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JeffW
02-11-2009, 06:43 PM
Hey peeps..new here as of FEB 11th ;)


I saw a video with someones system having a worm in it, then i got to wondering if this might be another idea that has yet to be discovered. meaning is it possible to have red worms living in the pebbles along with the plants in a Aquaponic system?

Interesting thought since what could harm the worms? Or better yet what harm can the worms do while thriving in the grow bed?

Just something that it on my mind :)

Jeff

02-12-2009, 09:20 AM
Hey Jeff,

:D Welcome aboard...I haven't talked to anyone in a while, but your post rang some bells with me. I read somewhere on the net in the past that a guy was raising red earthworms in his clay pebble media in his hydroponic section of his aquaponics set up and doing so quite successfully.

He said they were living on the debris that collected there from the flow of the water from his Talipia ponds so I guess all you have to do not is put it into operation in your setup and prove him right.

Got anymore good info you've been hording that would be of interest to the rest of us?

JeffW
02-13-2009, 07:28 PM
LOL well I have idea's and wonder about things all the time but not sure what the rest of the world might think. With that said I have been keeping an eye on the world's food supply and how the corp. have taken over making food for us (the people). Books in the library about how the food now has less nutrients than ever because it is designed to grow fast and mass produced.

Anyway the people in some countries have to spend 70% of whatever their income is just on fuel alone and that is disgusting. I am a green thinker and believe in common sense and all that but what is happening is the "bio fuel" boom has caused us to burn corn instead of using it for "food". They are making corn sugar and ethanol and all these things and all that time people can not afford a decent meal for a child?

All the diesel being used in tractors to make field corn that is then burned as a fuel? Am I off track or is there something wrong with this picture? Well my point I guess is that these hydroponic and aquaponics just might be a hidden blessing in the near future if not already. We can grow healthy foods and at the same time the amount of resources to do these things are low. Is this a thought that anyone else shares cause I am open minded to education but I sense trouble in the food chain.

They say people are getting over weight and at the same time the processed foods they eat are low in quality. This is not good for the brain developing I am assuming.

Anyway that is my rant today..lol...actually as time goes by I would love to share some idea's or concepts here on the board :) I need to be with peeps that are like me or I go crazy having these thoughts and no place to lay them out ya know? ;)

JEFF

badflash
02-14-2009, 02:40 PM
You are a little off track, but not that far. Over 70% of the corn grown in the USA is for cattle feed. Cattle are not meant to eat corn and they digest it poorly. If you were to first convert the corn starch to sugar, then ferment it, you would get about 2 & 1/2 gallons of ethanol for every 55# of corn. What is left over is a high quality feed that puts on weight faster than the original 55# of corn. The waste stillage can be used to make methane to run the stills, and what comes out of the digester can be use to grow plants as it is a great fertilizer.

We could easily convert to an alcohol based economy. Brazil did it.

JeffW
02-14-2009, 11:39 PM
My Grandpa was a farmer and he is long gone but we remember him saying to us "when man starts burning food then there is a problem". I often wondered what he meant since he died long before modern marvels. There use to be allot of dairy farms here now all you see is mile after mile of corn fields along with massive tractors spraying ammonia and injecting it into the soil.

Worm do not react well to ammonia on it's skin. This is the soil that is down the road and blows across the land. This is the soil that we are digesting.

badflash
02-15-2009, 07:51 AM
You grandfather was likely talking about the depression. The farmers couldn't sell their crops. Some had to burn them for heat. To prop up prices Roosevelt sent farm agents to burn harvests and kill calves and pigs. Oboma is walking in his footsteps.

Worms are fine in a flood & grain growbed as long as there is plenty of fish poop. Worms breath through their skins so they need a well oxygenated environment. I've seen them live for over a week submerged in a tank that I had an air stone going in.

