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RE: White worm culture
Tricia,
Perhaps as a courtesy the person/company could have told you first of all
that they were contaminated, at least you would have known.
Most culture seem to develop these infestations given time. The bugs don't
do much harm at first, but then they slowly overwhelm the culture and you
get a drastic drop off in production and eventually the worms disappear.
Culturing white worms, in quantity and without bugs is one of several Holy
Grails in the fish keeping business-hard to do for many people.
I think it is definitely possible to get bug free cultures from some people,
but why worry, just separate them from the media no matter who supplies them
to you and start a fresh culture as I mentioned.
In my experience the brown and white mites stay in the culture. Two or
three of the black fruit flies and gray/black drain flies will visit other
parts of your house and your aquariums to see what's for dinner, but really
are not much of a pest. Then again, some people are really upset by the
appearance of any bug.
Springtails, however, are a different matter. They will be only too happy
to take up residence in your house with you. Kind of like roaches. They
love anywhere where it is dark and moist, like around plumbing fixtures [or
between walls and cabinets where any leaking supplies the right environment]
and will usually be out at night.
Separate the worms by vigorous tap water rinsing and decanting and start
your culture over again.
mike
-----Original Message-----
From: Tish KB [mailto:tishykb at yahoo_com]
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 12:10 PM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: RE: White worm culture
Well that pisses me off a little bit. Let me ask tho,
if is possible to have clean cultures w/out these
bugs? Say, if i'd bought a culture off of someone else
it wouldn't have the mites? Cuz if so, i'm going to
leave some negative feedback for this guy, so that
people know he sells dirty cultures (i'll email him
back telling him i'm mad first..).. Here's the email
he replied to me when i sent him a similiar message
asking about the bugs--
"Boy I wish I could get rid of those bugs. Funny
thing about bugs they come with buddies but everyone
is afraid of the bugs they don't know about.
The little fruit flies could be just that or it could
be springtails(?). There is also a little mite like
thing that seems to have gotten in my cultures. I
haven't had any problems with them so far."
Is it possible to just leave them in the culture, or
is it something i should really be concerned about?
Can they get out and infest other things? Should i
throw away the substrate the worms are in right now
and start with a fresh stuff? Sorry about all the
questions, but this is the first experience i've had
with growing live worms... and of course i buy an
infested culture.. Thank you so much.
--Tricia in PA
(and i got my packet of AKA stuff today, yay!)
--- "Stoecker,Michael,FRANKLIN PARK,NC&C"
<michael.stoecker at us_nestle.com> wrote:
> Tricia,
> My guess is that you now have a culture contaminated
> with brown mites. They
> will only get worse.
> Scoop out the area in the culture where you
> introduced the worms to. Rinse
> the worms under running water several times until
> you separate out the worms
> from the substrate. You should only have the worms
> left in the bottom of
> the bowl. Then re-introduce the worms back into a
> clean, new culture.
> Start feeding the worms with very small amounts of
> food in the beginning.
> Cover the worms with plastic or glass and keep a lid
> on the whole container.
> I never introduce culture substrates or aquarium
> water from any source into
> my fish room. Separate out the organisms or fish
> when introducing into your
> environment.
> Hope this helps.
> mike
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tish KB [mailto:tishykb at yahoo_com]
> Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 11:33 PM
> To: killietalk at aka_org
> Subject: RE: White worm culture
>
>
>
> > went well over 70 degrees. I know that the mites
> > seemed to like it warm. ;^)
> >
>
> Ok well my culture is here, right now i just have a
> small box (about half a foot square) with an inch or
> so of moist peat w/ some baking soda to reduce
> acidity, and dumped the culture on top... It was
> packaged in a stryofoam cup with newspaper on top,
> taped over except for a little air hole. Upon
> knocking
> the dirt or whatever substrate the worms were in
> into
> my peat moss, i noticed a lot of little bugs in
> there.
> They look like teeny beetles, about 1/16th of an
> inch
> big and brown in color... What are these? should i
> worry about them? What about my setup-- will it be
> OK
> or should i add some type of soil to it? should i
> mix
> the culture dirt into the peat or just let it on
> top?
> I have the box top (hinge style) closed for now,
> should i poke a few holes in the top? thanks guy for
> all your help, happy halloween too :)
> --Tricia
>
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