Grindal Worms (Enchytraeus buchholzi) Culture

HOW TO CULTURE GRINDAL WORMS

Requirements

• Starter culture

• Container with sealable lid

• Coco Coir, Potting Soil, Peat Moss (We recommend Coco Coir)

• Glass or plastic panel

• Dechlorinated, RO or distilled water

• Cotton wool, filter floss or paper towel

• Fish Pellets

Method

• Rinse coco soil media in Dechlorinated, RO or distilled water until the substrate is moist.

• Spread evenly inside container with a depth of at least 1 - 2 inches.

• Seed with starter culture.

• Place 1 - 2 fish pellets into culture as a food source.

• Place glass panel or plastic panel over the culture. This is used for harvesting later.

• Make a small hole in lid of container as a breather hole. Stuff hole with filter floss or cotton wool. If not available tape paper towel over the outside of hole to cover. This prevents pests from entering the culture.

Harvesting

• Once culture is established worms will begin moving up the sides, and underside of glass / plastic panel. Taking your finger, cotton wool bud or brush you can remove worms from panel and feed directly to tank.

• Worms can last approximately 8 - 12 hours and reported even up to 20 hours inside the tank. Ensure you don’t overfeed.

Re-Culturing

• Cultures will become exhausted after a few months depending on size of culture and feeding. Cultures will become stinky and dirty. Time to re-culture.

• Remove panel with worms from culture. Aim to remove as many of the worms as possible for the original culture.

• Repeat steps outlined in method and seed new culture with original worms.

Feeding

• Feed worms with fish pellets. We feed our Grindal Worms with 9mm sinking pellets. Worms can be gut loaded with a range of foods such as algae wafers and vegetables.

• Only feed what can be consumed in 1 - 2 days. Ensure not to overfeed.

Recommendations

• Grindal Worms can be easily gut loaded with a range of foods. Be careful not to overfeed. Additional feeding will exhaust the culture media quicker with build up of worm waste.

• We recommend starting minimum of 2 cultures. This allows a backup culture if one crashes, and prevents overharvesting of your main culture.

• Store away from direct sunlight in temperatures approximately 20-29 degrees celsius.

• Other culture media can be used, such as potting soil and peat moss but are more acidic and may impact your culture. We use coco coil, and works well for us. Soil-less cultures can be established using sponges, please do further research if you wish to explore this option.