Here you can see a box with an about 6 weeks old Grindal worm culture on top soil and polyester that I put together on June 4th, 2021.
Buy Grindal worms locally through Craigslist:
Or buy Grindal worms on Amazon (paid link):
The population of Grindal worms has been growing.
Here you can see how I collect Grindal worms by washing them off the cover and from the plastic.
So, this Grindal worm culture has been thriving on top soil.
And the synthetic layer on top of the soil helps collect worms without dirt.
Here I feed the culture with cereal flakes.
The larger the culture, the more food it needs.
For this size box, I crush up to 4 cereal flakes daily.
I want to check how Grindal worms will grow on Peat moss.
I have already prepared 2 boxes with covers.
You can see I made needle sized holes in the grooves of covers to allow some air circulation while reducing water evaporation.
First, I want to try untreated or raw Peat moss as it comes in the bag.
Put a layer, about an inch thick, of peat moss into each container.
The peat moss comes dry out of the bag.
Grindal worms like moisture.
So, let's add dechlorinated water to make peat moss damp.
The peat moss can take a lot of water - I add water as needed.
And let's crush a flake of cereal into each container for worms to feed on.
Also, let's prepare a piece of plastic for each container.
I like to bend the corners or sides of the plastic piece.
It makes it easier to pick up the plastic from the container.
So, here I have two containers with raw Peat moss ready for Grindal worms.
There are different ways to seed Grindal worm cultures into a new container.
We can collect Grindal worms from the old established culture as I did in the beginning of this video.
And then just put them into the new container.
Or we can move the piece of plastic with Grindal worms from the old container into the new one.
Grindal worms like moisture, so let's spray some water on top to keep it damp.
Use a new piece of plastic for the old culture.
And there is a third way to seed a new culture - which is the most effective.
We can move part of the soil from the old culture into the container with a new medium.
Let's do it.
The old soil comes with Grindal worms of different ages and eggs.
It takes about 2 weeks for Grindal worms to hatch from the eggs.
And it takes about a month for baby worms to mature before they can lay eggs.
Let's add peat moss to refill the part we took for the new culture.
Seeding a new culture with worms and eggs from the old culture saves a couple weeks of time.
Feed the new culture and cover it.
Also, let's feed the old culture.
Avoid overfeeding!
Leftover food gets spoiled, stinks, and may cause many problems.
The next day, September 4th.
I feed worms daily to learn how much food each culture consumes and to avoid overfeeding.
Feed less or skip a feeding entirely if there are any leftovers from the previous feeding as you can see here.
I also see leftovers in the second container.
So skip the feeding but remember to keep the medium damp.
And so it goes daily.
September 7th.
Grindal worms visibly stay on the old top soil or climb on the plastic.
Seems like worms avoid peat moss...
Let's mix the old soil with the peat moss for clarity of the experiment.
And here you can see Grindal worms remain on the plastic cover.
The food is left mostly untouched.
Let's mix it with peat moss - maybe it will lure worms to burrow into the peat moss to look for food.
Grindal worms in the old top soil culture seem to avoid the peat moss part too.
Let's mix it all as well.
Feed the worms and spray some water as needed.
I expect to see more Grindal worms in the new cultures in about 1 month after the initial setup.
Two months later on November 1st.
I've been collecting Grindal worms regularly from the old top soil culture.
Here I have enough Grindal worms for about two feedings of my fish in one aquarium garden.
In some aquariums, I keep about half a dozen adult dwarf guppies and Endlers.
Grindal worms are one of the best foods my fish enjoy at least once a week.
I have more to say and to show about it in some future videos.
Now, let's get back to the Grindal worm cultures on peat moss.
It's been two months since the initial setup - it's more than enough time to establish the culture.
The population of Grindal worms in containers with Peat moss did not grow at all in the first two months.
Hardly can see any worms here.
And the food gets spoiled.
Seems to me that Grindal worms don't like Peat moss as it is.
I will try another setup in a different way with Peat moss.
Have fun and happy Grindal worms :)
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