Microworms are not the food of choice for bows, (Vin. eels are) cause they sit
on the surface when born but are ideal for young gudgeons and other fry that sit
on the bottom.
One of the best methods I've found for keeping microworms going was referred
over here as "the English method". The main source of food is bread. Take the
crusts off of 2 pieces (or as much as it takes to fit your container, double
thickness of bread) of non-mouldy old white bread and trim to fit the container
that they will eventually be placed in. Then take a few TLB of cool water,
place in a shallow bowl. Spinkle in some bakers yeast (I use the dry stuff in
the little packets as it keeps a long time at 5 degrees C) and mix it until you
get a cloudy solution. Quikly wet the bread, both sides and then place it into
your soon to be worm container. You don't want it really soaking but just
slightly wet with yeast water. The yeast is important as it will inhibit non-
desirable {read Smelly, Black, worm-killing bacteria :-)} from messing up your
culture. The bread will be double thickness in your container. Smear a culture
of worms on the surface. Cover container to avoid fruit flies but make sure you
put pin holes in the lid as the culture must breath. My cultures stay at around
75-82 degrees F. You get a nice bread (yeast) smell for the first week or two.
By the 3/4th week or maybe even sooner you need to change the culture again.
Harvest the worms as they crawl up the sides of the container so you never get
any bread-soup into your tanks. Even when these cultures go bad they don't
smell near as bad as the baby-oatmeal that a lot of people have used. I used to
use that method until I learned about this one 5-6 years ago. I don't remember
exactly who it was who told me about it but it might have been Peter Lewis, thus
"the english method". Soon you will have more worms that you know what to do
with.
Gary Lange/RSG/ANGFA
gwlang at ccmail.monsanto.com