A little while ago I got some microworms from Down the Worm Hole and they came in a culture consisting of mashed potatoes. It seems allot of people use it so I thought I'd compare it to my old method.
I love seeing comparison videos like these because its always good to see if there is a significant difference like in this case. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
This was fantastic. I’ve been culturing with oats and was thinking of trying mash potato but after seeing this I will stick with what I’m using. Thanks for sharing.
So interesting! I use oats as well - mostly because I also use oats for my mealworms and my fruit fly cultures, so it's easy to just keep one media type. I found mine took about 3 days to really start to produce micro worms after seeding - it's great to see that you've had a similar result!
Nice! I use corn meal, oatmeal, instant potatoes, bread (along with all other kinds of stuff) and never really noticed a difference! LOL. But Oatmeal is my favorite. When I sprinkle with yeast and sugar every couple days, they do go crazy.
HI, please allow me a little essay, as a comparisson to your experiment and suggestion for other who want to try this too. I only recently started culturing microworms... on my research I kept reading that oats can smell strongly and attract fruit flies etc... so I was not keen. I couldn't find in my local supermarkets mash potato flakes without any additives, and I wasn't sure if it was suitable... Then I found father fish, who got the idea from Joey = plain boiled white rice. Joey even tried it with choc rice crispies 🤷♂simply because, why not... lol i bet Joey is chocoholic and is making sure that all fish are as well lol So I thought - I have both oats and rice in my kitchen, lets try: On the day the culture arrived, I prepared a bit of both, roughly equal amounts and in separate containers, put starter culture on top, gingerly sprinkled a bit of dried yeast directly on top and OMGA (OH MY GUIDY AUNT) I have never seen anything like it. Though the first day it was slow... I have in the following few days contacted father fish with questions, he was extremely kind and helpful. Now I simply sprinkle a bit of the yeast directly on top of the culture when its slowing down, and almost like magic a few hours later I have worms crawling out of my windows... Father fish and Joey reckon that the culture should go on for months if not a year. And just like father fish said, it smells like freshly baked bread 😅😅😂😂 I wonder what it would smell like if I used choc rice crispies 😲🤪😂😂 Subsequently I did further research and found out that Microworms can be refrigerated (and possibly frozen), once needed just bring them out and give them time to warm up and do their thing and off they go again. As both cultures were producing more than I could use in a day, I decided to put the culture with rice in the fridge - unceremoniously. These critters are not harmful to humans. (I have not tried freezing yet) Its now about 1 week and I'm thinking of taking the fridge culture out to see how it does once out... this is also a great idea for when I go on holiday, don't have to ask anyone to deal with something that might potentially gross them out. In conclusion, try boiled rice, and try putting the back up in the fridge so you have less to deal with every day. And after watching this video, I'm glad I didn't try mashed potato.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences with these little guys. Any starchy source with yeast will culture the worms. Rice is probably the only one I haven't tried. No matter what I've tried, even the ones that don't smell bad, I would recommend starting new cultures periodically as they do get contaminated with unwanted microorganisms that you don't want to add to your tanks. Thanks for watching!
I used potato flakes. I like them because they're simple. I just put into 1 part flakes and 2 parts water. Once the water is absorbed (I don't even bother stirring), I sprinkle yeast on top and then add some microworms. If ever there aren't worms on the sides when I need them, I sprinkle more yeast in an hour or two the sides are sufficiently covered. My cultures are much drier than yours although I don't know if drier or wetter is better.
Good info! I've been using the instant potatoes for a while now, I never bother boiling water, just stir in some tank water. Will have to try oatmeal now
Hey Fishman, this was great; do you draw up the worms from the bottom of the bottle, as I imagine they sink and you want to avoid drawing up too much murky water when feeding your fish?
Hey Fred! I actually just stir it all up. There isn't any media in the harvested worms. I've recently gone to using a spatula and directly adding the worms to the tanks. No real reason for the change. Thanks for watching!
Microworm cultures don't really crash. They just slow down to the point where they produce very little worms and smell really bad. I tend to rotate my cultures every two to three weeks. I usually make three and then as they begin to peak in production make three more. Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment. Much appreciated.
Just got my culture earlier this week and I used mashed potatoes and yeast. Not sure what I did wrong but my worms basically dried out. Luckily, I saved an extra container with the oatmeal it came with and they’re doing well. I just dropped some of the oatmeal to the mashed potatoes instead of washing the worms and the next morning, it was dry. Seen a lot of people do it that way and their culture does well. I probably didn’t use enough water. I’ll try again next week when my surviving culture reproduce a bit and I’ll add a bit more water.
@@FishmanEricRussell Actually left the culture alone til I saw your response and was going to add water to it just so I can put some of the “surviving culture” to the dried out mashed potatoes and realized there are a lot of worms moving around the container. Even if it looked dried, it was able to reproduce but to be on the safe side, I just added more water to it. Appreciate your help 🙏
I think I will leave this kind of project to you, Fishman - happy to watch along and learn though! Do you feed these to most of your fish? Or specific ones?
Pretty much every fish gets them at some point in their lives. Some of the smaller ones even eat them when they are adults. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.
I just started my first microworm culture. I used plain instant oatmeal. It is in a container that is probably too large because there is space on the bottom, around the oatmeal but the culture is growing. However, the edges of the oatmeal not covered with the culture, is turning red. Does anyone know why?