JeffW
02-15-2009, 07:45 PM
You lost me sorry..Obama wants to kill calves and pigs?

badflash
02-15-2009, 08:51 PM
Obama wants to follow the same path a Roosevelt. He is one of Obama's big role models. Roosevelt took a recession and turned it into a depression. That is exactly what is happening now. As part of Roosevelt's attempts at putting an end to the depression, he experimented with destroying supply to increase food prices. Burning crops and killing livestock was part of the desperation to fix things. Government tinkering caused the depression to last until the USA entered WWII.

I suggest you give The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes a read. My grandfather, a farmer and life long democrat could barely utter Roosevelt's name without spitting on the ground.

02-19-2009, 08:59 AM
I don’t want to stir the political pot here since this is an Aquaponics forum, but for this time only I will have to say that I believe Obama will go down in history as one of if not the worst Presidents America will have ever had.

The way I see it, if you are here you are either a patriotic American or you need to go back to where you came from regardless of whether you are Muslim, Hispanic, Asian or from Mars.

I’ve also had my belly full of such phrases as AFRICAN AMERICANS, ASAIN AMERICANS, MUSLIM AMERICANS, MEXICAN AMERICANS and so on down the line. You are either an American or not. If you were born here regardless of what color you are or where you came from, you are an American and should act like it and in the best interest of America.

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT AND TAKE YOUR TRASH WITH YOU.

:o Kinda got off track there a bit…sorry, it won’t happen again…that is until the next time you get me started :oops:

JeffW
02-20-2009, 08:52 AM
Sorry if I disrupted the board by questioning. As a son of 2 WWII veterans and a veteran myself I think it is ok to speak ones mind but I will not be silent all the time.

If I need to leave this board I will there are many other places to go and share info.

02-20-2009, 09:51 AM
Jeff,

You missunderstood my rantings and they were not directed at you or anyone else on this forum in particular anyway, just venting into space when I shouldn't have, SORRY...no one here, especially me wants you to leave this site and I extend a heart felt apology if that is the impression you got. :cry:

I know all about veterans, my family history is full of them from WWI, WWII & Viet Nam right up to the present. Some never came back, some did with pieces missing (physically and mentally) and a couple are still there right now due to the STOP LOSS crap.

So please accept my apology and continue to keep me and the rest of the forum informed, questioned and on our toes to assist you in anyway we can. :D

badflash
02-20-2009, 01:25 PM
Woa! Lets not do anything hasty! Jeff, PM me so we can be sure we aren't mis-understanding each other. We share far more common grounds than differences.

jackalope
02-20-2009, 06:42 PM
My Grandpa was a farmer and he is long gone but we remember him saying to us "when man starts burning food then there is a problem". I often wondered what he meant since he died long before modern marvels.
Your Grandfather was a wise man. We harvested everything we could from our 5 1/2 acre "farm." It helped my step-parents raise 4 kids, while the neighbors let their land go to seed, or sold it off for housing developments .... the 360 acre filbert and apple orchard across the road was cut up and burned to make a housing development, it took away valuable food and jobs, and created problems that had to be handled by increased police activity ........ even back in the '50's!

There use to be allot of dairy farms here now all you see is mile after mile of corn fields along with massive tractors spraying ammonia and injecting it into the soil.
Worm do not react well to ammonia on it's skin. This is the soil that is down the road and blows across the land. This is the soil that we are digesting. I knew that about the ammonia, Eastern Washington, which is all dry farming, has huge multi-million$ companies that do nothing but supply and spray/inject ammonia into the ground, because the ground is so depleted from overfarming. Maybe part of the reason for the depletion is that they've killed/driven away the earthworm which would/could restore the soil.

