Clean way to harvest white worms?

[JoJosReef]

Seen a few videos, but still not super clear how to get the worms out of the food. Here, I am using yogurt + yeast + oats to feed. Previously was using yogurt + yeast + bread ends to get the culture started. Any way I try ends up getting a bunch of soil and yogurt chunks in a slurry with the worms that I can't easily filter. Any recommendations for getting a decently clean harvest? @Paul B ??

Thanks!

 

[Paul B]

I put a window screen on top of the food and many of the worms wind themselves in the screen. I rinse that screen in fresh water then put the entire screen in my tank where the fish suck them out. The water I rinsed the screen in is also full of worms so I change that water a few times and also use those worms.

It has to be dark for the worms to go on the surface, they don't like light and will just bury down in the soil.
Of course when you get enough worms growing you can just pick them up from the sides of the container or on top of the dirt.

 

[salty joe]

Yep, window screen!

 

[JoJosReef]

I put a window screen on top of the food and many of the worms wind themselves in the screen. I rinse that screen in fresh water then put the entire screen in my tank where the fish suck them out. The water I rinsed the screen in is also full of worms so I change that water a few times and also use those worms.

It has to be dark for the worms to go on the surface, they don't like light and will just bury down in the soil.
Of course when you get enough worms growing you can just pick them up from the sides of the container or on top of the dirt.

I've been using that embroidery mesh you see in the photo, but smashing the two together like a sandwich with the yogurt between. I will try lightly laying it on top and see how that works. A larger cutout might work better if I put the screen in the tank (more space, less aggression). Thanks for the advice!

 

[stoney7713]

I use the plastic canvas mesh from the hobby store.

I smear the yogurt on a piece of wheat bread and put it yogurt side down, mist the back side of the bread lightly, and mash the mesh on top.

I rinse only the screen in a bowl water and get a lot of worms. Wipe the edges of the container to get the escapees. My harvests are fairly clean, maybe a few tiny bits of bread. But rinsing the worms in the bowl a few times cleans everything nicely.

The worms clump up and I suck them out to a clean container, the left over I dump in my freshwater guppy tank.

 

[JoJosReef]

I use the plastic canvas mesh from the hobby store.

I smear the yogurt on a piece of wheat bread and put it yogurt side down, mist the back side of the bread lightly, and mash the mesh on top.

I rinse only the screen in a bowl water and get a lot of worms. Wipe the edges of the container to get the escapees. My harvests are fairly clean, maybe a few tiny bits of bread. But rinsing the worms in the bowl a few times cleans everything nicely.

The worms clump up and I suck them out to a clean container, the left over I dump in my freshwater guppy tank.

How about when you are changing food? I find that there are a bunch of worms buried in the bread when it is time to change, so I either pick apart the bread to extract worms or lose the worms, which I hate doing.

Or do your worms consume all of the bread within a couple of days?

 

[stoney7713]

How about when you are changing food? I find that there are a bunch of worms buried in the bread when it is time to change, so I either pick apart the bread to extract worms or lose the worms, which I hate doing.

Or do your worms consume all of the bread within a couple of days?

Once the colony gets going they consume almost all of it. I leave it because by then it's almost goop. I put new food in a different spot.

You can always feed less too, when I first start a new colony I feed very little.

 

[Snoopdog]

When they first get going, you really only need a few one inch square pieces of bread. You are right, a lot of the time the bread will have embedded baby worms. One thing you could try is alternating, put one piece of bread in, then add another one after a few days. Maybe the infant worms will go to the new bread and you can remove the old bread. Another thing to try is put a piece of plastic canvas between the bread and soil, my guess is they do not like being away from the soil and they will vacate the food.