Grindal Worms for Reef Aquariums

[SDK]

Has anyone fed these, and if so, how did it work out?

I have been reading many of the posts that discuss the benefits of live feedings of blackworms and white worms. I am assuming that Grindal worms will work in similar fashion for smaller fish and inverts.

Coming from many years in the killifish hobby I have perfected raising Grindals in mass amounts with little effort. They are much less tricky and likely to crash than white worms, especially if you don't have a cool spot year round, and/or don't want to dedicate a wine fridge to them.

I would be glad for any feedback on this, and if requested, also happy to pass on some culturing tips...

 

[lapin]

I have not fed any to my reef tank. I used to feed them to my killifish too. Small world. I will follow along. I do black and white worms right now. I have a spare tank and was planning on walling off an office my my garage. The thought of a killifish tank popped back into my head. A nice planted tank with some semi or annuals. Its been 40 years since I bred them and I see tons of new ones avail now.

 

[SDK]

Thanks for the reply, and I'm not surprised there is crossover between the reef and killifish hobby. Both require a lot of research and a more meticulous approach.

If this is something not being done much yet, I may just start taking some pictures and notes as I restart my cultures. I can use this thread to record progress and feeding results for any who may be interested...

 

[edwing206]

Definitely interested in this! Excited to see your progress and results

 

[SDK]

Will do and definitely happening. Just have to get around to ordering a new culture again and I will document setup, care and feeding....

 

[lapin]

I will second that. Let is know.

 

[csb123]

I’ve been planning to start Grindel worm cultures. Do you have any suggestions for a source of the worms?

 

[lapin]

I would look on the ebay. This time of year its cold and you want someone close so they dont sit in -20F somehwere.

 

[SDK]

I have always had bad luck with EBay for worms, and better with Aquabid. However, someone has been attacking the AB website and completely disabled it.

I have a buddy in the killifish hobby who I always got great cultures from, and reached out to him through FB. He will hook me up for sure, but I will ask if he is also generally selling them. If yes, I will PM you his info...

 

[SDK]

I’m going to get this started. I found a small culture on EBay that arrived in sad shape. I wanted to make sure that I could salvage it before I laid this all out.

Post #1 will cover my methodology and feeding.

Methodology

I worked this culture method out over several years when I was maintaining over 50 killifish aquariums. Both the need for something smaller, and more reliable year round than white worms made finding a “better way” a priority. I also became a club presenter and live food email “answer man” for the AKA when I was more involved with the organization.

Like almost everything else in this hobby there is as much art as science in what I am about to present. I’m sure there are other ways to culture Grindal Worms, and I offer no claim that mine is the “best” way. I can say that the combination of experimentation and collaboration with some knowledgeable folks has resulted in a consistently successful way to produce Grindal Worms easily and in great volumes. I have helped hundreds of people start these cultures and have yet to have someone be unsuccessful if they closely follow the plan.

Feeding

The above pic covers everything you need to feed Grindal Worms. Actually, you can feed exclusively oats, but do yourself a favor and grab the nutritional yeast flakes. They are packed with several varieties of B vitamins. As such, they are very healthy for the worm culture and anything eating the worms. Nutritional Yeast is not an “active” yeast. Feel free to google it if you want more info. It’s a great natural supplement for people as well.

Nutritional Yeast has been used for years by by some of the really successful AKA old timers, including a guy who is one of the most prolific white worm breed fees I have had the pleasure of knowing. He smears Greek yogurt on whole wheat bread then sprinkles the yeast on top. Then lays it “wet side down” on his culture medium.

Remember that you are culturing these to feed your prized aquarium inhabitants. I spend the extra buck for organic oats. On that subject, I recommend that you never feed your worms dog food, as is a commonly suggested. Dog food has artificial colors and non organic grain sources. Also, I have absolutely found that the cultures don’t grow as well, and foul more quickly with dog food.

Part 2 will be following tonight!

 

[lapin]

Nutritional Yeast is not an “active” yeast
And I thought we were brewing Grindal beer

 

[SDK]

Grindal Worm Culture Setup

A few notes to explain the reason for the way I set up cultures:

The internet has plenty of instructions for wet, airless Grindal worm cultures. The big breakthrough for me was figuring out that they do “not” like to be too wet, and they “do” require drier and better aerated containers than white worms for example. The trick is allowing for this in a low maintence way that won’t dry out too easily.

