Culturing White
As
a starter, for those who may be concerned, the worms look like human pinworms,
but cannot successfully infect a human due to the low temperature requirements
of this worm, and to the best of my knowledge, do not carry an pathogens as
can be gotten with tubifex worms.
First,
you need a place that can hold a temperature below 70 degrees F. Second you need a starter culture. (The culture comes second since at above 70
degrees Fahrenheit your worms won’t do well at all.
A temperature between 55 and 65 is best if you expect them to reproduce.
I prefer to use a Styrofoam box, like a fish box (with lid), since
the box will help stabilize the temperature, and the lid maintain darkness
which they demand or hide. An unheated integral garage, an old basement
refrigerator set to as high as you can without turning it off, or some other
“cold” spot in the house works well. I
have heard schemes for raising white worms at above 70 degrees using sponges
and water evaporation to keep them cool, but never tried it.
For
a medium, I find that Magic Worm Bedding, available at Wal-Mart in the hunting
and fishing supplies department is great.
They even have a small worm box with bedding for under $10 if you do
not need a large culture. I prefer
to use a Fish shipping box usually available at your local fish shop, sometimes
free, sometimes for a dollar. 
When
you obtain a starter culture, you will find it is not a lot of worms. A one pound starter culture from a commercial
supplier (priced usually around $15) is a pound of dirt, not a pound of worms. It will be several weeks if not months to raise
enough worms to feed unless your fish room has a single male guppy and planted
tanks only. Once established the supply
is reasonable and can be raided for food once or twice a week for a treat
for your fish. Many say that the white worms are a high starch food and should
be fed sparingly and certainly not as a mainstay; however I have never seen
a problem with fish fed exclusively on white worms although I would not recommend
it.
The
worm bedding is very dry (weight minimized for shipping) and must be soaked
in dechlorinated tap water prior to use. You
can put some water right in the box (which has a yellow bag inside that holds
the bedding). The bedding looks like it may have a little
sand and some peat moss or other mulm, but is much better for raising the
worms than a sack of topsoil or other readily available medium. Unless you plan to supply the eastern seaboard
with worms, the cost of the Magic Worm Bedding is minimal.
Squeeze
all the water you can from the bedding to make it just moist.
Fill your box with about 3 to 5 inches deep with the bedding and “fluff”
it up a little. Excess water will eventually
go to the bottom so if it is a little wet it will not hurt.
Place
your starter culture right on top of the bedding.
There are many foods that ca be used for the worms.
Some prefer Pabulum or mashed potatoes placed in small furrows in the
medium, but I prefer to use a piece of bread soaked in non fat dry milk. Some bread is less prone to mold and I like
the “Italiano” brand sliced bread since it will hold for several days soaked
in milk prior to any mold development.
For
a starter culture, half a slice is plenty.
When the remaining bread shows signs of mold, remove and replace it
with a fresh slice. Once established, a good culture will consume a slice
of bread in about 36 to 48 hours.
Now
here is the nice part about using bread as a food for the worms.
Once established, the worms will consume, and actually replace the
bread slice. This means you do not
have any “separation” task, just scoop up a clump of worms, and place them
in water to rinse away any bread remnants, replace the cloudy water with fresh
water, and baste them into the tanks. This
is a good culture 12 hours after placing a new slice of bread into the box.
Unlike
black worms, white worms cannot survive under water indefinitely, so you will
need to remove uneaten worms the next day if you used more than could be consumed.
After
a few months, the worm bedding may become fouled.
You can tell this by seeing if the worms are “trying to exit the box
by climbing up the sides. When this
happens, start a second box culture by splitting the culture into a second
box and adding a fresh batch of worm bedding to each box.
Bill Shenefelt