A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

When to add worms

Having been a raft system and wicking bed enthusiast, I have finally added a media system. It's cycled and ready for fish tomorrow. Yay. I want to add worms to the system but am not sure whether to add them now or wait a few weeks for solids to build up a bit. Any suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by George on May 30, 2013 at 9:52am

If you already have them, why not throw a few in?

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Permalink Reply by Converse on May 30, 2013 at 12:45pm

Sam, if you already have redworms at your place I would wait a few weeks until some solids build up. If you are having to buy them and bring them to your place, you may be able to effectively add them to your system right now....Here is why....

Shipped redworms have been disturbed considerably. Redworms that have been disturbed slow down and actually usually completely stop feeding and reproducing habits for 1 1/2 to 3 weeks after the disturbance is over. So if you introduced these newly shipped in worms to your system now, by the time that have gotten over the 'shock' of the trip, they will also have had time to acclimate to their new environment (the pH, media, and temp etc..)...and when some solids have built up they will be ready to start eating.

If these are redworms you already have established at your place in a bin or wormbed, you might want to wait a bit until there are solids built up a bit . These redworms won't be in their defensive mode, and will be ready to eat fairly quickly after transfer to the media bed.. Of course moving them to the new environment of the media bed will require some acclimation, but they will not have already started out in a disturbed state. It won't hurt to put them in right away however.

Hope this helps.

If you have any more questions, just ask.

- Converse

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Permalink Reply by Sam Burton on May 30, 2013 at 1:49pm

Thanks everyone.

As it happens, Converse, they arrived today. I had a small established colony, but my chickens found my bin and managed to go all Zombie Apocalypse on it. 2000 new little wigglers arrived today. A few dozen will go into aquaponics systems and the rest into a new improved chicken proof bin.