Culturing Grindal Worms on Leaves
Buy Grindal worms locally through Craigslist:
Or buy Grindal worms on Amazon (paid link):
I use 16oz food containers with lids for culturing Grindal worms.
Poke holes in the lid for air circulation.
Here you can see one of my old established cultures of Grindal worms with Springtails.
In previous years I've been culturing Grindal worms on top soil, polyester, and most recently on live moss.
This time I want to try culturing Grindal worms on dry wilted leaves.
Crush some dry leaves in the container to cove the bottom and some more.
Add some dechlorinated water.
Grindal worms need high moister all the time.
This time I am going to seed the new culture simply by moving the moss from the old culture.
You can see Grindal worms and white Springtails spread all over the moss and walls of the container.
I'm moving all the moss just to show you the bottom of the container of this about one year old culture.
The polyester foam served very well for keeping everything above the water.
Grindal worms often enjoy staying in water droplets for while.
I use a pipette for removing excess of water.
And the rest of the water with springtails goes into the new culture.
The dry leaves retain a lot of moisture.
Grindal worms and Springtails coexist peacefully and benefit each other.
I use them all the same for feeding my fish.
Cover the culture with a piece of transparent plastic and close the lid.
All is set and ready on February 28th, 2022.
Notice that I did not feed Grindal worms at all this time.
One week later on March 7th.
Dry leaves took the most of the water - I prefer to keep the little excess of water for maintaining high humidity in the container.
Grindal worms spread all over the container.
There is actually too much of Grindal worms...
So I can remove some Grindal worms for seeding a new culture or feeding fish.
I use a soft brush for collecting Grindal worms from the walls of the container.
Put the worms into a small cup with water for now.
Here you can see how many Grindal worms I pick with a couple swipes of the brush from the walls.
There is enough worms to start a couple new cultures :)
But most importantly - I did not feed Grindal worms for the whole week!
Wilting leaves serve for water retention and as source of food for Grindal worms, and Springtails for that matter.
Now I can go on a week long vacation leaving this culture of Grindal worms without any supervision.
About 5 weeks later on April 13th.
The population of Grindal worms survived the whole month without any maintenance.
It is a huge deal for me!
Now I feed them a cereal flake.
I feed Grindal worms only after they consume completely previously given them food.
Larger population of Grindal worms consume more food.
Grindal worms eat all kind of plant based food - oat flakes in this example.
And there are plenty of wilted leaves for worms to feed on too ;)
It takes about one month of regular feeding for population of Grindal worms to grow noticeably.
I use collected Grindal worms for setting up new cultures and for feeding my fish.
Grindal worms are one of the best live food for fish.
And it takes more than one culture for feeding fish on regular basis.
I have at least a dozen of Grindal worm cultures available at any time of the year.
The containers stocked on top of each other take very little space.
And Grindal worms are easy to take care of.
Lets add more dry leaves without crashing them to see if it makes any difference.
And remember to spray the culture to keep the moisture level up.
The whole wilted leaves have the tendency of sticking to each other and to the plastic piece.
It does not seem to be a big problem, but...it's something to keep in mind.
The plastic piece serves for reducing water evaporation and for harvesting Grindal worms.
That's one of the ways I've been picking worms for feeding.
Also I use a soft brush to swipe worms from the plastic.
Rinse worms from the brush right in the aquarium above the feeding spot for fish.
Adult and baby fish enjoy eating Grindal worms.
The next feeding day.
I feed my fish every other day - various live or homemade dry food.
This time I simply rinse Grindal worms off of the plastic piece right in the aquarium.
Grindal worms are very high protein food fish love to eat.
Once a week or two I add wilted leaves.
Noticeably, Grindal worms seem to ignore cereal or other food the day I add wilted leaves.
Natural food is the best for all living organisms :)
I start placing leaves stems between leaves for separating layers of the leaves in the culture.
I think it may help to increase the air circulation.
I seed new cultures every months or so when the population of Grindal worms is big enough.
Like this one.
It takes seconds to set up a new container.
Make sure to wash the container clean in advance.
And than...simply split the old medium with all the Grindal worms between two containers.
Add more dry leaves in each container.
Moist it.
Feed worms.
Put plastic pieces on the top and close the lids.
Now you are good to go on weeks long vacations.
In the past year I have not lost a single culture of Grindal worms on dry leaves :)
Have fun and Happy Grindal Worms :)
No comments:
Post a Comment