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Thread: Microworm Cultures

  1. #1
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    Microworm Cultures

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    Dear all,

    Thanks to Rashid, I now have 3 prolific microworm cultures (MWC) which I'm harvesting, in rotation, to feed new killie frys and also those Scarlet Badis frys. Older frys (about 1cm), young White Clouds and even the Goa killies from Madan, are going for it!

    For those who recently made their eggs order with Au, I suspect some of the newly hatched Aphy. species aren't ready for BBS as 1st foods, and you might need either an infusoria culture or these MWCs.

    I'm willing to resub smaller starter cultures for those who still haven't prepared anything for their incoming eggs (shame on you! ). If you need one, let me know.

    Starting and maintaining these MWCs is a breeze (some say it is 'aromatic'!) and for my present cultures, I'm using rolled oat meal, plus a pinch of active yeast. Potato flakes, used to whip up mashed potatoes, works equally well and doesn't smell as much. NTUC supermarkets has a discount going for 'Santorium' rolled oats and 'Mr Mash'... go check it out!

    There's plenty of choices for media; just do a google text search for "live food culture" and "microworm culture" (and I'm sure there will be more hits than you ever wanna know!).

    You might also want to visit Tony Terceira's site, where they have a writeup on these tiny wormies.

    Kwek Leong, I'm thinking of resubbing about a dozen each of MWCs and grindal cultures for our 1st gathering at Karin's place. Vinegar eels, in film canisters, is also something that crossed my mind and we can treat these as 'door gifts', if you will.

    Alternatively, and perhaps simpler, you might want Karin to handle the whole thing? Any suggestion?

    Meanwhile, I'm working on tubifex culturing and a trap for fruitflies... :wink:
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

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    Ron, i've read about tubifex culturing somewhere. it's rather simple if u have a tiny powerhead and two plastic tanks. i am working on one too but don't quite have the time to set it up. anyway, i'd love to have an MWC. all my microworms went up to worm heaven ages ago.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

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    Wow! I will definitely turn up early to receive those "door gift".

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    Re: Microworm Cultures

    Quote Originally Posted by RonWill
    Kwek Leong, I'm thinking of resubbing about a dozen each of MWCs and grindal cultures for our 1st gathering at Karin's place. Vinegar eels, in film canisters, is also something that crossed my mind and we can treat these as 'door gifts', if you will.
    Ronnie, I think that's a great idea. I will speak to Karin about this. She called me on the phone yesterday evening and she's all excited about the gathering too.

    I will try and get my vinegar eel culture going again. I have to confess I've been neglecting it for some time now. Anyway, I will take charge of distributing free vinegar eel cultures and you take care of the microworm and grindal worm cultures. But I would suggest we give the cultures only to members of this forum because there may be some hobbyists from other forums turning up too. Membership must have it's privileges

    Loh K L

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    Re: Microworm Cultures

    Quote Originally Posted by timebomb
    Anyway, I will take charge of distributing free vinegar eel cultures and you take care of the microworm and grindal worm cultures.
    OK. As these are just culture starters, the microworms will be packed in film canisters and no additional culture media. A few MWs is sufficient and going by what I use, it'll take 4~6 days to get a ready-to-harvest culture.

    Grindal cultures will be packed either in canisters, or in the smallest of 'takeaway' containers*, a thin spread of cocopeat, a flake or two of oatmeal and of course, the worms! :wink: * I'm thinking of those tiny containers for chili sauce.

    But I would suggest we give the cultures only to members of this forum because there may be some hobbyists from other forums turning up too. Membership must have it's privileges
    I had that same thought, which is why I won't be posting to AQ (well, my time and resources are also pretty limited).

    Further to that and depending on when the eggs will arrive, I might ask those who ordered eggs, and interested in the MWCs, for earlier collection since it takes time for the worms to reproduce.

    I make no apologies for saying this, "I'm game to help, but it's not my loss if you guys aren't prepared".
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

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    Quote Originally Posted by stormhawk
    Ron, i've read about tubifex culturing somewhere....
    yeah... right... it's 'somewhere'... think you can remember where you saw it or any idea how the concept works?

    JianYang, my wife always tell her friends that I'm just one big kid and playing with worms and bugs, but culturing tubifex will sure come in handy on those days when I don't have time to pop by the LFS for a bag of these yummy grubs. Nothing better than home-cultivated foods for the fishes!

    For the MWC, see if you can swing by tomorrow (Sunday), say around 12pm. Your VEC is also waiting to go home :wink:
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

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    Dear all,

    It dawned on me that not everyone knows what MWs look like, so here's a quick shot...


    This one looks like solar activities near the surface of the sun... they call 'em 'sun flares'??