Jeff, I'm non-political when it comes to forums, stay here and don't worry about the politics, we all have our opinions. I served in the Army, consider myself a patriot, but rarely discuss politics on any of the forums I visit. Actually, the admins should probably break off the political discussion onto a different thread, rather than let this one be hijacked by politics ;) I'd just prefer to discuss aquaponics .... and I'm interested in the redworms question. I've read that Black Soldier Flies are actually native to the US, so I would like to breed them (in captivity), and feed my compost to them, and then give their castings to the redworms, at least that's what has been promulgated on the Aussie forums I visit. It seems the BSF larvae only clean up the compost just so far, and their castings are further broken down by the worms, whose castings are the best for potting soil mixtures. Do you know if BSF are native to your area? I know they aren't here, because it is too cold in the winter. Any thoughts on this?

badflash
02-20-2009, 08:33 PM
OK, back on topic.

I keep worms in a separate bin as I have yet to put in my grow beds. I posted details on my home brew filter. This makes it easy to remove the solids from your system, extract them in a minimum of water, let it settle, and pour off the extra liquid to your plants. The solids go to the worms, along with lots of other household waste, coffee grounds and spent grain.

If you've never tried a worm bin, I highly recommend it. If you have a back corner that is going unused it is perfect for worms. Amazingly, they don't smell and if fed right, you don't get flies or gnats.

Getting rid of the solids is critical for intensive tilapia operations. Most grow beds do best with minimal solids, or so most of the literature says so. As a result, worms in dirt will remain a part of my operation. My plans for this spring is to get my 20' X 40' greenhouse up & running and move the tilapia operation out there with a bunch of growbeds, worm bins, and black soldier fly bins. With a little luck I'll be able to turn local restaurant waste into tilapia via worms and grubs.

jackalope
02-23-2009, 11:37 PM
With a little luck I'll be able to turn local restaurant waste into tilapia via worms and grubs. Local restaurants, good idea, Thanks ;)

Have you got a line on BSF? I think I ran across a couple of Scientific sites that sell them by the hundreds - after reading about them on the Aussie forums, I think they would be a great asset to aquaponicists. the fly only lives for 96 hours, it has no mouth, so it doesn't bite or eat off your plate, it lays lots of eggs so you have lots of larvae to feed to the fish, etc., etc. Screen material is cheap, it won't have to be too large, and the larvae stay where the food is until they are ready to be harvested. What more could you ask for?

badflash
02-24-2009, 06:33 AM
They have narrow temperature requirements, so I'm holding off until I can support that. There is a local USA distributor or two. I'll post them later.

mommyhen42
03-02-2009, 11:06 PM
OK, back on topic.

With a little luck I'll be able to turn local restaurant waste into tilapia via worms and grubs.

Wow, good luck with that one... Here in Southern Cali I understand it is actually Illegal for them to give the food waste to anyone but a licensed disposal contractor.... they are afraid some idiot would eat the stuff and get sick then sue!

But I am enlisting my neighbors one family at a time while I enlarge my worms and black soldier fly bins... At least their stuff won't make it to the landfills! I am also trying to get them to shred their junk mail and so forth for the worms and to use as a soil ammendment and mulch. Some people dont use "slicks" for their worms as it breaks down slower but I figure... hey at least it breaks down so I dont seperate the stuff, just shred. I don't even worry about those stupid plastic windows, they shred tiny enough that I dont feel that they are a problem in the final mix anyway.

I am all for free fish food, black soldier fly larvae, earthworms, I also feed plant roots and some outer leaves, I hang a fly zapper over the 280gal tub to zap buggies at night, looking for a solar one that I can disassemble the panel to take the panel outside, the zapper is inside a building... free food!!! gotta love it... the soldier fly grubs freeze well to making them available year round not just during the spring and summer. I also found plans for a great home made fly trap on ehow.com and will build that not only so that I can freeze and feed the flys but also harvest the maggots for my fish and chickens!

