Help with a mouldy worm farm

[Chris Willis]

I'm wondering if white fluffy mould appearing on the surface of my worm farm is normal or not. Since putting the last food scraps into the farm it is smelling quite badly. Can anyone shed light into what I'm doing wrong....or not:think:

[eco4560]

You could send a PM to briansworms - he's the local worm expert - Composting Worms (http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?12009-Composting-Worms-For-Sale&highlight=briansworms)

[permup]

Chris, send me an email to paula@permup.com and I will send you an education sheet on how to keep worm farms. The mould is normal, but the smell isn't.

[Grasshopper]

When I put prawn heads in my bin, it stunk for a few days I added lime problem solved pretty quickly.
I don't worry about white mould it comes and goes.

[briansworms]

Smelly worm farm means there is a number of issues you need to address.
1. Is there any worms in the farm? If yes there is probably not many.
2. How deep is the bedding? ( Bedding is the organic material they live in) Worms need space to live and food (veggie scraps etc)is not bedding.
3. Do you have a stackable worm farm? These are prone to problems if not used properly and most people find their worms either don't thrive or just die out in them.
4. You are over feeding for the number of worms you have.

If you have worms then there is no need to buy more unless the numbers are so low and would take some time to re establish the population to a healthy level. The bedding is essential and at least 250mm to 300mm deep. If you have a stackable farm fill the bottom tray and at least half the next tray with horse manure. Not too fresh or it can heat up at that depth. You can add some every couple of days till the desired depth is reached. Just soak it with water if it is dry and allow to drain first.

When you notice the worms are through the bedding you can start feeding small amounts of food over the surface. As the worms eat it and not before you can add more. Every few days just dig over the top 150mm of the bedding to add oxygen to the bedding which in turn increases your microbial count (good). Keep the bedding damp but not dripping wet and put a cover over the bedding eg. old carpet or felt underlay and keep this damp.

As your worm population increases then you can feed more. Chook pellets/Layers mash, Coprha, fresh manures (horse ,cow) are all excellent food sources. Feed these in addition to your veggie scraps.

For further reading check out my Information Section on my website. I sell worms as a hobby and I try to keep my website updated with useful information ( as I get smarter) rather than just what I am selling.

[Chris Willis]

Thank you for your reply....smell seems to have gone...thank goodness :-)

[Pakanohida]

When I put prawn heads in my bin, it stunk for a few days I added lime problem solved pretty quickly.
I don't worry about white mould it comes and goes.

Same, I dont worry at all except when it stinks, then it is time to add more paper or cover it up some other way.

[Pakanohida]

I sell worms as a hobby and I try to keep my website updated with useful information ( as I get smarter) rather than just what I am selling.

Thank you for that. I've learned a lot from you over the past year and got 2 worm farms of my own now. :)

[briansworms]

Thank you for that. I've learned a lot from you over the past year and got 2 worm farms of my own now. :)

Thank you, your comments make it all worth while.

[PeterW]

This is a slightly different issue, but since it's worms, I have a question. My worm farm is doing quite well without demanding too much messing round or adjustment, but there are millions of slater bugs in there - they seem to be almost as numerous as the worms. It also seems that they keep more on the surface, compared to the worms who are through the material in there. I am wondering if I should worry about the earwigs, and is there something I can or should do to reduce them?

I've just been out for an update, and I see that the slaters predominate where the material is drier, where it's wetter and more gluggy the worms hold their own and you could pick them up by the fistful. Perhaps there lies the answer - more attention to the moisture/dryness balance.

[S.O.P]

My worm farm is really kicking along now due to Brian's expert tutelage. The only thing I need to do is start harvesting the castings with a sieve and supply myself more regularly with horse manure. I bought two large bags the other day, moved all the castings to one side and dumped it straight in. The worm population absolutely exploded in there. Anyone want some worms?

I'm also food processing all my food, then freezing and feeding. This cut down the Black Soldier Fly to nothing. Only problem now is I have one rat regularly visiting and burrowing in for food, don't have the heart to kill him.

[PeterW]

'supply myself more regularly with horse manure'

I wonder if cow manure would do as well? We have cows but no horses.

[S.O.P]

'supply myself more regularly with horse manure'

I wonder if cow manure would do as well? We have cows but no horses.
Brian recommends old horse manure as bedding and fresh cow manure as a super-food.

We shall see what he says when he arrives.

Edit: Horse manure is definitely more grassy and less digested than cow, probably works better as a bedding for this reason. Maybe cow manure with shredded paper would work.

[briansworms]

Nice wet sloopy cow manure is one of the best foods you can feed. Just put it into small dollops across the surface or in a couple of lines about 100 mm wide and about 200 mm apart. Just before you do this dig over the surface to a depth of about 150 mm then put the manure in. Lightly water in, put the cover mat over the top and the worms will be into it within 24 hours..

