Grindal Worms for Reef Aquariums

[lapin]

Try not to dip them in your coffee. *-}

 

[SDK]

Try not to dip them in your coffee. *-}

No free previews on feeding

 

[edwing206]

Thanks for the update! My white worms are doing okay but these seem a lot easier to culture. I think I’ll switch over soon.

 

[SDK]

Thanks for the update! My white worms are doing okay but these seem a lot easier to culture. I think I’ll switch over soon.

No worries. I will get this wrapped up on Sunday with some feeding instructions.

 

[SDK]

I’m going to wrap this up tonight other than probably posting a few feeding pictures during the course of the week.

Both cultures are now doing very well, and I am feeding three tanks without putting a dent in them. You can see the size of the larger worms on the tub sides.

There are a few feeding options at this point. The plastic disc serves two purposes. The main one is to keep the black matting moist enough to encourage the worms to populate it.

Many worm also get up on the disc. You can literally just dip the disc in your tank if you are on the go, rinse it, and drop it back onto the culture.

If you want more and/or cleaner worms, step one is to dip the disc and black plastic grid into a small container of RO water and shake the worms off. One tip here is that any oatmeal stuck to the grid will be larger than the holes. You can dip the grid horizontally into the water and any oats will not fall through. Just use the grid to strain them right back out.

The worms sink much faster than any detritus, so place the container corner down at an angle. Like this.

The worms will quickly concentrate down in the corner. Two or three quick rinse and pour cycles, and you will have a ball of clean worms.

I’m not the best photographer, but if you look closely, you can (hopefully) see the great range of sizes for feeding a reef. Along with the larger worms, there are ones in all stages of development down to sizes smaller than BBS or microworms. Just about everything in your tank should be able to grab something. My LPS are certainly appreciating direct squirts of them.

Closer shot below the “fuzz” at the top of the worm ball is the smaller ones.

Once you have your clean ball of worms, just use a pipette or brine shrimp net to target or broadcast feed...

@lapin likes his spread on crackers and paired with nutritional yeast beer

 

[SDK]

I just wanted to add a final note regarding keeping these cultures healthy. It is helpful to think of them and a small worm composting bin, or "worm garden"

The extra coco fiber and larger containers become a small ecosystem. Just like any other compost bin or garden, the "soil" will break down waste and stay fresh for quite a long time with proper care. It is important to keep the culture soil loose and aerated. I just do this once every month or two with a fork while I am feeding. You can even turn the soil over every few months and the worms will make their way right back to the top.

The bottom line is don't let the soil get too compacted and/or become anaerobic at the bottom....

 

[Rjukan]

Excellent write up, thank you for sharing it.

Do these worms live in saltwater longer than black worms? Similar to the white worms PaulB recommends?

 

[SDK]

You're welcome!

I'm not sure. My DT has a lot of flow and the worms get gobbled up quickly. I would imagine they fall somewhere in between the two, but can try and do a short experiment over the weekend.

I have cultured both extensively over the years, so here is my pro/con list for you...

• White worms are bigger and heartier. If you have a large tank and are feeding larger fish, you might like white worms better.

• Everything else favors Grindal Worms in my opinion. My two small cultures are enough to feed two SW nano tanks and a 40B full of freshwater fish every day.

• White worms can be finicky and prone to unexplained crashes. Some people have a "white thumb" and others struggle with them. I spent years in the AKA helping new members with food culture questions and white worm problems were 90% of what I was constantly dealing with. Even when they are growing well, they foul their containers faster, so require more maintenance and constant rotation of cultures to last long term.

• Most will need to buy a wine fridge and add to their electric bill as white worms need to be kept cool. The kitchen fridge is too cold though. Grindals do fine in room temps in the winter, and actually do better in the summer. I have never had temperature swings in either direction bother a culture.

Having said all that, I would be glad to help if you want to try white worms. I have never seen (or looked for) a white worm tutorial on R2R so it's entirely possible Paul or someone else has already put one up. From reading snippets of his writing, I think he is using the AKA method, which is probably your best shot at success with them...

 

[Larry L]

After someone brewed Oyster Stout is anything sacred?

As they say, "Hold my beer...": https://wynkoop.com/brewery/brew-blog/rocky-mountain-oyster-stout/

At what point do you need to worry about how moist the culture is? Do you ever add any moisture while feeding, or do you just check the moisture level now and again an re-wet as needed? How can you tell if it's getting too dry?

 

[SDK]

As they say, "Hold my beer...": https://wynkoop.com/brewery/brew-blog/rocky-mountain-oyster-stout/

At what point do you need to worry about how moist the culture is? Do you ever add any moisture while feeding, or do you just check the moisture level now and again an re-wet as needed? How can you tell if it's getting too dry?

UGH! I think we have officially reached "peak stupidity" with craft beer lol...

I keep a dollar store spray bottle on hand with water from my Brita pitcher, and mist them every few feedings depending on the season.

The soil should be "just" moist. If it's too dry the worms will retreat down into the substrate and not be on the needlepoint grid anymore. A few sprays and they will come back up, but it's easy to judge once you get the hang of it.

If you get any sour smells or condensation on the container walls, you have some combination of too much moisture/too little ventilation. Grindal worms like humidity, but they don't like moldy, anaerobic conditions...

 

[SDK]

Just a follow up after feeding these out for a month. Everything from my Euphyllia, to inverts and fish are aggressively gobbling up and thriving on the grindal worms. I also have black worms in the fridge, and still have some of the portion I purchased about a month ago. The smaller fish and the LPS corals have a much easier time with the grindals, and I get a higher "excitement" level when these get fed. At some point I will get a video up if my 11 year old son will upload it on his YouTube account

 

[Sod Buster]

That is a very nice write up. The culture I purchased is going extremely well after a week. All my questions were answered in this quick read. They make my tailspot blenny a little bully trying to get every single worm before his mates. Thanks again.

 

[SDK]

I'm glad they are doing well. If you parted them out into larger cultures you will have tons of them in another week or two at the most...

 

[Sod Buster]

The little white specks must be eggs?

 

[SDK]

Yes......

 

[Sod Buster]

I will have many then. I put them in 3 sandwich size containers. I will get the bigger rectangle ziploc vessels quickly if I'm about to explode with them. That fiber easily quadruples in size when you get it wet. The one brick will last a long time.

 

[SDK]

Haha! Yes, the first time I wet a compressed brick of coco fiber was an eye opening experience. It kind of reminded me of those black snake fireworks when I was a kid...

 

[Larry L]

@SDK Just wanted to say that the cultures I started with the worms you sent are doing great, thanks! I started up two cultures, in containers about the same size as in your earlier post (two for $1 at the dollar store) and filled them with some coco fiber made for hermit crabs:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M20XDAI/

It ended up being super cheap - three 650 gram blocks for $14, but it only took about 1/4 of one block to fill both the containers, so I have plenty more for future use.

Every day I swish one disk in my salt tank and one disk in my freshwater tank, and the fish go crazy. I'm pretty sure none of the worms ever reach the bottom.

 

[SDK]

Great to hear! That’s pretty much how I do it. The discs make it super easy and everything goes nuts for them....

 

[azbigjohn]

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.

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.

I have everything I need to get my culture started except the grid. Trying to understand. Do you put feed on top of the grid, or under the grid.