Worm Bin

Published September 26, 2010 | By admin

My Worm Bin = Free Betta Food

I've had my Worm Bin for quite a few years. As you can see it looks a bit weather beaten but it still does the job very well.

When I bought my Worm Bin (aka Worm Farm) a few years ago to recycle organic kitchen waste into garden fertilizer I never thought I’d find this use for it. Free, Live Betta food!

Last autumn I found some White Worms on the underside of the worm bin lid and looking very similar to Grindal Worms I decided that they might make a tasty snack for my Betta Fry. They were really easy to harvest as well as they crawled up the inner sides of the worm bin, above the compost, so it was just a matter of harvesting them with a pair of tweezers.

So first of all you might be wondering where they came from? Well they just happened to move in all by themselves. Whether they were already in the compost when I bought the compost worms, I’m not sure, but they certainly have turned out to be very welcome guests.

Just harvest your White Worms with some tweezers and then let them rinse in some aquarium water for a day or so.

Therefore after I started feeding my Bettas the white worms it then dawned on me that the worm bin was also loaded full of lots and lots of composting worms as well. They would also make quite a nutritious snack as well but the composting worms presented a few problems that the white worms didn’t.

Firstly, the composting worms were less inclined to crawl the sides of the worm bin and were mostly covered in compost. They were also full of compost on the inside as well so I was suspicious that bacteria might be a problem if I was to feed the composting worms to my Bettas.

The other problem with the compost worms was most of them were too large for adult Bettas to eat in one piece. They were simply more than just a mouthful.

Place the compost worms in a cup so they can excrete their waste until they are clear inside. Then you can rinse them in some clean water and cut into bite size length for your Bettas.

So this is what I did. I first selected juvenile worms. I found that there was enough of them in the compost bin to supply a fairly good amount of food. Next I placed them in a white styro foam cup half filled with aquarium water and over a period of a couple of days the worms would purge themselves of everything they’d eaten from the compost bin.

Because the worms were slightly translucent you could see the line of compost within their body but after they’d purged themselves it was all sitting on the bottom of the cup and their bodies were then clear. I’d then place them in another cup for a while so they could rinse themselves and then feed them to my Bettas.

So what I’ve found is the compost worms make a good food for adult Bettas that are being conditioned for breeding or even just as to supplement their diet. The worms will also live in the water for quite a few days so if you’re going away for a few days you can add as many as you need to your tank so your Bettas don’t go hungry.

The other thing I also discovered is you can easily cut the larger compost worms to size with a sharp pair of scissors so they are easier for your Bettas to swallow.

White worms can also be treated the same. I’ve actually fed these to my Betta fry straight from the compost bin but it probably wouldn’t hurt to rinse them also in some aquarium water for a day. One thing I’ve noticed is the white worms only seem to survive for about 2 days while submerged so you can’t rinse them for as long as the compost worms.

White Worms form clumps when submerged in water, which makes it easy to cut them smaller if required.

The white worms are also about 4 times longer than Grindal worms so if you want to feed them to your smaller fry then it’s just a matter of cutting them to length. Now I know you’re probably thinking that cutting enough white worms to length to feed lots of fry is going to be time consuming but here’s what I’ve found. While they’re in the water just swish them around and what you’ll find is they’ll cling together to form a tight clump. Just lift the clump out of the water with some tweezers and then cut it with your sharp scissors. Just do this 3 or 4 times and before you know it you’ll turn 20 or 30 white worms into over 100 wriggling little worms you can then tip into your fry tank.

Then just stand back and watch you fry go crazy over them. I once saw two fry grab the same white worm. Each fry had a different end and it was just like a tug of war. I watched these two fry fight over it for more that 5 minutes before I decided to leave them to it. I’m not sure who won the prize but it certainly shows just how much they liked the white worms.

So there you go, if you’d like to feed your Bettas something a little different every now and again then a worm bin might just be the answer, as once you’ve paid for it the food is free.

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