Best line ever in a movie, Roxanne, starring Steve Martin. "Worms, Roxanne, Worms!"
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Wow, they look happy. Just pour off that standing water or they will drown in a few days. Or put it in a net and let it drain
Paul,
can we see a picture of you culture? I think you run yours with more water than most and I want to compare. I've got to get these worms to multiply! Other people can do it!
Paul,
Thank you for another great write up. what is your little feeder made of?
Yes the white worm one, I need to find a tube like that somewhere I like your idea. Thank you
After a slow start I'm starting to see more worms in the culture box. I tried feeding a few to my fish yesterday and all they did was look at them as they sank to the sb, I guess they are used to Black worms and will take some time to start eating these. Whats the best way to collect the worms without getting the dirt mixed in with them?
I have been feeding new born brine shrimp, blackworms and white worms to my mandarins for many years and they are all excellent foods. My mandarins get live foods as do all my fish every day which I believe is a big key to this hobby for a number of reasons, but I just want to discuss whiteworms for now.
About 5 years ago (I have a horrible memory so it could have been during the Nixon years or last Tuesday) I started a whiteworm culture. It was like $15.00 (remember the thing about my memory) and you get a bunch of worms in a little dirt.
I put them in a plastic shoebox with some bread and kept it wet and after a couple of weeks you have thousands of worms, maybe millions but I am still counting.
The absolute best thing about live white worms is that they stay alive in salt water like at least two days. When you feed live blackworms, as soon as they hit the water, they do this little macarana dance and croak before they hit the bottom so slow eaters like mandarins eat a couple then go and take a nap while the rest of the worms are eaten by crabs, snails, manatees or whatever you are using as a CUC.
White worms are also "Free". Well, after you buy a culture anyway. Every week or two, (6 months if I forget about them as I sometimes do) I put half a slice of frozen multi grain bread in the container with some full fatted yogurt and a little nutritional yeast on it. I then spray some plain water on, RO/DI if you are a compulsive nervous wreck, and put the thing in the dark.
When I open it it is full of worms just dancing and singing all over the place. Thousands of babies also.
When you get too many, they clump up on the sides of the container where you can put your girlfriends finger in there to scoop them up. Most girlfriends love that as my wife would.
But if you don't have enough for that, I take out a clump of worms and dirt and put it in a container. Run some tap water through it a few times and pour off the fine dirt leaving big particles of dirt and worms. Leave it along for a few minutes, maybe go and watch Oprah give away Cadillacs, to homeless cats. The worms clump together so you can suck them out with a straw. I use a baster thing.
Then take the rest of that dirt and strain it in a net and dump it back in the worm container.
Squirt the worms in your tank, especially where your mandarin is and he can feast for days. Mandarins can't eat too much at one meal, especially if it's lent.
It's a great and healthy food that lasts for days. The worms won't dig in your sand and get lost because, well, I don't know exactly, they just don't.
Here is my mandarin eating white worms in his little diner. I built this to keep the copperband away and he hates me for it.
Not wrong just less right...So far the white worms are still living in salt water after I dropped some in a little salt tank where I keep a few hundred asternia stars until I decide what to do with them. It's been 5 days. I am glad I found this out so you can put live white worms all over your reef tank and the fish can take all the time they like to find them. These should keep mandarins very healthy and well fed for a long time. I thought the worms only lived a few hours, but I was wro,,,,n,,,,,g, wro,,n,g,,, wrong