I wanted to share an important update on the Euros-in-a-stacking-bin front. Sadly, I’ve had to abandon this one early due to a rather challenging scuttle fly situation.
What it basically comes down to is the fact that I can’t take a chance on adding a second tray with a bunch more food in it. Even though I hardly fed the bin for the past few months, it was still loaded with scuttle fly cocoons. Adding food would be just be like adding gasoline to a fire that’s already blazing.
If I can’t even (effectively) test to see if the Euros will move up, I figure there’s not much point in continuing on with the experiment (for the time being).
Apart from that, I really want to keep boosting the worm population in my VB48 (and just generally make that my indoor consolidation bin) since THAT’s where the real battle with the scuttle flies is taking place.
So, I simply dumped the contents of the first WF-360 tray into the VB48, and that was that. Even though the volume of material in the tray had decreased quite a bit, it seemed as though there was a really nice concentration of healthy-looking Euros down in the lower reaches, so I was happy about that.
As you can see, the layers of newsprint were still basically intact.
Nevertheless, I expected to see at least a few larger worms down in the reservoir, but as it turned out there were only tiny worms down there (quite a few though).
I’ll definitely post a VB48 update some time this week with more details about the scuttle fly situation.
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Previous Posts in Series
Can Euros Thrive in a Stacking System?
Stacking Bin Euros
Stacking Bin Euros-10-05-12
Stacking Bin Euros-11-07-12
Do you know how you got them? It just seems odd to me that you have been doing this for so long and have just now gotten them.
I hope i never get them 🙂
That’s what makes vermicomposting so exciting, John! “You never know whatcha gonna get” (said in a poor Forest Gump imitation voice! lol)
Seriously though, I can trace all this back to when I left a bin full of wet alfafa cubes to sit for WAY too long. It ended up infested with small maggots and then I saw the adult flies (and didn’t know what they were).
In all honesty, these things are quite a bit less annoying than fruit flies. Even though I have loads of them at the moment they aren’t nearly as obvious as clouds of fruit flies are.
Still going to work on getting rid of them though!
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P.S. So how’s the new bundle of joy??
good. she did not get here till Saturday…so I can’t tell her she was born on black gold Friday! 🙂
Maybe for the best, John. BGF ended up being a tad anti-climactic anyway.
lol
Congrats once again!
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Hey, Bentley. Love the blog posts, btw.
Have you tried food grade silica? (Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth)
I haven’t handled the food grade stuff myself. I’ve only been vermicomposting a little under a year now, but I’ve been adding a little sand to mine, which contains some lesser than food grade silica.
From what I’ve read, there’s not a lot of scientific backing on pros or cons for worms, but they have stated that it can cut through the exoskeletons of insects causing them to dehydrate to death or something.
Have you tried this? What’s your opinion on DE and worms? Maybe it’s good for the gizzard. 😉 take care!!
Hi Casey,
I haven’t yet tried DE. It’s not so much the worms I’d be concerned about (I don’t think it would harm them – although perhaps the juveniles) – but I simply don’t want to kill off all sorts of other members of the ecosystem (namely the arthropods) since many of these creatures are beneficial.