A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Walmart Red Wigglers

I placed about 1000 worms from a farm near Tampa last spring. it came out to about 40 per gravel bed. I changed out about 5 of my 1/2 barrel to larger beds and I saw very few worms in them (5-6).

Should they be multiplying? Many of my beds are full of fish waste and the plants roots are covered in fish waste.

I was going to buy worms from Walmart since my wife works there, but do not know if they would survive since they are kept in a refrigerator.

Any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 9, 2014 at 4:29pm

It really depends on what type of worms they actually are. If they are nightcrawlers of some sort, they are not likely to remain in a grow bed since they are deep burrowing worms suited to a cooler climate.

The composting worms that are of best use in grow beds are better suited to our hot climate and are rarely as large as european or canadian night crawlers which tend to be big, long and FAT.

Our Vital Earth is a company here in FL that sells composting worms appropriate to our climate.

Our Vital Earth

Permalink Reply by Dan Ponton on March 10, 2014 at 6:31pm

I would think the gravel beds should be full of worms having seeded them about a year ago. Do you have to reseed every year?

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on March 10, 2014 at 7:37pm

I never have re-seeded the worms. Remember that it is easy to miss them in a grow bed, they are good at hiding in corners and among plant roots and in the mud in the bottom of a bed if you empty all the gravel out. Often one might think there are no worms there but if you were to sit and watch for 20 minutes you might then start to see lots of worms appearing from the thin muck in the bottom of the bed.

Permalink Reply by Dan Ponton on March 10, 2014 at 7:55pm

The just ordered two lbs of compost worms from vital earth... last yr I ordered 1lb. from someone else...... Some of my gravel beds are really full of fish waste and I would like to keep it in the system.

Thks for the website..... I remember you give me the website last year.

TCLynx said:

I never have re-seeded the worms. Remember that it is easy to miss them in a grow bed, they are good at hiding in corners and among plant roots and in the mud in the bottom of a bed if you empty all the gravel out. Often one might think there are no worms there but if you were to sit and watch for 20 minutes you might then start to see lots of worms appearing from the thin muck in the bottom of the bed.