Micro Worms

[comocrayfish5]

when breeding bettas, when do you start the micro worm culture?

 

[iBetta]

I started mine about 3 weeks before spawning, just to get it established and make sure it was a healthy culture

 

[fivestarsellers1]

Start it as soon as you can. It is easily the best and easiest culture to keep. Simply add a few sprinkles of yeast every week and stir it to keep it form being to watery and it will last for many many months with no issues!

 

[comocrayfish5]

so you make oatmeal, put it in a container, spread the worms over it, add yeast, and wait until the crawl up the sides and feed them to the fry? do you add water eventually so it doesn't dry up? and if i start it before and they are crawling up the sides and i cant use them what do i do? (i do have molly fry that are about 1-2 cm and 3 (?) week old platy fry. would they be too big to eat the worms in the meantime? and how do you stir it up with out getting the worms under the oatmeal??

can you give me a list of how to start/ maintain a culture?

how do you start a new culture from your old one?

 

[fivestarsellers1]

Yes oatmeal then put them in add a little yeast. No the last time u want to do is add water.

first cook your oatmeal boil it and then let it cool down to room temp. remove excess water.

once they start crawling up the sides dont worry they dont make it out or onto the lid. you can feed them to all types of fish but fry will get the most benefit.

and dont worry about them going under the oatmeal! just stir whenever it looks like water! or getting close to it.

 

[fivestarsellers1]

are you prepared to handle all these bettas? got enough jars or a drip system?

 

[OldMan47]

I have a few microworm and banana worm cultures going right now. Any new culture can be expected to take about 2 weeks in a fish room to each a high productivity level. I specified in a fish room because the cultures move slower at lower temperatures. My own fish room runs a bit cool and it takes about 3 weeks for my cultures to reach high production levels.
My own cultures are started by me making oatmeal, letting it cool, mixing in some powdered baby cereal to make the mixture more nutritious, then adding enough water to make a thick paste, sort of like runny mashed potatoes. Once I am happy with the mix, I place it in containers to about 1/2 inch deep, sprinkle a light covering of yeast, the stuff at the store for baking bread does nicely, over the top and add a spoonful of my old culture as a starter. After 2 to 3 weeks, I have a culture that is at peak production. At 4 to 5 weeks, the culture will start getting too runny and may start to smell bad. You can add some dry cereal and stir it in at that point but it is better to start a new culture instead. If you let a culture go much beyond where you should, you will need a gas mask just to open the lid on it. Don't forget that every culture must breathe. I cut some 2 cm holes in the lid for that but cover them with a scrap of cloth to keep out the fruit flies. Fruit flies love the culture and will quickly contaminate it with their own eggs, resulting in maggots, if you are not careful to seal down that cloth cover. (If you don't think you have any fruit flies, you can quickly find them by leaving that culture uncovered) I use waste cloth squares and simply tape them in place with cellophane tape to give me a window screen effect.

 

[comocrayfish5]

are you prepared to handle all these bettas? got enough jars or a drip system?

i will not breed until april or during summes vacation so i have plenty of time to get supplies. i also need more time to research so i know exactly what i am doing and how to do it.

I have a few microworm and banana worm cultures going right now. Any new culture can be expected to take about 2 weeks in a fish room to each a high productivity level. I specified in a fish room because the cultures move slower at lower temperatures. My own fish room runs a bit cool and it takes about 3 weeks for my cultures to reach high production levels.
My own cultures are started by me making oatmeal, letting it cool, mixing in some powdered baby cereal to make the mixture more nutritious, then adding enough water to make a thick paste, sort of like runny mashed potatoes. Once I am happy with the mix, I place it in containers to about 1/2 inch deep, sprinkle a light covering of yeast, the stuff at the store for baking bread does nicely, over the top and add a spoonful of my old culture as a starter. After 2 to 3 weeks, I have a culture that is at peak production. At 4 to 5 weeks, the culture will start getting too runny and may start to smell bad. You can add some dry cereal and stir it in at that point but it is better to start a new culture instead. If you let a culture go much beyond where you should, you will need a gas mask just to open the lid on it. Don't forget that every culture must breathe. I cut some 2 cm holes in the lid for that but cover them with a scrap of cloth to keep out the fruit flies. Fruit flies love the culture and will quickly contaminate it with their own eggs, resulting in maggots, if you are not careful to seal down that cloth cover. (If you don't think you have any fruit flies, you can quickly find them by leaving that culture uncovered) I use waste cloth squares and simply tape them in place with cellophane tape to give me a window screen effect.

thanks for all the info! so when you stir it up do you stir in the worms too. and if you start a new culture from the old one, do you make the oat meal again and just put some of the worms on the side of the other one into the new oatmeal?

 

[Paradise3]

I started mine using this guide and now have a highly productive culture...
http/reviews.ebay.co.uk/Microworms-the-easy-food?ugid=10000000003574616&clk_rvr_id=321043699984
I know this thread is a bit older but I thought I'd throw in my say...

 

[comocrayfish5]

thanks i will read it ASAP after i do homework... it always gets in the way

 

[OldMan47]

When a fresh culture is needed, I simply make a new batch of oatmeal and baby cereal and again add a sprinkling of yeast. Then I inoculate it with a spoonful of the old culture worms. In 2 to 3 weeks, the culture is going great guns and you can clean out your old culture. As a precaution against failure, I usually start 2 cultures at a time. That way, if anything goes wrong, I still have a viable culture running. A well seeded culture will look a lot like this after a couple of weeks.

The lid screen that I make from scrap cloth is like this.

You can see a label that I placed on the cultures because I have both banana worms and microworms. Without the labels I end up losing track of which is which since they are so similar. The banana worms are smaller but who can tell in a quick glance?

 

[comocrayfish5]

so all the white masses on the side are m.worms too? and thank i have been wondering about the starting a new culture for a week or so now

can you look at my thread under betta splendens "is this what i am looking for?" i feel like you would know -thanks

 

[OldMan47]

The white things crawling up the side are the worms that you feed your fish. Just wipe a finger across the side and rinse your finger in the tank near your fry. If you are squeamish, use a Q-tip swab instead of your finger. The main part of the worms are a writhing mass feeding from the yeast that grows on the surface of the oatmeal. If you look at your culture under a bright light, the surface of the oatmeal looks alive with something but it is hard to tell what because the numbers there are many many times what ends up crawling up the sides. A restart is done by scooping a spoonful off the surface of that writhing mass to inoculate your new culture. A single teaspoon is plenty to inoculate a container 10 cm on a side.

 

[comocrayfish5]

i will be getting my culture any day now, so i will start it and if i can i will only use 1/2 so if i mess up i can use the other half to restart it.

 

[OldMan47]

Use all of your starter culture and make it into two batches. The starter that you get by mail is probably going to be plenty to start 2 separate cultures. By starting both cultures, you get a bit of insurance against losing one of them. Letting the half tat you really don't need just sit means losing that part of the starter sample. Without the oatmeal and yeast medium, the culture will soon die off.