Culturing Whiteworms

Enchytraeus albidus (Whiteworm)

Most aquarists, if not already done so, will one day want to culture some live-foods to feed to their beloved fish. Whiteworm are just one of a myriad of nematodes that can be cultured quite easily at home.
A small amount of time and devotion and attention to detail will reward you with many sub-cultures for your fish larder.


1) Fully soak your bread, I like to use Hovis Granary, I find it's the best for my purposes.


2) Lay your saturated bread onto your worm culture.


3) Now let them tuck in.


4) Jeez..at this rate I'm gonna need another loaf

Temp
The optimum temperature for reproduction is 15° - 21° C. Below 9°C the worms will stop breeding and above 27°C they will die.

Breeding
For breeding you will need the following:
• A Container; e.g. an ice-cream tub or similar with holes punched in the lid. Pinholes will suffice so as not to attract fly infestation.
• Medium; Potting Compost; I make my own with a little garden lime added, as worms do not like acid soil. Aquatic soil is also a good medium.
• Food; To begin with I use granary bread cut into 1” squares and soaked in milk. when the Culture matures I then use full slices of Brown Granary Bread fully soaked in RO water, this method has presented me with my best results in terms of yield thus far.
Place your compost in your container to about three inches deep and gently firm. Spray this until it is nice and damp, but not soaking wet. Empty your starter into a depression in the centre of the container. Gently level this and add a square of bread to begin with. Cover this with a piece of glass or slate (the later works best). Cover the box as white worm’s don’t like light.
The worms will begin to slowly disperse into your culture box. To begin with the worms will eat very little and you may find that the food will grow a white hairy fungus. If this is the case carefully remove the uneaten food, taking care not to remove the worms that are attached to the base of the rotting food. Replace with fresh food. Check the culture every day to ensure that they have enough food. You will find that as the worms multiply, the food will be consumed more quickly.
You can increase the number of cultures by adding some worm filled media from your new culture once it is established (as you did to start your first culture), or upsize to a larger container.
Your culture should be ready to harvest in about 8 - 12 weeks.

Harvesting
A common fault is that people attempt to harvest too early. It usually takes at least 8 weeks for the worms to be collected in numbers large enough to both feed fish and sustain the culture.
To collect the white worm place them in a plastic tub containing a small amount of water for around 5 minutes (this is long enough for the worms to purge themselves of any compost), by this time they will have collected together in small balls and are easy to collect and feed to fish.

I hope this small article of another easy to culture livefood encourages some folks to give it a go.

Regards
C

(I'm not stalking you, I swear!)

Where did you originally get the worm culture from?

These whiteworms, what are the chances of them escaping through the pin holes in the lid? I've had, in the past, some issues with live food escapees, and in one incidence, an infestation of mites, which I'm still not hearing the last about.

Roughly, what size are the worms when they are ready to be used?

Do you use these for any particular fish, or just as food in general?

(Sorry for all the questions, I'm feeling inquisitive today.)

Hi This is getting scary

My original culture was provided once again by Donald who always seems to have the things I need as and when I need them

No escapees if your holes are small enough
The Worms generally can be anything from around 10mm up to perhaps 40mm this existing culture seems to provide fairly large specimens.
I use them for my Killifish but they can be utilised for any tropical fish species large enough to consume them.

Don't (as with any fish food) make them the sole order of the day but give your fish a widely diverse and varied diet as much as possible.
Regards
C

I keep asking what you feed these too, I keep forgetting that your a Killifish person.

Forgive my ignorance, but do these "turn" into anything else? I mean, are they a larvae stage of anything, do are they worms and only worms?

Again,excellent post.My whiteys arnt anywhere near as prolific as that!I feed them date expired flake,maybe thats the problem?
Sofiztikated,they are not larvae,full life as worms.

Thanks.

That might make introducing them to the Mrs a bit easier, when I get the Clearseal set up in the new house.

Very intresting reading.

Another great, straight forward article Colin. Well done.

John if nukeing dosent solve the problem try using a fine nylon stocking over the culture.

just to pop in my 2 cents i used to soak the bread in old tank water and the culture just exploded growth wise, a hint i got from duzzy1 and by god it works, maybe you can test growth rates with a control and bread dipped in tank water, waiting for a new culture myself so will try this myself

Its hard to define where the mites initiate from. I dont have any myself, totally free, and I like you John think they materialise in the soil already, possibly peat based. So you can either zap the soil or utilise another medium. Wash some worms and start a completely new mite free culture.
My preferred medium of choice nowadays is Aqua Soil available from your LFS. This is a more course grade of soil with fine pieces of gravel which in essence would keep the soil "open" and not as compact. Also its not acidic. I also keep this fairly damp so as the worms dont need to exercise too much effort to get around.
Also adhere to the temperature data in the original post. Wooden boxes with sliding lids (old pencil case design if you like) were the order of the day when I was a lad
Regards
C