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Red Compost Worm, Eisenia Foetida, or Red Wiggler is one of the best source of fish feed.
They are very clean and parasite free; if grown and collected from a known source.
The nutritional value for this live feed is amazing: Moisture- 84.8%, Fat- 2.0%, Ash-0.7%, Protein- 10.5%.
Many hobbiest can agree that this worm can intice most finicky eaters to eat and produce massive quantity of eggs for female brooders.
So how can you get this worm?
1. You can buy it directly from a worm farm.
2. You can grow them yourself.
I prefer the second source as I had an established farm for over 10 years to feed my fish, from bettas, discus, to FH.
The compost material from these worms also benefit the garden and a guarantee to make your plants grow.
This is how I do it:
1. Find an earthy location in your yard with lesser sun exposure.
2. Go to any hardware store and buy yourself 2 or more dark color plastic bins with lids. Use the dark color because worms don't like light. I use 2 bins because I rotate collection to prevent disturbance to the worms, and the green compost material. And my bins are about 18"Wx24"Lx18"H. You can use any size but if you know me, bigger is alway better. But you don't need it to be too tall. Your content should not be more than 12" deep and all that extra height above the compost content is useless.
3. Use 1/4"-1/2" drill bit or hot nail and poke holes on the bottom of the bins. The holes should cover the entire bottom at about 2" apart. These holes serve as drainage, aeration, and a way for new worms to crawl into the bins to eat, live, and reproduce.
4. Use the same penetration tool and create a line of holes about 2" from the lip of the bins. You can also space these holes 2" apart. These holes are for aeration for the worms to breath and toxic gas to escape.
5. Place the bins on the ground where you want them to stay. Outline the contour of the bins on the ground. Dig out this area about 4 inches deep. And make sure it is leveled just for looks.
6. Place the bins in the freshly dug out hole and fill in the edges so the bins are stuck to the ground for good.
7. Use the extra dirt from the dug out and layer it into the bins. Try to remove all the rocks. You don't need rocks.
8. Top that dirt with a layer of vegetable scraps, stale bread, old rice, leafs, corn ears, corn cobs, melon skin or rinds, or anythng organic. Except for meat, bones, and fish because they stink real bad and can attract maggots and other nasty stuff.
9. Lightly water the entire content of the bin, close the lid, and wait for a week. I just use a garden hose and water it to flood the entire content. That way I know that everything is wet. No worries because the water will be drained in seconds.
10. Close the lid and wait for a week.
11. After a week, you can go check out your new worm farm. There should be a few red wiggler in there already. At this time you should use a small garden tool to mix the organic material or worm food with the dirt.
12. Water your worm farm according to the weather and season. Dry hot summer days should require more watering so you should water if it gets too dry.
13. After a month or so you are ready to collect.
14. Use the lid from the bin and flip it rim up. Scoop out as much of the compost content as you can to form a mound of compost in the lid.
15. Place the lid with the mound of compost in direct sun.
16. Go have a beer for 15 minutes and prepare for your collection container. I use a platic nut jar with a lid from Costco. Poke or drill the center of the lid with a dozen or so tiny holes, like tooth pick tip size. Only do the center. These holes are for aeration so you don't want to make too many and any near the perimeter of the lid to give access for the worms to crawl out. Later you will keep this container in a cool place or the fridge and you don't want worms in your fridge. Unless you're Dan or Joe.
17. After 15 minutes, fill the collection container half full of cold water and go check out that mound of compost sitting in the lid in direct sunlight. Gently and slowly start picking pieces and bits of the compost mound starting from the top and work all around the mound. You can toss this compost material into your garden; your vegetables will love you for it. As you pick away the compost, the worms will dig deeper inside the mound because they don't like the sun light. And eventually you will have nothiing but a big ball of red wigglers. Grab them and toss them into your collection contain with water.
18. Put the lid back on the worm farm. You can add more worm food and water if you like.
19. Use your hand and gently mix the worms in the water and decant the dirty water. Add more water and repleat the process until the worms are fairly clean.
20. On the last rinse, remove as much water out of the worms as possible. Get a paper thick napkin or tissue and place it on top of the worms. Close the lid tight and keep it in a cool dark place.
21. Next day you will see the paper will be very dirty from worm poop. So you will need to remove the paper, rinse the worms in cold water until clean and replace a new paper. You will need to do this for at least 2 days so that the worms are totally empty. And start feeding your fish. But you need to take care of the worms by rinsing them daily to remove dead worms and organic matters or else they will all die.
There you have it. Not too difficult to do and once you get it started, you will always have worms for your fish. It all depends on the area you are from and you will have other insects living in your worm farm. I have small slugs. They don't do nothing; just annoying that's all. But I don't have no other types of worms except for the Red Wigglers. One more thing, after your worm farm is established, you will need to add a handful of dirt back into the bin after each collection. This is because worms need sand and small rock to help them digest food like chickens do.
Good luck with this and I hope you all find this information useful.
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Know fish or No fish
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Feb 12 2009, 01:32 AM
