Making and Maintaining a White Worm Culture for Small Pets

 Tropical fish, crayfish, amphibians and reptiles all eagerly eat white worms, a small worm that lives in dirt. White worms (Enchytraeus albidus) are easy to culture. They are a great food for young fish and small adults. When placed in water, they wiggle which makes them irresistible to most critters. They grow to about an inch (2.5cm) long. Baby worms can be fed to tiny fish. Large clumps to larger fish and animals.

Materials: 

• a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid. 6L "shoe box" type works great.
• soil (no fertilizer added) organic mix of soil and peat, pH around 7
• a slice of white bread (or dog kibble)
• heaping tablespoon of plain active yogurt
• plastic lid from a yogurt or margarine container
• hand-held drill or dremel with tiny drill bit (1/16 of an inch)
• debittered brewer's yeast powder or powered kelp
• a starter culture of white worms

1. Wash your container with hot soapy water. Rinse. Let dry. 

2. On each side of the container lid, drill at least 40 small holes to let air in for the worms. Using a very small drill bit (1/16 of an inch) will ensure fruit flies and other tiny flies will not invade your culture and your worms cannot get out. You could also use a piece of cloth with very fine weave to cover a hole cut in one end of the lid. Glue the cloth in place over the hole. Let dry. I use a glue gun, aquarium silicon or super glue to do this. Make sure the glue is all around the edges of the cloth to seal it to the lid. Trim off excess cloth. I used an old sheet. Avoid using screen as fruit flies, no see um's and drain flies can all still get through these. 

If you don't have ventilation, the container may get too wet and the worms may crawl up the sides rather than feed and reproduce. If the container is airtight, they may suffocate.

3. Dampen the soil so it's moist not wet. Place soil in the microwave on high for three minutes. Let it cool. This will sterilize it so you don't introduce pests like mites, fruit flies or springtails that may be present in the soil. Of course, if you want an additional food source for your critters, and want to set up an ecologically balanced culture, then don't bother sterilizing the soil as you may be able to use these other critters. 

4. Place about an inch of soil in your container. Place your starter culture in the soil.

5. Prepare a piece of bread for food. For cultures that are just starting, I use a quarter of a piece. As the number of worms grows and they are consuming the bread within about 2 days or so, then increased it to half a piece of bread and so on.

6. Place a Tablespoon of plain active yogurt on the bread. This provides calcium and other nutrients for the worms. Next sprinkle 1/16 of a teaspoon of debittered Brewer's yeast on the yogurt. This provides Vitamin B and other vitamins for the worms. You can also alternate it with powdered kelp. This provides chlorophyll and minerals for the worms. Both these powders makes the worms more nutritious for your critters.  Or you can soak some dog kibble until it's partially moist, then place on the soil surface.

7. Place the bread yogurt-side down on the soil and cover with a plastic yogurt container lid. The lid makes it dark and gives the worms somewhere to crawl. You can pick the lid up to check how much bread is left and also to harvest the worms. Scrape the worms off with your finger into a small container. 

Once a week or more often, check on the culture and replace the bread if it goes moldy. If it is molding several times in a row, the culture is either too wet or there is too much food. Try adding more dry soil or decrease the amount of food you put in.

8. Place the container lid and store the culture in a cool dry place. It doesn't have to be very dark. White worms prefer cooler temperatures of 50-65F (15-18C). In our area, the Pacific Northwest, the floor of a garage is perfect as long as it doesn't freeze. If freezing temperatures are predicted, either bring it in and place in on the floor in a cool closet or room of the house or place it beside an incandescent bulb to keep it above the freezing level. Do not allow it to overheat in the summer. The garage floor out of the sun is a great place during the summer as it is cooler. Breeding activity slows as the temperature increases or decreases from the ideal temperatures. 

9. Check on the worms twice a week to start. More often in warm weather or once the population starts to take off. Harvest lightly at first, then heavier. Once established, you can feed your critters regularly from the culture to keep the population in check. Try feeding fish alternate days rather than every day as white worms are not a complete meal and need to be fed with other foods for a proper nutritional balance. 

10. When you start a new culture, take some of the soil with the worms as it contains eggs.

Tip 1: Sometimes if you don't harvest enough worms, the population gets too high and will crash. Make sure to harvest heavily at this point. You can either add more soil to your container or use half the worms to create a new culture.

The white worms will start to crawl up the sides in lines and congregate in the corners. This usually means the soil quality has declined and contains too much water and worm waste for them to survive. You will need to remove them within a day or so of this happening or they whole culture will become a slimy stinky mess. 

Tip 2: If you find you have too many worms to use daily, you can collect them and place them in an old ice cube tray. Freeze them for a few hours, then pop them out of the tray and put them in another container in the freezer. I run water on the underside to pop them out more easily. Do not let the lumps of worms get wet though or they will stick together in a sold mass after they are frozen.

Here is a plastic ice cream container filled with white worm cubes. Simply take a cube and drop it into a fish tank. The fish will eat them as they thaw and fall. They work much the same as frozen bloodworms but stay intact better.

Tip 3: Once you have extra white worms, scoop up a starter culture and put it in a small container and place in a freezer. If your other cultures crash, bring out the frozen starter and you should be able to start another one from it. Refresh the frozen one annually to make sure it's still viable.

Purchase a white worm starter culture from us!