Starting a Black Worm Culture - The Basics

We got our hands on some black worms! a rather infamous live food in the aquarium hobby which seems to become harder and harder to get ahold of, and also higher and higher price value. Culturing black worms is definitely the way to go if you want to keep these as a live food source for your fish/axolotl's as buying them as you need them will cost you a fortune. Here is what I did to set up a basic initial black worm culture!

[@BrianClarkston-j3u]

Hey, Good video. My wife works at a pet store in Tennessee. We ordered a 1/4 pound of black worms from sun pets for $10 store price. Retail price would probably be about double that, but good quality & quantity w/ few leeches. Thnx .....

[@shaunneal9981]

I have a very similar setup for my black worm culture. I have a shallow tub on top of a larger tub and the water recirculates from the big tub at the bottom through the shallow tub. Greg Jones has a similar set up but in a larger scale. I can power feed the worms with 8-10 algae waffers every 2-3 days but they do produce a lot of ammonia so frequent wayer changes are needed. Once a fortnight or so I collect a bunch, put them in a specimen container and chop them with scissors. I find this easier than stirring up the gunk in the tub to get them segmented. If they start climbing the walls of the container it means your water parameters are bad and a water change is needed. Also fun fact, they actually breath through their anus and that is what they are sticking up in the water with their head down in the gravel eating.

[@pil0tfisch439]

Nice video

[@kimberlykamizato1014]

hi awesome vid.
hey, where did you get your black worms and how much did you pay for them?

[@AKNorthernAquariums]

@@kimberlykamizato1014 there's a company called 'eastern aquatics' located in Florida, the worms were not too terribly much, something like 0.5 lbs for $75 or so... But it's the next-day shipping that kills you on it. Depending your location of course

[@salvatory-tilapia8725]

Thank you 🙏🙏

What's with the 🙏🤣

[@shaunneal9981]

It's interesting how people use this as a praying emoji, or in this case a respect gesture from Indian culture, when in fact this emoji was actually a high five.

[@paulwilkinson3555]

in my black worm culture i find a build up of gunk and find it hard to separate the worms from this, any tips any one has i would be great full

[@AKNorthernAquariums]

@@paulwilkinson3555 I can never quite get all the gunk but I have had some success with the water change method I use.... I take a siphon and a really fine mesh net to stick over the siphon. I drain the water through the mesh net siphon and find the worms get stuck on it, but some/most of the nasty gunk goes through. When I'm done siphoning, I'll spray the mesh just a little back into the culture so the stuck works come off, then clean the rest of the mesh in the sink. Still working on a better way but this isn't bad :P

[@paulwilkinson3555]

@@AKNorthernAquariums thank you for you help