Worm Inn Journal-12-02-11

I wanted to post a quick Worm Inn Journal update to bring everyone up to speed before the weekend. As you may recall, I added quite a lot of waste (7 lb or so) all at once back around the middle of the month (November, that is), along with the contents of two of my particle-size-experiment bins. The level of material at that point was actually up quite close to the screen!

I haven’t added anything (other than some water) since then, and it’s amazing how far down the level has dropped.

That’s the good news!
😆

The not-so-hot news is that my super-mellow approach with gnats and fruit flies this last little while has ended up coming back to bite me – BIG time! I now have an unbelievable infestation of fungus gnats in the Inn. As always, I LOVE the fact that they are basically trapped in there – much nicer than the experiences with plastic bins where they are coming out the air holes en masse etc etc!

Of course, it’s also a good opportunity for me to really put these parasitic nematodes to the test (BTW – I will provide an update on the nematode-fruit-fly front next week). Yesterday I mixed a substantial quantity of the nematodes with water and gradually poured it all into the system. I have a bucket of coco coir sitting below to catch all the run off (actually transferred some of this wet coir over to my Worm Factory system since it likely has a decent number of nematodes in it).

I’ll likely hold off on adding more food waste for the time being, at least until the gnats are a bit more under control. Should be interesting to see what sort of impact all those nematodes have!

One thing I really “like” about fungus gnats is that they move towards light sources very readily – this means I can position a lamp over top of the system and loads of them will congregate up on the screen where the light is shining. All I need to do then is suck them all up with the vacuum! Should help me put a serious dent in the population of “breeders”.
8)


Anyway – that’s basically all for now. I’ll try to provide an update on the fungus gnat situation sometime next week.

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Comments

    • Rich Yarger
    • December 2, 2011

    I wonder if you were to hold off on the vacuuming method of eradication, if you might not see them gone completely from the Nematodes all together? Great stuff B! As always, looking forward to the next installment!

  1. Good idea, Rich!
    I doubt the nematodes will wipe them out altogether, but they should have a pretty serious impact on the larvae living in the system right now. Better to see what happens without vacuuming first – I can always fall back on that approach if the adults just don’t seem to be decreasing in number.

    • John Duffy
    • December 2, 2011

    Do the fungus gnats seem to prefer one food to another or just anything that rots?

    • Huston
    • December 2, 2011

    I brought some redfur firewood into the house that must have been infested with fungas fly larva. They moved into our turtle trariam and the worm ben . Its been a fight but between the vacume and several strips of fly paper, we now only see a few straglers

  2. I use one of them shocking tennis racquet deals!It kills dozens in one swing!

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