Worm cultures questions

[captmicha]

K, so I have micros, walters, and bananas. I've had them for a few weeks now and they're climbing up the sides but not in great numbers. Maybe they have to go through a few generations to evolve to do best with my water, type of oatmeal, type of yeast, etc. In other words, I'm not too worried about that yet.

However, I've come to find that they create a lot of watery by-product. So much so that it's about 1/4" of liquid if I don't do anything for a couple of days. I don't want the worms to drown so I've been sprinkling dry oatmeal on top to absorb it.

Is that not what I'm supposed to be doing? Does the watery stuff cause them to want to climb up the sides of the container or will it cause them to drown if I leave it?

I know sprinkling more oatmeal on top of the culture is called "re-charging" the culture but if it wasn't for the watery stuff, I wouldn't have to. My cultures aren't turning colors and aren't smelling bad. Am I just lucky? Or is the watery stuff considered "going bad"?

 

[jetajockey]

The culture won't be as watery if you don't use as much water when originally starting it. As the media breaks down it will become soupy, its totally normal, but if you just use less water in the beginning then it wont be as bad later on. If you have a lot of water, i.e. enough to pour off the culture, then the worms wont be crawling up the sides as much since its harder for them to move around in the liquid. Add a few drops of water to some worms that are crawled up on the side, see what happens, they'll slide back down with the drops of water. Adding some extra oats to soak up the water is a good idea, I do it from time to time as needed.

I've never really had a microworm culture 'go bad'. At some point, the worms will just stop reproducing as much, and you won't see as many, but even then I've left the culture for weeks and it always bounces back when adding a portion to fresh media.

As far as them evolving or whatever, it has a lot to do with your starter culture. If you get large starter cultures then you'll have tons of harvestable worms in just a few days. If the cultures are small it can take significantly longer.

When I restart my cultures, I scoop a tablespoon out of each container, then empty and rinse the container, add fresh oatmeal and yeast, enough water to make it moist, and then add the table spoon back to it and stir a little. The culture will be ready to start harvesting again in approx 2-3 days, and will be producing enough worms to harvest twice a day for about a week to 2 weeks before it needs to be redone.


I bet when you get the consistency of the culture fixed you will have much more worms to work with.

 

[captmicha]

I don't know if you understood. I'm not adding a lot of water. There's no water pouring off when I turn the culture side ways when I first set it up. The worms are making the watery by-product.

 

[jetajockey]

I don't know if you understood. I'm not adding a lot of water. There's no water pouring off when I turn the culture side ways when I first set it up. The worms are making the watery by-product.

The culture won't be as watery if you don't use as much water when originally starting it. As the media breaks down it will become soupy, its totally normal, but if you just use less water in the beginning then it wont be as bad later on.

Adding some extra oats to soak up the water is a good idea, I do it from time to time as needed.

I bet when you get the consistency of the culture fixed you will have much more worms to work with.

Please see quotes for answers.

 

[captmicha]

I did but it doesn't change anything. I'm not making the cultures very wet to begin with.

 

[Ashes2ashes]

I think you are asking if it's normal for the culture to get soupy/watery with time and the worm waste right? And I think Jeta is saying that is it, but that it won't get as bad if you start out really dry and that the drying with extra dry oats is a good idea. In essence, if the question is whether or not its normal for the worms to make the water soupy, and does that mean it has gone bad or is time to change it, then yes, I think it is normal, and not neccessarily indicative of time to change the cultures. I only kept micros twice and admittedly not for long, I hate the way they smell, but mine always got very soupy after a while, so yes I think that is normal, and I think the dry oats are a good idea to help dry it out. I was always told to change it about once a week or so as it got more funky, but I am definitely no expert on how long to keep them in the same culture since I flushed mine in both cases after a short time lol.

 

[captmicha]

Okay, I was pretty stupid. I managed to forget my two different results. Thank you sleep deprivation... I know I make no sense most of the time..

I found out that the speed of the watery soup stuff being produced was relative to the toughness of the substrate. I did an oatmeal microworm and a white bread microworm and the oatmeal culture matured slower but didn't get as soupy nearly as fast as the white bread culture. The white bread culture matured much quicker but became soupy much faster.

I don't think it has much to do with how much water I add but with how fast they're able to break down the substrate.

White bread is softer and (probably) contains additional yeast (besides the initial pinch at start up) which acted like a boost to the culture but they were able to break down the white bread really fast.

While the oatmeal doesn't contain much, if any, additional yeast besides the initial pinch at start up and the oatmeal is much tougher than white bread.

 

[platytudes]

If you use a less processed kind of oatmeal (like steel cut) it might help, it sounds like the cultures get soupier the more refined the food is. White bread being probably the most refined food in the planet!

 

[captmicha]

Yeah. Right now I'm using non-instant oatmeal, uncooked.

 

[Rjb3]

You might try multi-grain baby food. Add 1/4 teaspoon dry yeast per one pound box. I also add 250mg vitamin C per pound. Put the baby food mixture in the new container dry, then slowly add water. That way there's no mixing. When I seed a new culture, I add water to an old culture and swirl it around to mix it slightly. Then pour some on top of the new one, covering most of the new media. That way the worms grow up the sides faster. If you put a small amount in the center, you wait longer for the worms to cover the top of the new culture and then start going up the sides of the container.