Worms are a great first food source for small fish like Bettas and Guppies. Culture can be kept thriving continually with little effort and a small expense. If you produce in large enough quantities, you can even sell your own starter cultures.
Create your first culture
1. Purchase a starter culture from other breeders or from online shops. Not often available in pet stores.
2. You will need a container with a suitable lid. A 2-liter tub of ice cream is ideal.
3. The lid should fit nicely with the worms going up the sides and I’m sure you don’t want them to escape but you should also put some holes in the lid to allow them to breathe.
4. Dried potatoes, instant oatmeal or porridge are usually the best choices for food since they are cheap and easy to get, but worms are usually not picky when it comes to food.
5. Fill your sink with your chosen food to a depth of 1 inch and add warm water to make a thick paste. You want it to be firm but not dry.
6. Once it has cooled to room temperature, smear your starter culture on the surface of the food and that’s the order. It usually takes about a week before your culture is established enough to start harvesting. The temperature will play a role in the growth rate of the culture as well, the warmer it is the faster the worms will multiply. The smell of culture may be mild but it shouldn’t be offensive. There should also be no signs of mold if your culture is healthy.
Harvest your worms
The worms will climb up the side of your container so they are easy to harvest with minimal fuss. Use a spoon, straw, or blunt knife to scrape the side of the container. Dip this in some fresh water and any worm food will be rinsed away. The worms can then be collected from the bottom using a pipette and fed directly fry. The worms will live about 5 hours in the water and the rippling will entice the worms to eat a snack.
Keep your culture alive
After about 4-6 weeks depending on the temperature, your culture will start to break down. You will start to get more liquid and the smell will start to appear, and the worm numbers may also start to decline. Now you need to restart your culture. Prepare a new tank with food as you did when you first got worms. Scrape about a quarter of your current culture into your new food and again this will start to thrive as before. Don’t get rid of the rest of your original culture until a new one has been established.
Sale of starter cultures
If you want to sell startup cultures, don’t use leftovers from a restart. The remaining culture must be discarded or used to create a number of cultures in addition to your personal use. 2-3 tablespoons of an active established culture is more than enough for everyone else to make their own but only use a healthy established culture that has more than a week left before it is likely to go rancid if you choose to sell it. This will ensure that the customer receives thriving worms that will multiply rapidly compared to a dying culture.
There are many foods that can be used for worm cultures, including adding yeast or bananas, but they are not really necessary. The simplest foods are dried potatoes or instant oatmeal. Small worms and other small worms are easy to keep and low maintenance regardless of the food source chosen. It’s a great way to provide live foods at the most crucial time in developing the fry, but also be aware that they are not nutritionally complete and that the fry will need alternative foods as they grow.