Container and Medium

Start with a good sized Tupperware container. I prefer the 76 oz rectangular ones pictured. They are about 5” x 8” wide and 3” deep. Fill with at least an inch of damp (not soaking wet) coco fiber. For those not familiar with coco coir, or fiber, it is sold in brick or loose form online and in any chain pet store. The extra depth is to give you some stability and room for error with moisture levels. If you go away for a week, or life otherwise gets crazy, the worms can retreat down into the substrate. As long as you don’t let it dry out all the way to the bottom, or neglect to feed them for an extended time, the culture will survive.

Please note that the good sized air space in the top half of the container.

Cut a 3-4” diameter hole in the lid and save the plastic circle you just cut out. We will be using it later on. Glue or tape some cloth or mesh over the hole. It has to be finer than window screen. You want to let some air in, but keep fruit flies out in the summer months. I am using fruit fly cukture lids in the picture because I have a bunch of them laying around.

Alternately, you can poke some pinholes in the lid. Start with less and add more as you need. You want the culture to stay damp between feedings and see the worms on top when you open it. The culture should never get any mold, or any sort of odor other than the faint smell of the coco fiber. If either of these things happen, get the mold out and get more air in.

Nothing will kill a culture faster than mold or fouling. Having said that, they are very easy and forgiving once you get the hang of it. I have had cultures go two years without fouling. These days I just restart them annually to be safe, transferring a big enough bulk of healthy worms so that production barely misses a beat.

Get the culture medium nice and flat/level. This will aid in the harvesting. The black rectangle laying on top of the medium is plastic matting used for making hook rugs. You can find big sheets of this at any craft store of a dollar or two. On top of this is the plastic circle you cut out of the lid.

The matting serves two purposes. It will keep the food and worms separate when harvesting, which makes feeding easier. It also allows a small air gap beneath the plastic disc. This will both eliminate molding and boost the productivity of the culture.

Here I have two containers ready to go. I always make at least two, just for some redundancy. For around an $8 layout in materials, two of these will have you drowning in extra worms, and giving them away to friends.

Tomorrow I will add my worms and go over getting started and feeding. Then over the next few weeks, let’s see how quickly we can ramp up production and start feeding some fish....

 

[SDK]

Nutritional Yeast is not an “active” yeast
And I thought we were brewing Grindal beer

Haha! After someone brewed Oyster Stout is anything sacred?

 

[SDK]

Worms are in. There were not enough to seed my larger culture boxes by harvesting, so I added the top layer of substrate from the starter culture directly. The one I received was literally a cup the size that McDonalds puts out for ketchup

I have the food in a circle to lure the worms out into my coco substrate. I will scrape out the dirty black medium they came in as soon as I see worms in the coco.

Now to wait the 1-3 weeks for them to take off.

If you are following along, check your cultures every day at this point. Don’t let the food run out, but keep an eye open for any food going bad.

Once the culture gets rolling, the food gets covered in worms and consumed quickly. At that point they get pretty immune to mold and pest invasion.

Will be back with updates once we get established, and a final one on some easy ways to harvest and feed.

 

[edwing206]

Thanks for the write-up!

I had ordered a white worm starter culture before I saw your post.

I set up the culture and fed them. Checked on them today and saw a bunch of small creatures in the food. I though “awesome baby worms”, now I’m thinking it’s a white mite infestation.

So if the white worm cultures fail, then I’ll definitely be following your guide for some grindle worms.

 

[SDK]

You’re welcome.

If you’re culture has mites and is newly established you need to act quickly to save it.

Harvest as many worms as you can and submerge them in water to get the mites off. Then transfer them to a brand new container and sterilize the old one.

Good luck!

 

[SDK]

Cultures are looking great, especially considering how tenuous the starters were. I’m starting to get worms up on the needlepoint grid, which is where I want them to be.

I should be able to post something on harvesting next week, and be drowning in worms in two

 

[DeepBlueSomething]

Thanks for the detailed steps and photos!

 

[SDK]

You’re welcome. I hope you find it useful.

 

[SDK]

My weekend got too busy to do a detailed post on feeding today. However, I wanted to document the explosive growth from two weeks ago. I have not been feeding heavily yet, but am dipping the plastic discs (which are now covered in clean worms) directly into my quarantine tank. I have a Darwin Clown and Talbots Damsel both going absolutely crazy for the worms.

I keep them in a kitchen cabinet just above my Keurig. I spend literally a minute on them every morning while my coffee is brewing. This is with no electric, no wine fridge and no hiding them in a cool basement. They will actually multiply faster when the weather warms up.