Hello all, no no no cutting of the earth worms. It's horrible, they wiggle, they bleed and I can hear them screaming in my mind. For all those interested in earth worms. The first thing is to ascess how many fish will be eating them and how much produce, coffee grounds and other veggie waste that you throw away each week. Unless you are willing to look for spoilt goods or have a fruit tree on the premises. The best book to read is "The worms eat my garbage" available at the city and county libraries. You can make a small earth worm bin using a Rubbermaid tub with lid. Minimum gallons is 18 this is the size those blue ones that you see that are for recycling. I have a 50 gall one and a 75 gallon one. The lid is essensial. Do not choose a type where the lid is connected with hinges, the lid must come off all the way. Walmart is the cheapest for these Rubbermaid bins. You can use other types of boxes. They need to have a lid and be able to have holes drilled in them. Once you have your box you need dry peat moss. The hardest part of setting up a worm bin is to get the peat moss wet. It floats and takes a week at least to absorb water. The best way is to have already a bin and just mix in more dry peat moss. When you have the moist peat moss in your box all you do is add worms and food. It is best to bury the food a little that keeps down the smell. There will be other bugs that get into your box. Thats okay they all work together to break the food down. One exception is the centipede. They must be distroyed on sight because they damage the worms. Now the millipede is alright. Earth worms are very easy to retrieve and clean for your tank. All you do is dig them up with a garden open prong hand rake. Then rinse them in a screen collander. The outside dirt will come off and then you can feed them. They have dirt on the inside too, but it is not nessary to strip that out of them. The fish can eat them as they come out of the bin. You can store the extra rinsed ones in water for three days in the refridgerator, in a STEEP sided bowl. In a shallow bowl they will crawl out and you will have worms all over the fridge. You will notice more dirt in the bowl the next day and may have to rinse them again. These worms are very clean and easy to handle and feed. A two inch long worm about 4mm thick can be and has been eaten currently at my house by one inch blue and red tetras, blue gularis killies, small red Jewels, blue-eyed cichlids and two inch severums. And currently at my friends house the earth worms are being eaten by medium size angelfish and medium and large discus. Nippy and darty type fish like them and all cichlids what ever their size. Any thing that has an aggresive type feeding habit. It's quite a riot to watch, one fish will grab one end and another will grab the other end of the worm and they will battle for it all over the tank. Once your bin is set up these are by far the most easiest worms to have in all aspects of handling them. You do not have to tend the box regularly. If you dump in enough food you can let them go for months. You can keep them right outside no problem. I was wiping snow off the tops of the boxes and the worms inside were just fine inside. You can gather a lot of dead produce from all those roadside fruit stands you see in the summer. They usually do not mind. Most of the large grocery stores have contracted with pig farmers for their dead produce. Sorry for the long post, but this is a very interesting subject. Free fish food that reproduces it's self. And happens to be the #1 best fish food. I feel good and safe when I feed my fish the earthworms, knowing that they are getting a great food without the PARACITES. This is what I can do for anyone interested in having a earth worm bin. Bring me the bin and the dry peat moss and come back in a week and your bin will be all set up with wet moss and worms and enough food to last for a month. I have three fruit trees in my yard now and the fruit wasn't any good this year. So now I have tons of worms and lots of mushy apples to share. If anyone is interesting in just seeing the whole process you are always welcome at my house. I live in Burien. Call me if you are interested in coming by or want to get started with a earthworm bin. 206-444-4943. I have had my bins for 5 years. So it really is a perpetual source of food. With a little maintance they can be kept going for forever. Tiny worms can be collected more during the spring and summer months than the winter, and the largest worms top out at 4 inches. But you want to leave those because they are the breeders. Just remember no chopping or cutting them unless you have frozen them first. They can be frozen in ice cube trays and you can grate the cubes with a cheese grater for very small fish. But that is more work, there are some other ways to process them as well. Thanks for your interest. Sandy Kate Breimayer <kate@munat.com> wrote: I haven't had problems with blackworms myself but I wash them well, store in aged water with a little salt, and change the water daily, and if it looks nasty I toss the batch. I do sometimes toss the batch in other cultures where it often regroups and becomes viable. I have them growing in a few tanks and remove them by placing a pad of filter material over their hangout, they crawl into and on it so then I move it to the fish tank and let them hunt away. Some stores have better storage than others and may sell worms that are way past viability. Overfeeding is also bad, they can cause bloat. And I suspect some species are more suited to them than others. Feed a mostly vegetarian species heavily and you will probably make the fish sick. My killies breed better on them and when I ran out the angels started eating their babies. Could be a coincidence.but I have about 50 baby gularis to show for it... I think rinsing them and changing the water daily is critical, storing in the fridge is probably too cold IMO as I raise them with almost no mortality at 72 degrees. I keep the feeders in the unheated part of the basement directly on the floor, it's probably 60 degrees or less. I think they use less oxygen at the lower temps so that is why they say put them in the fridge, but when I do that tons of them die and also I am at risk of spilling them, which is nasty. All in all I would say earthworms are cheaper and easier on the mind so if you are so inclined go with the earthworms and save yourself the money and the trouble.White worms are great too but earthworms seem to be the easiest overall, if you can handle the slicing and dicing...not my cup of tea. I just use blackworms when I feel like I need more fish breeding, and then skip it for a while. Kate welenofsky@comcast.net wrote: >Thanks Sandy for the warning! I've also been feeding my fish worms whenever I >find them after it rains, with no problems. Sometimes I pull the big ones >apart or chop them up in the sink, then rinse the dirt out of their guts in a >colindar. I even cooked them once because I read that it stopped the slime >production, but it smelled horrible, and the fish didn't like them at all that >way. > >Susan > ------------------ > To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com > with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. Archives of > this list can be found at http://lists.thekrib.com/gsas-member/ > > > ------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, please send mail to majordomo@thekrib.com with "Unsubscribe gsas-member" in the body of the message. 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