08 Grindal Worms (very small worms)
Description
This article is from the Aquaria: Food FAQ, by Oleg Kiselev, Don Wilson, and Steve Bartling.
08 Grindal Worms (very small worms)
Uses:
These worms are small (up to 1/2") and can be fed to a variety
of small fishes. Because of the way they are raised, they are
totally disease free. They do not burrow as readily as other
worms and live in the water for a few days. Great for bottom
feeders and any fish fast enough to grab food sinking to the
bottom or smart enough to look for it (i.e. just about all
fish).
Culturing:
Get a plastic shoe box (available at Target on sale for $1),
fill it with sterile potting soil and peat moss mix (50-50), or
just potting soil, get it moist, perhaps nuke it in the
microwave oven for 5 minutes to thoroughly sterilize it, let it
cool, inoculate with a small starter culture of worms and add
some high protein cereal powder (Gerber, for instance) every
time the previous feed disappears -- and watch them breed!
Cultures should be kept at 70 F or warmer. Put a piece of glass
on the soil and the worms will crawl on it. The worms can be
washed off the glass into a cup with clean water and dispensed
into the tank with a large medicine dropper (1 tsp). If food is
placed in troughs in the soil, the glass will be free of
potentially water-clouding soil. One healthy culture produces
enough to feed about 100 small fish.
Remember to keep the culture moist but not soaked and soupy.
Spray it with dechlorinated water now and then.
Cultures like this often get over-run with mites and/or gnats.
Both pests can be fed to the fish and are readily eaten, but
soon become a nuisance. Should this happen, take some worms and
keep them in a cup of water for 3-4 hours. This will drown the
infestation and the worms can be used as a new starter culture.
Old infested cultures can be salvaged, but it may not be worth
the effort.
If the worms are not growing well, try adjusting the soil's pH
by mixing a bit of baking soda into it to neutralize the peat's
acidity.
An interesting technique of culturing worms is used by some
German killi breeders. They use open-celled foam that sits in a
tray filled with water and is covered by a piece of glass. This
method is cleaner than the soil/peat one.
Sources:
Friends, local aquarium clubs and mail order.
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