    MWs really do crawl up the sides of the container when the culture is 'ripe'. No kidding!. The largest of the MWs you see are no bigger than 2mm and there are millions of 'em
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

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    hello everyone, :wink:

    to mr ronnie : ah, finally my wormies are coming back though i should be taking them back during the get-together at the end of the month. i've been rather busy with cleanups at home and other personal engagements so i suppose the best time would be during the get-together or perhaps earlier (i'll contact u as to when i'm free and when you're free )

    oh yes, regarding the tubifex culture, i'm afraid i couldn't find the post about tubifex culturing on petfrd. seems it has already been deleted from the database. anyway, i still remember the whole diagram. the system requires a steady flow of water from a small powerhead or water pump and a sump-like thingy. basically the worms from this system will undergo several weeks of culturing before they can be harvested. this is to allow the older worms to die off naturally and to ensure the following generations of worms will be disease-free. i should be setting up a tubifex farm at home soon using old plastic fish tanks. will be taking photos and doing some tests before i post up the info.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

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    Jianyang and Ron, checkup these two sites:
    Site 1: http://www.aquaculturestore.com/info/tubifex.html
    Site 2: http://www.wormborough.com.au/tubifex.html

    Eric Yeo

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    Jianyang,

    Although I haven't seen the tubifex culturing system on petfrd, I've heard of something similar before. As far as I know, such a system won't support a tubifex culture in the sense that you won't get more worms than what you started with. When we use the word "culture", its to indicate that we not only keep the worms alive but also that the worms keep reproducing themselves. For any culture to succeed, there must be a source of food and nowhere in your description is this mentioned.

    The system you described only keep the worms alive for many days and also eradicates them of parasites and diseases. It would, if you ask me, be equivalent to putting a tub of worms under a dripping tap.

    Loh K L

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    sorry for the mixup. i forgot to add that the worms are fed with a daily diet of flake food and a mash made up of lettuce and some other ingredients. there's some info i read up on the web though i can't recall the website now. the worms are kept alive with regular water changes, a constant supply of flowing water and regular feedings. this will result in several generations of worms over a period of time.

    oh yes, it was not posted as an article on petfrd but was mentioned as a url link by someone in the corydoras thread. can't remember who but i do remember the diagram. didn't bother to tag down the url so i can't retrieve it now.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

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    Eric, thanks! the wormborough site is the one i was looking for all along. last i saw it was when i going through a link a friend posted on a corydoras thread in petfrd. anyway, i am going to try that out. wanna see the effect on the worms.

    Mr Loh, regarding the food mix, there was this pdf article somewhere on the web where they raised tubifex for pollution experiments on a diet of blended cabbage mixed with flake food. they will basically feed on any particulate matter. i suppose granulated food grounded to bits would suffice as food for these wormies.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

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    Anyway, what's the difference in feeding MicroWorms and BBS? I thought that BBS is suppose to be more nutritious? And I avoid feeding MicroWorms because feeding MW to betta fry in a long term basis might be the cause of ventral-less fry
    Lyon © I would rather walk a thousand leagues then to see your ugly face

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lyon Goh
    Anyway, what's the difference in feeding MicroWorms and BBS? I thought that BBS is suppose to be more nutritious? And I avoid feeding MicroWorms because feeding MW to betta fry in a long term basis might be the cause of ventral-less fry
    Lyon, no one single food should be used exclusively as a long term main diet for fishes or humans (you wouldn't want to eat fried rice everyday... do you?).

    Nutritionally, BBS is much better but only if used within 12 hours after hatching. After that, they're basically all shell unless you gut-load them.

    Microworms are not perfect but being smaller than BBS, it fills a critical gap until the frys can consume the bigger BBS. That's why I culture different sizes of live foods... including 3 other species of larger worms; eisenia foetida, Red Wigglers (or lumbricus rubellus) and periovyx excavatus which are also used in my vermi-composting bin. The adults of these worms are too large and I have to dig around for smaller, younger worms. Sometimes, I still have to chop 'em up for my killies.


    Hope I didn't paint the picture that MW is the perfect fry food or that it can be reliably used long-term.
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

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    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Yeo
    Eric, sorry I missed your response but thanks for the links... they're just what I wanted.

    Strangely, the diagrams reminded me of something I attempted in the late '80s. I had a similar setup for the tubifex and although the worms did keep for a longer time, they weren't prolific (*1).

    I remembered that in the upper tank, where the tubifex were, it had a reversed UGF and water was fed from an Eheim hobby pump in the bottom tank. The RUGF supplied circulation through a layer of nylon filtering material, fine gravel and finally, detritus and mulm from seasoned tanks (*2). The water output from the pump was 'clamped', for a slower flow so that the detritus is not flushed out by the turbulence.

