"No Feed" worm bin experiment

[Jay Blair]

As an experiment I have set up a small bin containing 20 breeder E.f. worms in 3 cubic feet of bedding. This bin is not going to receive and household wastes. Rather I am going to feed it only algae with no fish wastes.

I have inoculated five 20 gallon aquariums with algae growth from one of my fish tanks and set aerators and UV lights on the aquariums. All 5 have a thick scum of growth on them and I will be scraping and screen filtering one wall on each aquarium for the weekly feed and watering.

Hopefully the algae will recover before I return to the tank in rotation for the next harvest.

Let you know in a few months how the 10 worms do on the diet of algae.

[Jay Blair]

3 week update


Of the 10 bedrun worms I added initially, all are still holding their size.

3 are showing band development.


Apparently when setting up the bin, I had some cocoons in with the little bit of wormcast added with the bedrun worms as there are three hatclings in there also.

Rather than keep dual data, I removed the hatchlings and returned the sample to the original 10 bedrun that are beginning to band.

[Jay Blair]

5 week update

Eight of the original 10 worms now are banded. Two apparently have deposited cocoons although I have not disturbed the bedding to search for them.

I will deduce cocoon deposit at the eight week check by counting visible hatchings. Possibly by that time sufficient amounts of bedding will be consumed to allow easier inspection for cocoons.