# microworms



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I restarted both of my cultures the other day, I have been doing two different methods, one is instant potatoes and the other is oatmeal.

The potatoes one has had more worms on the sides of the container the past two days that I have been using the cultures.

Has anyone else compared different media for microworms?


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Are you using yeast? I have only used oatmeal or pablum, although many use the potatoes.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I add a little yeast


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I learned rather by mistake that they seem to do better with a lot of yeast, not a little. I was testing to see if they could eat old yeast. Found several packets that were years past their date in my fridge, and before I tossed them, thought I'd see if they were still edible for worms. They'd never have raised any bread at that age, for sure.

Sort of lost my grip on one envelope, and the worms got a huge load of yeast. They were building condos by the next day.. growth like I have never seen before. Looked like a moonscape or something, piles of solid worms all over the place. They were crawling out the holes in the top and drying up once they got out. And those holes I make with the tip of a pin, they are tiny. 

I now feed them generously every couple of days and am experimenting with freezing the extras.

I keep them on oatmeal. I've tried a few other flours/meals, but they fermented far too fast, and started to rise. Oatmeal doesn't rise, so I use that only. Instant spuds I've only used for flies so far, never tried it for worms. Oatmeal is cheaper than instant spuds are.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

so expired yeast is just as good as fresh for them? Perfect, I have some old yeast if so.

I guess the real experiment would be to use equal or no yeast to compare media.

Freezing them sounds interesting for resale.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

It might be interesting to experiment with a few cultures to see what differences feeding makes. I made up one batch of oatmeal with some turmeric in it.. turned it a pale yellow. It's loaded with antioxidants and I've always wondered if the worms eat the oatmeal. I figured I might be able to tell if the worms were also yellow.

Only problem has been that it's actually very hard to tell if the worms are yellow or not. The colour just isn't strong enough to make a noticeable difference, assuming there's a difference to see.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Did you ever think you would grow up to have conversations about worms?


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Not really, no. Never did like bugs much. Be happy as can be if I never ever saw another roach. 

But I've been animal crazed my whole life and with animals come some less than sweet smelling issues even when all is well. Horses were my thing when I was younger. Horse barns come with manure piles, flies and parasites galore. Horses need regular deworming to make the best use of their food and remain healthy, just like dogs and cats and one often got to see the results of deworming up close and personal.. whether one wished to or not.

If you're the type to find this sort of thing a bit squicky, having horses, or any other animals for that matter, might not be your thing. Cat's have their litter boxes, dogs you have to poop 'n scoop, fish you anxiously observe for signs of abnormal excretions at times.. and while worms and insects in general were never a fave topic when I was younger, feeding my critters right has always been a huge issue for me. The more I learn, the more I find I'm willing to do to see they are fed properly.. even raise worms.

I was just talking with my vet today, as it happens. I feed my cats raw food, and they're getting up there in age.. pushing 16. One is hyperthyroid. Because she is on meds for that, she has to have blood tests a few times a year to ensure her hormone levels are neither too low or too high, & that her liver is working ok. The vet was saying how nice it was to be able to read a blood test on a patient and have it all be just perfect, never mind a patient in my cat's age bracket. Nothing too high, nothing too low, all just right. Very good news for me too.

I commented that I thought the diet was in large part responsible for the blood work results and she agreed. This was quite amazing considering just a few years ago my vet was certain both the cats and I would die of salmonella poisoning if I fed raw meat. She's completely changed her tune since then, and needless to say, nobody got salmonella. For a hyperthyroid senior feline, Brina's in amazing shape and her sister, Matty, is too, despite having had a stroke this year and going off food entirely for quite awhile. Fortunately she's back on track and eating enough she might even gain her weight back at some point. Had you asked me ten years ago if I'd be willing to chop meat twice a day for my cats, I'd have thought you were a bit nuts.

So no, I didn't think I'd grow up to discuss worms, but the fact my apartment now houses any number of insect and various other life forms I would once have called the exterminator to deal with, well, that's life, I think. Change happens.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Wow, you were right about using more yeast, I put about a 1/4 tsp in and the worms are crazy. Just redid my cultures a couple days ago and there were more worms than I have ever seen.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I've got a pic, somewhere, of a worm pile at least a half inch high and more than an inch wide.. solid worms, climbing atop each other. Can't figure how the ones on the bottom manage to survive but they do. The more I feed, the more worms I get, and when you think about that, it makes perfect sense. Most creatures reproduce better when they are well fed. 

I think the only logical reason not to feed them well is if you're just maintaining a culture in between times of heavy use, say between batches of fry, for example.

I'm trying the same thing with walter worms, to see how they respond to heavier feeding. Banana worms certainly also respond to heavier feeding. I used an 8 gram envelope of the old yeast to feed about six cultures and they had covered the lids by the next day, with little stalagmites and stalactities of worms, sticking up from the substrate and hanging down from the air holes. Truly amazing how fast they can reproduce given enough food.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I had thought the actual food was the potatoes or oatmeal used, but I guess its what is made when the yeast mixes with it.

when I have lots, I just give it to the feeder guppies I have in tanks that I just have guppies in for a bio load.

Now if I can just get some actual fry besides guppy fry, I can use the worms for their intended purpose. I got some neons fattening up nicely with eggs, maybe I'[ll get lucky soon. That is assuming I can get both a male and female in the breeding tank, so hard to sex them unless they are a female full of eggs.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

You are not alone.. I've run across lots of folks who think the worms eat the oatmeal or whatever it is they're living on, but they don't. If they did, the amount of substrate would decrease as they consumed it, but I've never seen that happen, not even once.

I'm reasonably sure that they eat bacteria, and the banana worms may, possibly, eat fruit, but all of them eat yeast and seem to do pretty well on it. Yeast is pretty good nutrition, it's got lots of B vitamins in it, and is used in conjunction with algaes to enrich mass produced rotifers which are being used to raise commercial larval fish stocks. 

I'd think that once a culture's been going a few days there would be plenty of bacteria in it and I suspect that's what the worms eat if you don't feed them anything else. But yeast feeding gives much more consistent results and much higher productivity. I've also tried feeding debittered brewer's yeast flakes, the sort sold for human nutritional supplements, and they seem to eat that too.

I've heard some reports of using spirulina powder to feed worms. I haven't tried that yet but I plan to. Seems the worms will be green if spirulina is used, but I'm not at all sure it's because the worms eat it. There is so much intensely green pigment in spirulina it may just colour the worms green externally. Even so, they'd have some spirulina on them, and it's extremely nutritious too.


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