    A spray bar, from a 'T-connector', agitated the surface allowing me to have more tubifex in an otherwise small tank, since these worms go rancid pretty fast in low-oxygen waters. I didn't have predrilled holes for the water to flow out... I just let the top tank fill up and overflow into the bottom tank.

    I have a small tubifex culture going, but using different method. Can't say it's better. Anyway, let me work on other things first and I'll update again, when I'm getting decent results.

    =====================================================================

    (*1) Their reproduction was low because I didn't know what to feed them. The Internet wasn't available then and I tried things like mashed porridge (congee?), flour, fish flakes and fresh yeast... and it was extremely easy to foul up the water since I tended to 'overfeed'.

    (*2) When I was a young kid playing truant, I often frequent the canal (creek?) outside the Botanic Gardens, which was often layered in silt and mud. Besides an abundance of fishes, it was also there that I saw colonies of tubifex.

    So many were these tubifex that it made reddish patches in the mud. Up close, one can see them 'waving' in the water while the bottom part of their body were embedded in the mud.

    At the slightest disturbance, the tubifex withdraws into the mud. This 'mud-image' thus fixed my idea of detritus and mulm, which I applied... albeit years later.
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

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    Ron,

    Here I am, just like I promised .

    If you can ship them to the US, I would love to have a starter of MW and even grindals if you have any to spare. I heard that grindals are a little harder to keep, is this true? How long can you keep MW and grindals without feeding them to the fish?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Heather
    Here I am, just like I promised
    Were you held up in traffic? What took 'ya so long?

    I'm in the midst of preparing additional MW and grindal cultures for our first gathering and it's not a problem packing one your way. BUT, let me hear from Debra first... whether she received another parcel of dead worms! (just remember this... whatever you do, don't open wormie packages with the kids around! )

    If that goes well, I'd know how to pack the worms this time for a long haul journey. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? :wink:

    While we're waiting for the grindals to raise hell in Maryland, please zap me your mailing address.

    I heard that grindals are a little harder to keep, is this true? How long can you keep MW and grindals without feeding them to the fish?
    Grindals are no harder to maintain than whiteworms (WWs), which require really cool storage. Where WWs cease to be productive in warmer temps, grindals will thrive, on basically the same foods. Expired rolled oats, a slice of potato, palbum, bread dunked in milk, cat chow, dog biscuits, fish pellets/flakes and potato flakes are readily consumed by the grindals.

    MWC takes about 4~6 days, freshly innoculated with starter worms, before it can be lightly harvested. It will provide millions of MWs for about 2 months(*1) before you need to sub-cultivate further cultures.

    Grindal cultures lasts much longer. All you need is to feed 'em worms when their food is consumed. Overfeeding will lead to moldy nasties growing in your culture and can foul up the media, causing culture crashes. When in doubt, always underfeed.

    Key to survival for both cultures, is AIR! These buggers need to breathe and do make ventilation holes in whatever bin or container you're planning to use.

    MWCs attracts fruitflies like moth to flame, and will cause a maggot outbreak if the ventilation holes are not stuffed with gauze, sponge or filter wool (I'll upload later, some pics on ventilation). Unless you're squirmish about maggots, these grubs is another source of high-protein food which my killies enjoy.

    Grindal cultures are often plagued with spider mites and although harmless to humans, it can be an eyesore. Instead of resorting to chemicals, simply flood your grindal culture(*2) and let the mites overflow out of the container or just do the 'flood-and-torch' routine. Grindal worms sink and will tolerate being dunked for short periods but they will drown too!

    (*1) During the 2 months, when the media becomes runny, I'd add more rolled oats to stiffen it. Stir it up real good and add a few pinches of yeast on top. This somehow rejuvinates the MWC and maintains high productivity. When culture is almost 'dead', dump it onto your flower bed (roses love it!).

    (*2) It's quick and easy to 'flood-and-drain' cocopeat/coir media/worm-bedding, but flooding dirt or garden earth, can get muddy.
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

  18. #18
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    Heather,
    I sent you the MW starter today. Let me know how it goes.
    Don't worry about the postage it was only $.74.
    Deb Bear
    AKA#08746
    SAA#175

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    Deb, I'm glad you're able to cover Heather at your end. Will be a good thing to see a 'live-foods network' getting established.

    Have you received the 2nd parcel of grindals... was it 'mushed' again?

    One other thing Deb, are you familiar with 'Blackworms'? I understand them as similar to tubifex, albeit easier to culture, and cleaner too.
    I'm back & keeping 'em fingers wet,
    Ronnie Lee

  20. #20
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    Ron,
    I haven't received the grindals, yet.
    I haven't tried blackworms or tubifex worms. Can't help you on that one!
    Will drop a post when I get the grindals. I wonder if the children will gather around this time?
    Deb Bear
    AKA#08746
    SAA#175

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