Horse manure is excellent if you want to breed up your numbers. It provides food and enough fibrous material for them to breed in. Autum and Spring are the worms main breeding seasons.

I don't have any problems with bugs. I do have them in the farms but are considered part of a normal healthy farm. You could try digging over the bedding every couple of days and watering a couple of times a week. You should do this anyway. Usually bugs in great numbers are there for a food source so try feeding different foods for a while.Try dolomite over the surface and lighty water Then there is Diatomatious Earth Food Grade. Must be food grade. There is a link on my website to the Plant Doctor here on the Gold Coast who selll it. Can be ordered on line and they post. Use the D.E. dry and lightly sprinkle over the surface. This will not hurt the worms but will kill the bugs.

You can try feeding Coprha, layers mash, pony pellets and pollard. You can mix them up or on their own but wet it down first so it is slpoppy and add some dolomite to it. Good luck

[PeterW]

Great suggestions - thanks specially to SOP and Brian. I'm going to be away for a week but I'll get all this in action as soon as I get back - then I'll report back.

[briansworms]

Before you go Peter, I had another thought. The slaters would not like the light so take the lid off or cover mat if you have one on. When you come back see if they are gone. The worms will move down to where it s damp and away from the light so will be fine for a week. I see you are in Nimbin. Went there for a visit once, very interesting along with The Channon Markets.

I am off to Adelaide this Wednesday so I to will be away for a few days

[PeterW]

I've tried the cow pooh solution, with dramatic results. I was somewhat unrestrained about it Brian, putting two small bucketfuls over the surface of my bathtub worm farm. Then I forked it in a bit, hosed it, and forked it and spread it a bit more when it was wet. The first surprise was that this produced an instant exodus of a few million earwigs. They just didn't like that at all: What? Bathe me in shit? NO THANK YOU! in the space of 1/2 hour there were hundreds of them all over the outside and the lid of the bath. Today, about a week later, there are hardly any earwigs left, and still a few slaters but far less than before. And when I went round inspecting beneath the surface of the sea of still wet manure, the worms were thick under just about every trowelful I picked up.

This starts a new phase in worm farm management - we have 6 cows, so the supply of manure is enough for an industrial worm farm. One of the limitations so far has been the amount of waste produced by our 2-person household, not all that much. The throwouts from local cafes seemed a bit dubious, since I wasn't ever sure just what sort of rubbish had been chucked in there, e.g. cigarette butts etc. So as I said, the new phase starts now.

Thanks for the advice.

[Adam]

Just a note for the original post in this thread:

In my own experience, starchy materials like bread, pasta, and rice tend to go moldy a lot quicker than any other type of food. When I first started worm composting (I have been worm composting indoors for nearly three years), I had mold problems on two occassions. Once was from stale bread I put in there, and another was from macaroni that had started to go bad. They molded over quite rapidly and the worms were all trying to get out of the bin, crawling up the side and whatnot.

I have found that an easy way to prevent this is to avoid large amounts of starchy foods in your bin altogether. Small bits here and there will not be a problem, though.

[S.O.P]

And to counter that, I've blended up whole loaves of bread, mixed with other organic matter and I've had no complaints. Outside though.

Question: Leaf litter, grass, compost would be cheap, easily found food?

[Chris Willis]

Well, being the originator of this subject, I've learnt such a lot from everyone who have contributed, so thanks a heap :-) Actually, the smelliness went away pretty quickly, and having added some cow poo certainly did get things happening, so thanks Brian for all your useful information. I had put in a heap of shredded paper as bedding but it went horribly lumpy and no happy worms around it....so I eventually got it removed. The question I want to ask now is....how do you sieve the worm castings, especially since it's damp, or do you leave it to dry out first? I have a Bunnings Worm Cafe with 3 levels and so far the worms are in 2 of them. The bottom layer looks well and truly free of food scraps....but they're still squirming around in it....more worms in the 2nd layer getting their way through food scraps. I'd be interested to know about the sieving if anyone can educate me :-) Thanks a heap for all your help. Cheers!

[Chris Willis]

Hi Adam & thanks for that info....I haven't added anything other than vegie scraps, certainly no bread or rice, but thanks for that....I shall lack it away in my brain somewhere :-)

[eco4560]

With a 3 layer bin, you can 'force' the worms down. Restack the trays so that the bottom one is on the top and leave the lid off for a day or two. They'll migrate down away from the light.

