Big Bad Blackworm Tower – Culture Journal

[Odd Duck]

On 3/24/2022 at 10:23 PM, modified lung said:

Dance party:

😆 😂 🤣 

Good job!  I’ve been able to grow blackworms in a couple plant only tanks but don’t feel like I’ve truly grown them in my culture tanks.  They stay healthy enough until fed and maybe have grown a little bit, but not in enough numbers to truly say I’m growing them in sufficient quantity to make them an ongoing food source without buying more.

[Ujaynme]

New to keeping worms, not really culturing just keeping them alive with minimal effort, been following your journal for care ideas. I found they mine do well just eating yeast. They seem make a lot of babies with just yeast and water stays cleaner longer.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@modified lungreally like the new design, that center food chamber is money. Do you think that a more rigid tube with holes drilled out like a piece of PVC would work?> Asking because I have a bunch of PVC laying around. 

[Cory]

I'm enjoying this thread, I think a lot of us are learning right along side you.

[Torrey]

So glad my stroke and my surgery kept me from bi=uilding my dining room tank out when I planned... it's going to be so much more awesome thanks to all your ideas!

[modified lung]

@Beardedbillygoat1975 Worth a try for sure. One thing I'm wondering is if water flow through the tower is important. I think I mentioned this in the thread somewhere already but at one point I lowered the aeration expecting more worms to climb the tower to get closer to the surface for the oxygen. Instead they all left the tower. Then when the aeration was turned up again they climbed back in. So you might have to drill quite a lot of holes or maybe slits into the PVC.

@Ujaynme yeast gives me anxiety lol. I've gassed out a few cultures of adult brine shrimp.

@Torrey more than just this one?

 

[modified lung]

I haven't updated this for a while. I've had a few setbacks.

I had the blackworm tank on a bottom shelf which isn't easily in sight. After noticing the pothos plant turned yellow, I bent over to find the air pump had stopped working and half the culture died out. 

A few weeks later another major die off happened. Despite a number of water changes, nitrates we're still in the 20–30 ppm range. Every other water parameter was normal and before this nitrates we're always less than 5 ppm. So it's possible blackworms are sensitive to nitrates.

At this point I had maybe 20% of the population as before. I moved half of what was left outside into this half barrel above a large outdoor tank/pond where they're making a big comeback.

The half barrel has a rechargeable air pump and a 1 watt water pump (32gph) both hooked up to a 30 watt solar panel circulating water through from the pond. The pumps use so little power that the panels still provide enough to run them on cloudy days.

To save space I might replace the half barrel with a 2 or 3 or maybe 5 gallon bucket. But the half barrel holds about 20 gallons of water and the more water, the less likely there will be a die off if some equipment fails again.

I've been feeding them passion fruit through the top of the tower:

The other half of the survivors went back in the ten gallon tank indoors and are being fed frozen vegetables. They're making a comeback as well but not as fast.

Edited July 7, 2022 by modified lung

[modified lung]

A bigger, more naughty blackworm tower. 4" inches wide, 2 ft tall. I want to see if a good population can survive the ricefish in here while sitting with them in the outdoor tank.

[Guppysnail]

That is going to be crazy creepy awesome 

[Odd Duck]

Very cool!

[SumTingFishy]

You should try an experiment to see if you can increase your propagation rates. Try taking some aquascaping scissors and snipping the worms in half as they hang out of your towers. I'm would be interested to hear the results if anyone try this, you could do a side by side run with a normal tower and one you trim weekly.

[modified lung]

On 9/9/2022 at 5:28 PM, SumTingFishy said:

Try taking some aquascaping scissors and snipping the worms in half as they hang out of your towers.

Unfortunately they all pull their bodies completely inside the tower as soon as you get too close to the tank. I squeeze the tower once and a while though.

[SumTingFishy]

Ah, I see. I was hoping it may work. Your thread is super interesting, thanks for sharing your project.

[SumTingFishy]

Just another thought, can they see you at night? Maybe a red light or some other less bright color at night may give you the opportunity to give them a haircut.

[modified lung]

On 9/11/2022 at 7:06 PM, SumTingFishy said:

Just another thought, can they see you at night? Maybe a red light or some other less bright color at night may give you the opportunity to give them a haircut.

That's not a bad idea. I'll have to find a red light and try it.

[OutBout]

Cool idea. Will be trying something like this in the near future!

[SumTingFishy]

My pocket mag light came with A cap and several filters on it. If you can still find them at Lowes they are great little lights.

[modified lung]

"woot" ...as the kids say.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@modified lungany updates? I’m looking at the Eastern Aquatics site and almost ready to pull the trigger.

[modified lung]

The blackworms have been living outdoors in a bucket in one of my 300 gal tanks. 

A tiny 1 watt pump in a floating filter sock pumps water into the bucket which flows out a screened hole drilled in the front.

I've been placing water lettuce in the bucket with the lid mostly closed so the worms have at least a small constant source of food for when i forget to give them more vegetables.

They seem to like it.

I did have another die off ...sort of. I hooked an extra, more powerful air pump to my solar controller to run a protein skimmer which took far more power than expected. The extra load drained the battery bank over night right before the first overcast day of the year and the five more that followed. The bucket was quite packed with blackworms (sorry no new pictures since the last one in October) and I'm guessing oxygen went very low. It looks like most of the worms crawled out of the bucket and into the main tank where the eager ricefish were waiting. Oops.

But why fight your own incompetence when you can embrace it? That's what I always say. I cut a small solar panel off and old solar air pump that kept jamming and connected it to the 1 watt water pump. 

If the pump only runs during the day, when the population of blackworms gets too high, they'll leave the bucket in the late afternoon and become a snack for the ricefish. A periodic auto blackworm dispenser. Maybe that will work out. The blackworms hanging onto the water lettuce will still likely get enough oxygen and ensure there are always some in the bucket to repopulate. I thought the tower was empty but upon dumping half of it into a container I saw hundreds of very short, recently segmented blackworms were still in there. Repopulate they shall ...again.

@Beardedbillygoat1975

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

My idea for buying another culture is 2 fold. 
 

1. my new 60 g Hillstream tank I just dump half of a culture in there and call it good. Hopefully it becomes a constant food source for the fish 

2. I’m starting a 20 g food barrel - 50 w heater set to 68, air stone, scuds, daphnia and leaf liter and floaters. Hopefully I just scoop a net in, get some live foods and that’s what’s for dinner.

[modified lung]

On 11/28/2022 at 8:49 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

2. I’m starting a 20 g food barrel - 50 w heater set to 68, air stone, scuds, daphnia and leaf liter and floaters. Hopefully I just scoop a net in, get some live foods and that’s what’s for dinner.

I do this with a 55 gal barrel in my backyard but with no heater or air stone and Simocephalus instead of Daphnia.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

My garage is 63 degrees so a small heater should get me to 68 or so.

[nabokovfan87]

On 9/11/2022 at 7:13 PM, modified lung said:

That's not a bad idea. I'll have to find a red light and try it.

They sell some designed for spotting scorpions and stuff in the desert.  Might work for ya.

[TeeJay]

Now this something else I need to try for myself. 👍