mm upto around 20mm so a great item for fry upto aduts for any species of fish.you need to moniter them for crashing and that normally happens over a 24hr period .and you will see everything sat up on top and not really active but if you monitor every day like I do you will have no problems .white worm are very very productive and they as what they eat .ps the crash seems to happy when there soil gets too loaded with there waste ,I don't suggest topping up like some do .it will slow the worms down and only dilute the situation,I would myself split at this point and start a few more tubs off ,then let's the breaking down culure run its course a little longer and bin it .these worms are easy if you manage them correctly ie:2 mins of your time a day .they are very worth while and bring my betta into condition everytime,beware they can be fattening.I'm just gettng back into Cory so excuse me mentioning betta .pm me if you would like to know more on how I culture whiteworm....