@@FishmanEricRussell Was really helpful... my only question considering also few other vids I've watched, are you boiling oats to make porridge? Or just make it from raw? and why? :) thank you
@@undersurfacechannel I boil them for a short period to make a really thick porridge. Partially to sterilize it but mostly I find that it gets soupy faster if I don't.
Unfortunately there is no simple answer to that question. The short version is, I use a culture for two to three weeks. After that period it smells too much for my liking and doesn't produce enough worms. You can keep them going allot longer than that and they never really die off. I need allot of worms for my fish room so I just keep rotating them so I have a constant supply. Hope that helps and thanks for watching
Hi Eric.. another thing I would like to try. Can you get micro worms dry? Like brine shrimp eggs? similar to that? Very cool.😁🍁💦💗😁 Nothing like a good food hunt!!
Hi Deb. Hope you are having a great week. There are allot of small creatures that have a cyst form for times like droughts. I have no idea if microworms (nematodes) do or not. One of us should do a video about this
Hi Eric.... I'll be the red-wiggler girl and you do the micros lol I love learning of fresh foods. I may have to order a culture from Dea but I have no idea what it will look like. There's a recipe that we pass around town called Amish friendship bread. You get a 1 cup bag of culter and add the ingredients you need to make your bread. Setting 1 cup aside and passing it on to the next person. I bet that would get nice and wormy if I just let it sit lol You have a wonderful weekend.. Spring is in the air.. even though it snowed last night. 🍞😁🍁💦
That was interesting you can bye mash patto powder Yuck give me the old spud anyday. Na bro It was interesting to see the difference. Yeh please do more thanks.
Yes. I tried for short terms and found I could thaw and get cultures going out of them. The freezing was near zero and only temporary. I was thinking of this for mailing.
oats work better because of the space between oats in comparison to potatoes that are a solid, yeast is not needed, also a deep plastic container works best with small pieces of coffe filter layed on top. pick up filter media dip into tank and repeat
Help i can't culture micro Worms they just seem to stink of vinager.aAnd if i do get any Worms they only last for a week at most where am i going wrong. Regards Martin steele
Hey Martin. The only time I run into issues with culturing micro worms is if I make the media too wet. Currently I boil the oats for about a minute and while it's still boiling hot and hasn't congealed I scoop it into the containers and flatten it out. After it cools it's actually hard. Then I sprinkle on dry active yeast and then add the worms suspended in water. The only trick here is to keep the surface damp as the oats will absorb the water. For the first couple of days i will check them and add a bit more of the worms suspended in water as needed. I find this works great . Cultures can go for a while but I tend to cycle mine every two weeks to avoid the smell and to keep the yield high. Hope that helps
Thanks for your help in have a culture now using mash potatoes from spuds.No sugar in the mix i think it was turning into alcohol and then into vinager the Worms on potatoes seem larger some how i don't know but thank you for your advice my baby goldfish are loving em. Regards Martin steele
Can anyone give me a better insight on how to keep these starter culture kits please? They came in plastic air tight bags, I have seen many videos that say room temperature is ok, what should that be, also should they have air flow? Etc. Thank you
They are very hardy. Just leave air holes and put it somewhere in your fish room. They will do very well. My room temp varies from 20 to 35 and mine are fine. Hope that helps
@@FishmanEricRussell Sorry for the misunderstanding, I have already made a culture and I don’t have any problem with it, it looks ok to me, from the videos I have seen on the internet. My question should have been I have used half of the starter kit I ordered from ebay, the second half is still in a air tight plastic bag, does it still need air? shall i leave it air tight? as i will use it later on to make a second culture
There are any number of flours available on the market. I chose these two medias because they were the most popular. There are also many other ways of going about culturing the worms. Unfortunately there did not seem to be enough interest from viewers to pursue this any further. Thanks so much for taking the time to watch and comment
I've never tried it. It should work as the worms feed on the yeast and the yeast will feed on anything with starch. How well it works depends on how well the media stays pasty before it goes to liquid. Let me know how this works out for you and thanks for watching
Hi I need help I have kept mw since last October no problem but now that I have fry and need them and my old batch’s needs replacement every time I start a new one with oats I get mould within a few days any advice anyone
The worms move on the surface to keep mold from growing. You get mold when the media is too moist and they're movement is below the surface. It doesn't take too much extra water for this to be an issue. Make the media thicker and pastier. Hope this helps
I know by experience fish loves oats, Mash potatoes thats new. I also know by virtue of reading that some worms will make some fish constipated. Have you ever notice such conditions in your fish stock? I currently have a small batch of worms I call it my worm farm will check it in Easter. Let me know what you think about the worm issue.
White worms will cause constipation. Micro worms aren't actually a worm. They are nematodes and I haven't had any issues feeding them to fish. As with all things it is best when you feed a varied diet. Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment
I like your style. I am so sorry that aloyt of the culture available to you cannot be accessed in Jamaica. I would have to be patient and create my own, as you can probably tell by now time might not be my friend. Nice vid , very informative.
Nematodes are everywhere. If you take half a potato and hollow it out a bit, then stuff it with culture media and yeast and go bury it where there is moist soil you will get nematodes in about a week.
@@jermainefoster2705 That means that there is too much moisture and the worms can't turn the surface over and keep the mold from growing. Try making it as a thick paste
