Worms

[skides]

Hi. I have my first small system going. It's a 10 gallon storage bin with goldfish, and a 5 gallon bin for the bed. I'm using expanded shale for media. I have three small avocado plants growing, and a pineapple crown. It's going really well, and I plan to expand early 2013, after I get it down a little more.

I saw on a few videos that worms are helpful for the system, so I went to walmart and got some red worms from the bait section and put them in my system. I've tried raising worms for bait in the past and failed. One thing that I remembered about the attempt is that you need to feed them. I haven't been able to find anything on the subject of feeding worms in an aquaponics system. I'd imaging feeding them would lead to more solids and clogs, but a bunch of dead worms would also probably lead to clogs. Can they survive on the fish solids alone? Will they eat roots if I don't feed them? I caught a worm eating the skin on an avacado seed I had sitting under the pump outlet yesterday (I was feeling too lazy to plant it, and wanted to keep it moist) and that convinced me that I should seek advice before I ruin the system.

Thanks for the help!

[keith_r]

the worms in an aquaponic system break down the waste from the fish tank, you don't need to feed them anything.. and their population will pretty much "self regulate" to the available nutrients,, they won't eat roots, only dead matter

[skides]

Cool, thanks for the info. So it's probably best to put too few worms in than too many, and allow the population to grow to the limit rather than starve to the limit, right? Or would worm eat any dead worms?

[keith_r]

a dozen would be no problem to start with...