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Re: [Killietalk] - Suggestion for Subcultuing (was How wet to keep the 'scrubby pad' grindal worms)
Barry ---
I use a hybrid of the scrubber pad and your poly foam culture method: I
place sections of a scrubber pad on top of the poly foam, and place the
food on the scrubby pad and then a piece of plastic on top. I have
found that the worms will spread out much more quickly on the scrubber
pad (I feed with oatmeal, I don't have a cat, and I'm not certain that I
need to gut load the worms since I also feed my fish live bloodworms and
daphnia). I have found two big advantages with this approach: if the
worms don't eat most of what I fed the previous day (i.e. I accidentally
overfed), I and easily rinse off the scrubber pad to eliminate the
problem of decaying food, and when I do wish to subculture, all I need
to do is transfer one of the scrubber pad sections and place it on top
of the new foam in a separate container.
I was thinking that you might want to consider placing a small section
(e.g. 1" X 2" or larger, depending on how quickly you need the new
culture producing a lot of worms) section of clean scrubber pad on top
of your existing foam culture, placing some of the food on top of the
pad, and then transferring the pad (worms and all) to your new foam pad
the next day. I suspect that the worm population is held back initially
due to a bacterial or other microorganism shortage (something that the
worms need in their environment at sufficiently high levels before the
population takes off; your two week time frame before your subculture is
established and growing is about the same time that it took when I
subcultured onto new scrubber pads, before I started using small
sections of with worms and food as a starter.
Thanks,
Jerry
Barry Cooper wrote:
> Matt,
>
> I suspect that by scrubbies you mean the white poly pads like I use?
> Anyway, to answer your questions:
>
> I recommend keeping them just damp, with just enough water such that
> when you tip the culture just a little free water will run into a
> corner. When I start cultures, I put a 1" thick pad of the poly material
> in after rinsing it and squeezing it out, then I add about 50 ml of
> water. See my article in the Library section of aka.org.
>
> I start new cultures by adding a very hefty squirt of worms collected
> from another culture, right on top of a single pellet of kitten food. It
> takes 2-3 weeks to get a culture going strong, gradually adding more
> food, but once they do you should have large quantities of worms
> available. Each of my current cultures consumes about 15 or more cat
> food pellets a day. I like to collect the worms while there is still
> some cat food in the container, so that I can be sure the worms are gut
> loaded with the stuff. I pick off any free lumps of cat food to avoid
> putting it in the tanks.
>
> My cultures on poly pad can last up to a couple of years! I rarely
> change water and I don't mist them. The only way I add water is that I
> rinse off the worms from the glass or plexi that covers the culture,
> then put that back while still wet.
>
> Definitely do NOT have a pool of water around the worms, at least if you
> follow my method, using about 1" thick pad. With a thicker pad you might
> need more water, but the biggest reason for failure, in my opinion, is
> to "drown" the worms by using too much water. I'm not sure if they
> really drown, but the cultures don't survive if too wet.
>
> Barry
>
> Barry J. Cooper
> Sweet Home, OR 97386
>
>
>
> matt kaufman wrote:
>
>>Mark Pearlscott, may his name be praised, gave me a started scrubby-pad grindal worm culture on Saturday, and it's been 4 days, and it's still alive! And the worms appear to be thriving! THis is by far the longest success
>>I've had with a non-dirt culture. Dirt cultures have worked for me, but all get mited and infested with those @#$ at #$@# gnats eventually. My dirt cultures I kept pretty damp. They lasted longer if I had some red wigglers in with them.
>>
>>
>>Questions for the list: How wet to keep it -> mist it down each day? Once in a while? Keep a pool of water around the pad?
>>Feeding: Feed when the food disappears? I have some kitten chow that appears to be a big hit.
>>Subculture: Advice I got was, just soak another pad in water, and put it atop the existing culture, and wait for it to be colonized. I'd like to start another culture and get it going before feeding too heavily from the one I have.
>>
>>I have the culture in a large rubbermaid container with a tight lid. I drilled a couple holes in the lid and stuck in those plugs you use for the fruit fly cultures (open cell foam I guess.) So far, so good. Hopefully those wretched gnats don't show up.
>>
>>Oh, and the fish adore the live food.
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>
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