April 29, 2008
Sour Worm Bin Follow-Up
As soon as I finished writing my last post, I decided enough was enough – it was time to rescue my Euros from the horrible conditions clearly present in their bin (as indicated by the mounds of mite cadavers piled up on the floor close by). So I grabbed the bin and headed out to my big outdoor vermicomposting system – one that has up till now only been occupied by Red Worms.
I wasn’t sure what sort of gruesome mess I might find down in the bottom of the sour bin, but I knew there were at least a few Euros still alive (I found some yesterday when digging around).
As it turns out, the entire lower half of the bin was pretty much fine – a tad anaerobic perhaps, but certainly not the toxic nightmare I was half-expecting. I found countless healthy looking worms, along with plenty of juveniles as well, so that certainly has me breathing a sigh of relief! In all honesty, I could have easily just scooped the materials (and worms) from the lower half back into the worm bin and continued on my merry way with that system. Little did I realize it was only the materials in the top half of the bin that were in really bad shape.
No problemo though – I am really interested to see how they fare in the big outdoor bin.
As per usual, I will keep everyone posted!
8)
From Bad to Worse – Sour Worm Bin Decline
Heaps of dead mite bodies on the floor beside the bin
Well, it seems my recent attempts at getting my European Nightcrawler bin back on track are failing miserably thus far. When I looked down at the bin yesterday I was shocked to see a LOT of strange sawdust-like powder accumulated on the outer surface of the lid (near the air holes) and in various heaps on the floor around the bin. I can honestly say that I’ve never witnessed anything like this before!
Upon closer examination using my trusty Eyeclops hand magnifier, I realized that the dust was made up of countless tiny mite carcasses. These particular mites are much smaller than the round shiny ones I’ve written about before (which by the way seem to be doing just fine in this bin), so I don’t think I’ve ever really realized they were there. Given the amount of dust that has accumulated outside the bin, I’d wager to say that they were hugely abundant in the bin.
I actually found some living specimens of the same species huddled up in a writhing mass on the underside of the lid, but I suspect they won’t last much longer.
Interestingly enough, the worms seem to be ok for the most part. I saw one sluggish worm up on the surface yesterday, but it buried down into the material once the lid was off. With each passing day I am more and more impressed with these Euros. There’s no doubt in my mind that Red Worms would have been trying to get out of this bin by now and at least some would have perished I’m sure.
So what now?
I think it’s safe to say that there is nothing I can do to help mitigate the situation in the bin – it’s definitely time for an overhaul. This may sound odd (given my desire to keep a pure culture of Euros) but I’ve decided to dump the bin in my big outdoor worm bin. I want to see how well the Euros do in that bin and whether or not they can compete with the Reds. I have one other small Euro bin going at the moment, and know that I will easily be able to separate out some adults once they are in the big bin (they look quite a bit different from the Red Worms) for future Euro-only systems as well. This way I can also see what’s going on down below in the sour bin – hopefully it won’t be too ugly!
😯
I’ll definitely take some pictures and write about it here shortly!