I can see worms doing well in a pebble riverbed system, but don't see them doing well in a classic flood and drain unless the drain cycles are scheduled to 3 or 4 times a day with a timer rather than autosiphons... seems the beds would remain too wet for the worms, they hate wet bedding so I just can't see them happy in a typical flood and drain type system... but I could be wrong

Stay safe everyone
Sheryl

badflash
03-03-2009, 06:12 AM
I have kept worms alive underwater for weeks in a well oxygenated aquarium. Reports from folks in Austrailia using standard flood & drain with autosiphone cycling 3-4 times an hour reported they have plenty of worms in their beds. I haven't tried it myself, but what could it hurt? Put in a few handfulls and see how they do. In a F/D system water levels should stay a couple inches below the gravel, so the worms can climb out of the water if they want to.

mommyhen42
03-03-2009, 09:08 AM
Wow, I had no idea they would survive... I know they hate wet beds :o
I will put some into an older f&d that I have that I had been considering taking down for cleaning....
You really have my curiosity up now
Sheryl

JeffW
03-07-2009, 06:34 PM
My goldies keep dying...at this rate I might put the fish in my beds and the worms in the tank :(

badflash
03-07-2009, 07:48 PM
You got a good cycle on the system? I don't totaly trust grow beds for nitrification. You might want to add a bio filter to the tank.

I've always had better luck with koi than goldies.

JeffW
03-08-2009, 04:09 PM
Well I have 3 left and a filter is now in it for intake to tank. I need a test kit too
don't you think? I was told I need one for Nitrates and ammonia not just pH.

poor little fellas are not happy with me as aquafarmer

badflash
03-08-2009, 04:35 PM
The only kit you need is for ammonia. Plants take care of the nitrates. Nitrites are another bad chemical, but if you have a cycle you need not worry about them. If you have ammonia, there is not an adequate cycle.

badflash
03-08-2009, 04:58 PM
Back to worms.

One thing I just discovered is to get high production of worms, soak down the beds once a week. Get it sopping. Collect the worm tea and put it to good use. The worm eggs won't hatch unless they get drenched. If the beds are too dry the worms will try to escape as well.

Once you get a really good bed of worms, aggressively harvest them. If they get too dense they stop laying eggs and just eat. Play this by ear.

Keep some cheap food in reserve in case you run out of normal feed. I've found that cheap floating fish pellets (25 cents a pound) work well in a pinch. Coffee grounds mixed with brewers gain 50/50 is an excellent feed for them. My substrate is 50% shredded newspaper, 25% compost, and 25% coco coir (shredded coconut shell). The compost has some ground limestone it in.

mommyhen42
03-08-2009, 09:14 PM
I have that problem if I buy them from Petco... They already look starved and many are dead before they even get out of the bag at home.... :cry:
You really have to look at the tanks, to see if they look fat and healthy, if they look thin or emaciaiate something is wrong and you shouldnt buy them

I have a friend with a petstore about an hour and a half from here, I try to buy from him as he buys from a better supplier and I rarely loose any when I get them from him...

Hmm
Petco 2 min away and already dead in the bag by the time I get them home
My friends store... hour and a half away, and I usually dont get home for at least 3 or 4 hours after I bought them.. and they are all still alive....
Go Figure

badflash
03-09-2009, 06:24 AM
Just mail order them and save gas. They go for about $20 a pound + shipping. Look for places close. Loads of on-line sellers. I bought from 2 sources and both sent great worms.

wolfracer
03-13-2009, 05:54 AM
Just mail order them and save gas. They go for about $20 a pound + shipping. Look for places close. Loads of on-line sellers. I bought from 2 sources and both sent great worms.
Got any links?

badflash
03-13-2009, 07:10 AM
I got mine from here:
http://www.unclejimswormfarm.com/

But I'll bet there are people closer to you. I got mine from people who were close to me so they wouldn't be so long in the mail.

rfeiller
08-07-2010, 10:06 PM
the answer is oxygen in the water. they don't like anerobic conditions or acidic ones, which is usually the case with wet worm beds.

the worms have no problem in an aquarium where they would get into the sponge filters, plenty of food and oxygen.