[briansworms]

Chris you can use the light extraction method if you don't have a sieve. Feed the worms and about 3 days later remove the top layer of the worm farm where the food is. If there is a second layer which you don't want the castings from remove it also. Hopefully you are down to the bottom layer or the layers you want the castings from. Take this tray(s) to a work bench or somewhere you have a desk lamp you can use. Tip it out onto a sheet of plastic in a heap. You can do this out on the ground in sunlight but means you have to work on you knees unless you have an outdoor table you can use.

Basically tip the bedding into a pile. Go have a cup of tea or coffee and then come back. The worms will be retreating to the bottom of the mound. Sometimes not as fast as I would like lol. Start to remove the bedding slowly. As you find some worms work from another part of the pile. Any worms you pull out by accident and you will, just drop them to the back of the pile. Don't put them in the area you are removing the bedding from. The light and the vibration from your fingers will keep the worms going down. I have just spent just over 2 days doing this. I am changing my management practices. Much less bedding, double the density of worms in my breeder beds (500grams to 1 kg of raw worms) and 6 times the density in my grower beds (500grams to 3 kg)

As the pile reduces, just push it back into a heap to help condense the worms. Eventually you will have a pile of raw worms. You probably don't need to go that far as they will stress and froff up. Just put the worms back into your farm. Put the tray back on top with fresh bedding. Just ensure the bedding is continuous through the layers. Use the casting or set them aside in tub and wet them down. Then cover with a wet carpet or old hessian bags. Put them where they can get some sunshine over the surface. You can put some food in with them. In about 21 days the eggs should all be hatched. Allow a few weeks for the worms to grow and repeat the light extraction process or you can put some 90% shade cloth strips (200mm wide) over a couple of sections of the castings. Put your food only on the shade cloth. After about 3 days remove the shade cloth and empty the young worms into another bed if you want to start another farm. There is not point in putting them back into the original farm.

Having said all that you can just spread the castings around the garden worms, eggs and all. The loss of eggs and worms plus the new bedding will spark another breeding cycle.

[briansworms]

Chris I just re read your post. You only have two layers. Fill the top layer with some fresh bedding then add the 3 layer and fill it with bedding. Water the farm. Give it a couple of days for the worms to move up. Then remove the bottom layer. If the bedding has mostly been eaten out there shouldn't be much fiberous material left in it. If you can get a sieve from Bunnings for around $6 in the Garden Section this will be fine to use. Just get small amount of bedding ( say 2 or 3 cupped hand fulls) at a time and just move the sieve from side to side over a plastic sheet or wheel barrow. Just give the sieve a tap to clear any bits that have blocked up. You will remove about 95% of the bedding and worms from the castings. You can do the other method in my last post as it really doesn't matter.

Use the whole 3 layers of your worm farm so you can grow the maximum number of worms.

[Chris Willis]

Somehow I managed to scream for help on another question thread thinking it was here....anyway....HELP, again!!!! Please....the lower batch of worms are trying to flee the worm farm. Everything was going just fine, then I decided to take out the original layer of the worm farm to use the light method to separate the worms from the castings.....hummed along just fine. I had placed the 2nd layer back onto the worm farm while doing this. Later in the day I checked the 2nd layer and there were worms EVERYWHERE.....climbing up the sides of the box....all over the place. The only thing I did was to put some cow manure into the box.....but I've done that before and it did n't get this reaction. Can you tell me what's going on? I hope I've described it in an understandable way. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[briansworms]

Chris I have no idea why they would be doing this. Can you tell me about your weather? Has it rained overnight? Sometimes if they anticipate rain they will climb up to the top of the bed for fear of drowning. Did you dig over the second layer? If they are still doing it put a desk lamp over the top of them and leave it on overnight. This should drive them back down. Very strange that they suddenly are doing this.
Do you know what type of worms you have? Reds, Africans, Indian Blues? Reds are much more settled than the others. The Blues will just up and leave anytime. Worms have no brains and are very dumb like sheep herded in a yard. They will go for the corners and pack themselves in. This could trigger an over crowding reaction and they will leave on mass.

Is it still daylight over there? If so leave the lid off to let the light in.

[Chris Willis]

Thanks Brian.....so happy to get any help you can give me. I live in Perth....and summer just won't quit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think we are 'supposed' to get some rain later in the week....(can only hope) but the reaction was so quick....one moment the worms were the same as per usual....next they're climbing the walls, it was quite startling. I'm not sure which type of worms they are....bought them in Bunnings and I'm assuming they're reds. I did turn them out of the box to replace the newspaper in the bottom of it, gave them a bit if a mix up to aerate the castings as I'd read somewhere that it is good for them....I went out earlier while it was still light (it's dark now) and put back some of the worms from the original base that I was getting the castings from.....had obtained quite a heap of worm castings, which was the idea in the first place. So put them back with the ones that were 'climbing the walls' then added another box with a combination of vegie scraps and cow manure to try and get them up into that level. I'll be interested to see what they're up to by the morning.
I had a friend over this afternoon and she was very interested in the worms....she has several old baths at her property that she could use for worm farming. I thought I'd seen a YouTube video or something like...on your web site, it was of a man feeding the worms. As I say, I thought it was you....but I can't find the link any more. Maybe I'm mistaken....anyhow, if it was you, could you send me the link please? My friend left after much discussion and said she was inspired to try worm farming. So I've done something right :-)

