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RE: Microworm culture
This is good information Jeremy!
What type, brand or form of oatmeal do you use?
Thanks,
mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeremy Adams [SMTP:killifish at attbi_com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 3:50 PM
> To: Killitalk
> Subject: Re: Microworm culture
>
> > I recently got a thriving starter culture and as it soured I transferred
> it
> > to soupy, mixed baby cereal with a few specs of brewer's yeast thrown
> in.
> > The fresh cultures don't seem to be developing many worms at all. The
> > culture is maintained at about 68-72F.
> > Thanks for any suggestions.
> > mike
>
> You ready for this? Here is what I am using currently.
>
> A couple of months ago I did some experiments to see what different medias
> would work and what wouldn't. These are the different cultures that I made
> in duplicate (2 each)
>
> 1)Oatmeal
> 2)Oatmeal/1/4 tsp Nekton R-Beta (color enhancing bird vitamin)
> 3)Oatmeal/Cornmeal 1:1
> 4)Cornmeal
> 5)Gerber Instant Baby Cereal (oat)
> 6)Ground Alfalfa Pellets/Ground Pedigree Dog Food/Oatmeal 1:1:1
>
> Each culture consisted of 2 TBS of media and 2 TBS of water. I made a
> inoculation culture of yeast, worms, and water. Each culture was given an
> exact amount of the starter solution.
>
> I did not have any way to quantify the number of worms in the culture
> container as they grew, so I measured worm production based on the rate in
> which the worms migrated up the sides of the containers. Here are my
> results
> from most productive to least productive. All cultures are maintained at
> about 68 F.
>
> 6 Smell did not seem worse then others (I expected it would smell bad)
> 3 worms were up the sides very quickly (less surface area on the
> surface?)
> 2 Lumpy surface. More surface area?
> 1 Results were basically identical to #2
> 5 Took a long time to get started, once started it produced well
> 4 No worm production at all. Do they use BT corn for cornmeal? If they
> did, #3 probably wouldn't have worked either. I think the cornmeal needed
> more liquid. It was very dry.
>
> The color enhancing vitamins that I use turn the culture orange. The worms
> take on this orange color. Maybe it is easier for the worms to be seen?
> #6 is actually a mix of home made cricket food and oatmeal. I make my own
> cricket food by grinding up equal parts of dog food and alfalfa pellets. I
> usually include a couple of cuttle bones (ground as well) in there as well
> for extra calcium.
>
> So the ones that I am using now are #6 & #2. I figure that these 2 have
> the
> highest nutritional value. I might try adding the Nekton to #3 and see how
> that does.
>
> Jeremy
>
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