I’ve Got White Worms!

brian
#1. December 26th, 2008, at 9:15 PM.

Those are another species of worm? I had tons of those come with some worms that i bought and I tried my hardest to save them because I thought they were babies! How would one tell the difference between a baby worm and a white worm?

Janet
#3. October 17th, 2009, at 2:10 AM.

That is true, the pot worms are very white compared to baby redworms that are a translucent pinky orange. The reason is that redworms have red blood and the white worms don’t.
JT

Marian
#4. May 14th, 2010, at 8:43 PM.

Hi,

I’ve recently gotten interested in lawn care. (After findings ant hills all over our lawn.) I had bought a bottle of Chemfree ant killer spray. As I sprayed the ant hill, these tiny white worms emerged from the hill. Days later, I had plucked some grass (with the root) in hopes to identify the type of grass we have and noticed again this tiny white worm dangling from the root. Are they pot worms and if so, are they good for my lawn and why the heck are they hanging out with the ants?

bee
#5. September 1st, 2010, at 2:47 AM.

Help! I all of a sudden have millions of these guys – or they look like them – and my red wigglers are hating it. they are at the surface and the lid now and trying to escape. this is the first problem i’ve had and i’ve had my bin system going for about 6 months. i have no idea how to fix this! a million thanks to anyone with experience in this matter who’s able to share their tips.

Nick
#6. February 27th, 2011, at 1:51 AM.

Bee, its because your bin is to acidic. You need to fix the ph level in your bin. I had this issue with my worms as well. As soon as you fix the Ph your worms will go back to the bin no problems

Flavia
#7. March 10th, 2011, at 7:46 PM.

Hi, I have had a worm bin for two years now, and last summer was when I had serious problems with a white work infestation. First, I started watering my veggie plants with a mixture of water and “worm wine” that drains and collects at the bottom of my bin. A couple of days after watering I noticed that some of the plants started to look very sick, and upon investing a realized that I had a white worm outbreak. The white worms were sucking the life out of my plants. This didn’t occur the year before. Not only did the “worm wine” contain the eggs or larva of the white worms, but the actual compost material did as well. So, the only means to rid the infestation was by killing them with a pesticide. And my veggies didn’t come out as great as they did the year before.

I’m rather nervous about using the worm bin compost this coming planting season, as I don’t want to have to go through this again. Any help on how to rid my bin of these white worms would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Bee
#8. March 10th, 2011, at 8:51 PM.

Hey Nick – thanks for your comment – the problem sorted itself out after a matter of days. But it’s helpful to know for the next time it happens.
Flavia – i’ve never fed my plants the drainage from my worm bin — i imagine it would be quite concentrated in acidity. Despite the white worm problem, putting my actual castings in my plant pots has never caused me any problems.
hope this helps!

margaret gauvin
#9. April 27th, 2011, at 2:03 PM.

yes we had a lovely lawn a year a go and now we have a dead lawn
we were told it was the white werm in the earth what do we do for it

yoder
#10. June 1st, 2011, at 6:09 PM.

i’m wondering if there’s two different types of “white worm” that people are talking about. Could the one that normally consumes dead matter somehow also have a taste for live plants? Maybe when they run out of their preferred food sources…?
I’ve been curious about these white ones, wanting to introduce them to my place, but i’ve heard mixed stuff about them, like that they can out-compete the red worms. the pH thing’s a good one to know… anyone tried adding a tiny bit of wood ash to some water and seeing how that pH increase affected their infestation??

sounds like they’d be useful for taking care of acidic stuff that the red worms don’t care for. starches, dairy, citrus?

Bentley
#11. June 2nd, 2011, at 12:53 AM.

Hi Yoder,
Like any common worm bin organism, white worms can certainly do better than Red Worms – but in my opinion it not so much that they outcompete them, but rather that they are taking advantage of conditions that are better suited for them then the Reds.
I’ve never really tried to optimize for white worms so I’m not sure how effective they are on their own as composters – would be interesting to test out though.
I’d be surprised if there were white worms (aka “pot worms”) that harmed plants. Nematodes for sure, but they are typically too small to be seen with the unaided eye.
Careful with the wood ash and water – that’s how they used to make (caustic) lye for soap.

B

Flavia
#12. June 2nd, 2011, at 7:57 PM.

Yeah, when I was feeding my plants the liquid worm casting juice (I have a special bin that collects the liquid) I was diluting it with water based on the directions given. The first year it worked great. The second year was the problem associated with the “white-worm” infestation, and all of my pots/veg beds planted with worm casting compost and watered with the “worm-wine” showed unhealthy plants with “tons” of white-worms in the soil and concentrated around the root balls of the plants.

Note that the worm casting compost and the “worm-wine” didn’t appear to have live worms in it all the time of use, which leads me the the conclusion that they just hatched from eggs in the castings materials.

I will give the wood ash suggestion a try, as I have plenty of ash from using a wood-stove almost daily during the winter months.

yoder
#13. June 2nd, 2011, at 8:54 PM.

yes, bentley is right — wood ash is POWERFUL stuff. Maybe get some pH drops (a bottle costs only several bucks) and make sure your pH isn’t above 8.

Wild guess, you won’t need more than a teaspoon or so in a gallon of water.

oh yea…
“White Worms are actually a very popular fish food among aquarium hobbyists.”
i wanted to say that i recently visited an aquaponics (fish are fed fish food, and their poop feeds food crops) company, and they had their own on-site vermicomposting system (about ten 3′x3′x3′ boxes). The guy said they actually add a bunch of the castings to the fish tanks, because it really helps their SLIME LAYER be thicker, which is an excellent sign of health. I thought that was really cool. I wonder if it’s the nutrients in the castings that are helping the fish, or the worm slime itself that’s just sticking to them. maybe both…

Flavia
#14. June 2nd, 2011, at 9:15 PM.

Thanks for the extra advice, I’ll check my wood ash mixture with my fresh water aquarium pH test kit. I would think a level of 8-9 would be adequate to start lowering the pH in my bin, as I don’t want to shock the system, but gradually lower the pH to favor the red worms.

Fish excrete a mucous (slime layer) from their skin’s mucous membranes and my best guess is it’s the nutrients in the castings that help promote healthy bacteria in the aquarium environment that benefit the fish’s overall health.

yoder
#15. June 4th, 2011, at 8:42 PM.

cool.
correction: you want to _raise_ the pH. wood ash is alkaline. pH will go up, which will favor red worms.
luck!

Joe
#16. June 22nd, 2011, at 7:11 PM.

@Flavia,

Have you tried cooking the worm wind/castings? 30 minutes in a hot oven ought to kill any plant-eating bugs.

yoder
#17. June 23rd, 2011, at 7:26 PM.

those bugs will just come right back if your soil conditions are favorable

more effective would be to nurture your soil towards being a favorable environment for beneficial/predatory bugs

let them do the work

Shelly
#18. November 15th, 2011, at 3:06 PM.

I have a worm bin filled with white pot worms, I just checked the PH and it is 8. I am confused, should I raise or lower this number and what should I add? I actually have two bins, my second has no white worms but also has a ph of 8 and the worms are trying to escape. thoughts? suggestions?