[briansworms]

I still think it is very strange that they did that. When I empty out the beds and put the worms back into fresh bedding they don't do that You will have Red Wrigglers. If they were Africans and put straight into fresh bedding I could understand their behaviour. Hopefully they have settled. Just make sure your cow manure is nice and damp and the veggie scraps have been frozen or pulped to assist in the decomposition process.

Aerating the beds does a couple of things. It puts oxygen into the bedding to help the microbs. It also traps air which assists with contolling the temperature.

Chris I have no idea about You Tube. I have watched some worm harvesting things but thats it. I am not that smart yet.

If you friend wants to start a worm farm, she would be best getting a 10 lt bucket of worms and bedding from you. Don't put them into a bath tub straight away as it will be too big an area for so few worms. I suppose thinking about it just a small pile of manure at one end. One of those bags of manure on the side of the road would be heaps to start with. In spring add another bag of manure next to the first one so the two piles meet. The worms will move across at their own pace. After a week or two dig over the two piles and mix together. Wait a month then add another bag and continue the cycle till the tub is full of manure and worms.

The other option is buy from a breeder. I can post to WA but I would only send to an Express Post area. That way they will be there next day. Outside this area could take over a week and there is a risk of losing the worms.

[S.O.P]

Might be my video, Brian? I'm using a bath, I mentioned food and manure etc.

Other than that Chris, and not to dispute your knowledge Brian, I built my entire bath farm (shallow bath by placing timber underneath the shademesh) by making a mix of wood mulch, Chinese Elm leaves and hand-torn newspaper (not knowing about horse manure bedding yet). I added one small bag of worms/bedding/castings/eggs from another member here, waited a while and started feeding. The castings I recently harvested had wood chunks in it still. So, even if you don't know what you are doing, it can work. Now I know better, I'd start small and work up but jumping right in can give you results too.

[briansworms]

I always recommend horse manure because it is easy to use and I get it free . Mind you I have to bag it myself. Any vegatable matter that is decomposing would do well but wood is a bit to slow. Worms also breed very well in horse manure and fatten up on cow manure. The reason I said to start out with minimal bedding is that if the worms spread too far apart the breeding will be slower as they have to find each other to mate. The closer together they are the faster the breeding rate can be. They just take longer to get well established if you filled a bath tub and put in only a few worms.

I think you are right about the video. Just make Chris happy and put my name on it lol

[Chris Willis]

S.O.P. Is it possible to get the link to your video? It's been driving me batty wondering where I found it the first time around :-)

[Chris Willis]

Ha, ha....cheeky suggestion. I'm gaining knowledge by the day. Maybe my worms are just having an orgy on the cow manure??? :-)

[briansworms]

Chris try this link. If it doesn't work it is in the Welcome Forum under "Hello I am Brian" second last page I think it was



http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?12010-Hello-I-am-Brian/page5

[Chris Willis]

Thanks for that Brian....not the correct one, but I appreciate your going tot he trouble for me. I actually found it through watching that clip....it was from 'Just add worms'.....here's the link if you're interested :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOqJLHkAs-M&feature=related

Thanks again, Brian :-)

[briansworms]

Thanks Chris. I like the way he has the tubs elevated. I was surprized when he said he had only about 6,000 worms in there. I would have expected more. It would be about 1 1/2kg of worms. I just packed some of my breeding beds which are 32lt cement mixing trays with 4,000 worms and my grower bed the same size with 12,000 worms. Thats almost wall to wall worm.

In just over 3 weeks time I will harvest all the eggs and worms from my grower beds. I will place the worms back into the bed with fresh bedding and the eggs and castings will go into an incubation bed to hatch. The problem I see with the bathtub idea from a production point of view is the amount of bedding to sift through every 4 weeks. Thats the reason I have changed to the minimal bedding maximum worm system. I spent nearly 3 days over Easter sifting through my beds and still didn't finish.

I still have some bigger beds that I haven't done but will leave them as is so I can supply the Bed Run market where I take a bucket of worms, bedding and eggs out and sell this way. It is the same as SOP did and if you supply your friend. Can't post them that way so the other method is for worm only sales. Thanks again for the link.

[Chris Willis]

Glad you liked the link, Brian. You really can learn anything on YouTube, can't you? I love to learn....keep on keeping on, I say :-)