Question: Microworms

Hi - Has anyone had success with a Microworm culture? I bought one from Dartfrog a week ago and I can't see any wriggling worms in the culture (with a magnifying glass) let alone climbing the sides. Am I being too impatient ??

Hi,
know the scientific name of what you call microworms? If you know maybe you can anticipate something!

It will take around 2 weeks for you to notice microworms climbing up the sides of your container. Do you happen to know what the media is made of?

I know which ones you were referring to, unfortunately these do not understand anything, just the other white worms!

cheers

I had some and they where amazing!..fed my newt larvae on them and the guppies would go mad for them. If I remember correctly mine where raised on porridge and warm water...I can not remember if I had yeast too.

The Microworms are Panagrellus redivivus. The instructions state they should start climbing after a 'couple of days'. The culture medium is oats, yeast & water.

A couple of days is probably a tad too hasty. I cultured some using the same medium and it took around a fortnight, as greatwhthunter also stated. If you hold the container to the light you might see the surface of the medium 'sparkling' as the worms move. It'll be fairly obvious once they begin climbing the sides; they form vein-like clusters.
I read an article that stated you could place a piece of kitchen-roll on a section of the medium, on to which the worms would multiply, and then use a spatula or some such to collect them and subsequently use to feed them to your animals. Worked well for me; I'd began culturing in a container with comparatively less area on its sides than there was area of the medium, so using the kitchen roll became convenient. I'd started doing this after the medium was entirely covered in worms. There was enough to feed the 40+ young larvae I was keeping, and the worms still multiplied significantly and began climbing the sides.
Hope some of that is of some use.

Yes, your post was very useful! Beginning to think that a compensatory choose a culture like this, just do not reproduce as fast enough, which is good! What I think is bad, and that once made me opt for other worms, the smell they say is disgusting!

Thats good, I read also that you can place damp coffee filter paper on top and then a strip of the same paper on top of that and trapped under the lid, then the worms will climb about an inch up onto that strip of paper which you harvest by simply cutting 1 inch from the bottom and dipping it into your tank.

I'm desperate to get some live food for my nymphs. The second one hatched today, the other hatched 16 days ago (premature) so they'll need something in the next few days.

I was relying on the culture to produce by now, thats why I bought it a week ago on the understanding that the worms would climb after 'a couple of days' which to me is 2 or 3.

I'll just have to go out in the snow and buy some daphnia from my aquarium shop, & give them the smallest I can find.

Can I hear Violins ??