Yeah, you could feed the dero worms vegetable scraps and compost too, they will find edible food amongst all the detritus. Just that there will also be alot of leftover debris which makes harvesting difficult and messy.
Its much easier and cleaner to be able to simply use a pincette and pluck out a ball of dero worms directly from clean clumps of them, rather than have to dig and stir around to dislodge all the dirt before feeding them to the fishes.
As for changing their water, i just pour it out into the drain, as the majority of the worms will be gathered in clumps at the bottom of the container. I don't bother to use a net to save those few that are swimming about, just let them get poured out too. I notice at most 10% get poured out, but 90% are still in the container. Their numbers will replenish again the next day anyways.
I also don't do water changes everyday, unless i'm feeding them alot to quickly boost population growth... most times when i've no immediate need to use them as live food, i'll only feed and change their water once every 3-4 days (sometimes just once a week if i'm overseas, or lazy). Thats sufficient to maintain and grow their population at a slower pace.
The other method i've used to reduce maintanence is to simply put them into a container with larger volume. I've tried keeping them in a 10 liter plastic container (rather than a 1.5 liter jug) and that helps to reduce maintenance by alot. In this way its possible to sustain the same amount of worms and feed them well, yet only need to do a partial water change once a week, and the water stays clean for a much longer time. Only thing with this method is you'll have to dedicate a tank space just to specifically culture them.
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