All My Worms Are Gone! *** Happen?

[GrowRebel]

Okay it's been about a month since I checked on the worms. I've gone that long before with no ill effects. I check them out to separate the castings. As I thought most was castings with some food left, but NO WORMS ... I looked through the casting and NOTHING ... usually they are bundle up in the casting. I would get large handful of worms not NOTHING ... What happen? How could they all be dead?

Well no more worms after this!:angrywife: It's been over a year since I got them and they never paid for themselves in this time.

I just can't believe they all died with no trace!:confused2::huh:

 

[bubba902]

muwahaha, I stole em ,

No but on a serious not, Sorry to hear man. sounds weird lol. I don't think they'd decay that quick into the soil, do you?

 

[Rosebud]

Did you feed them in the last month?

 

[7greeneyes]

mayhaps they went south for the winter...:rofl: jk, that sucks dude. You sure their dessicated lil worms corpses aren't lurking? :confused2:

7GE

 

[pcduck]

What have you been feeding them?

I have gone without feeding mine for over a month with no problems.

 

[HippyInEngland]

Look deeper ;-)

eace:

 

[soil]

What have you been feeding them?

I have gone without feeding mine for over a month with no problems.

yea whats your diet reb

i go a month sometimes too.

the only thing i can think of is that they ran out of paper an scraps , unless they were somehow poisoned ?

i feed mine with everything , with every species of mold known an never had a prob.

one thing i noticed about mine is i never get no "tea" , but i would imagine my holes underneath are just clogged with castings. (irrelevent )

when worms dont like their home , they always try to get away before they die..... they dont care for my compost can too much so they are always tryin to escape ..... so im guessin when they cant escape , they die.

too wet ?
ever notice them tryin to leave ?
too dry ?
100% castings (no paper or food at all) ?


they need carbon (paper) just as much as food. they will also die very fast if its too dry?



hate to hear that reb .







hope you an your family is doin alright ... aint heard from ya in awhile.
soil :icon_smile:

 

[Wetdog]

Yes, they can decompose that fast.

It was something you did, so think about it.

After having worms for over a year, I killed an entire bin with a rookie mistake and killed them quick. Got happy with cantaloupe and watermelon rinds and some other *food* because I was going away for a couple of weeks. Created a anaerobic (?) situation in the bin. Luckily, I didn't pack the other bin quite as tight and they survived just fine. Still are.

I cleaned the bin and started again with European Nightcrawlers so I would have a supply of fishing worms. I'm loving them, they really rip through ALL the bedding rather than staying close to the top like the RW. Seem to work better with my peat based bedding. A little slower composting than the RW, but not by much. Now, I have a bin of each, RW and Euros.

Isn't there any cocoons in the castings? The eggs should still be there.

Too wet and too much food will kill them WAY faster than too dry and too little food.

@Soil
No tea is a better thing than a lot of tea. Means you aren't over watering the bin and keeping it too wet.

Wet

 

[pcduck]

That liquid that drips out of the bin is not a tea, it is leachate

 

[Wetdog]

That liquid that drips out of the bin is not a tea, it is leachate

:yeahthat: :goodposting:

And very hot. I'll dilute it and use it around the house on big stuff in the ground. Not on the mj though.

Wet

 

[pcduck]

:yeahthat: :goodposting:

And very hot. I'll dilute it and use it around the house on big stuff in the ground. Not on the mj though.

Wet

It sure is hot...I poured mine onto my soil and let it cook for a while. Poured it on my mj once and only once and will never do that again:holysheep:

 

[GrowRebel]

That's probably why I don't see any ... they completely decomposed ... there was a lot of fruit flies in the bin, but I've had them before and they didn't seem to do any harm.

Man what a great lost of worm life.:rant: I had a good amount too :doh:... I haven't been able to see if they are any eggs. When I clean it out I will check, but that's it for me and worms ... I had the food to one side of the bin and the moisture was normal for what they were use to.

I paid $22 for 400 worms... I'm sure most were little when I got them back in April of last year. In that time my guess it I got about 5 maybe 6 pounds of casting. The last bash I got yield less than a pound and it was a good amount before drying and grinding up.
I just bought 15 pounds of casting from ebay for $17.:shocked: Less than what I paid for the worms and way more than what I got in the year and a half.
Very disappointed in the yield ... and the lost of the worms. I was planning to buy castings and keep working with the worms until I found out they all died.

Now I'll just buy the casting when I can and use the bokshi (sp) on the veggie scraps and mix that in with the soil.
Less than six pounds kept me going this long so 15 should keep me going for a long time.:ciao:

 

[suburban]

Look around for a fat bird with a guilty expression!

 

[Hick]

:rofl: suburban... I was thinkin' they probably went fishing..

 

[GrowRebel]

A memorial service will be held Friday Dec. 9 at 15:00.:fid: :cry:

 

[soil]

A memorial service will be held Friday Dec. 9 at 15:00.:fid: :cry:

you know i'll be there


my bin is FULL of rolly pollys an gnats ..... the worms love it though.

an if i wanted to make my money back quicker then i would separate the worms into multiple bins an shove more food in them , an they will multiply FAST.

instead i just keep the one bin for getting rid of scraps , all my cardboard , an a few lbs of castings every couple months. it might be slow to produce a lot of castings but at least i know for sure how pure an fresh mine is compared to what you buy. (laced with wood chips an peat for weight)

also i have critters that destroy my trash so all the scraps goin into the bin helps my trash too.

like i said i put every scrap in there .... very little cheese an meat though. an nothing packed with oil , but everything else , molded or not goes in.
my worms are very happy. i run out of fish food a lot an i use a lot of worms for my swimming babies , but i will never run out.







hey wet , hows your big worms do with temps ? an how much do they eat ?

free bait would be a huge plus. but im kinda scared of how much they will eat. i cant be borrowin scraps from the neighbors , they'll think im over here starvin to death.






reb if you still got plenty of eggs then dont give up just yet. are you low on scraps ? do you have a clue as to what happened yet ?







much love to all you guys , keep your worms fed an your babies green
soil

 

[Wetdog]

@Soil

IDK about the temps yet, this will be their first winter. But they are the same family as the red wigglers (Eisenia), so they should be ok. The coldest the basement gets is 51-52*.

I'm still feeling my way AFA how much they eat. We don't generate much in the way of scraps since we eat a lot of stuff peels and all. They mainly get coffee grounds and I've made *bokashi bran* of alfalfa meal, alfalfa and soybean meal and alfalfa and wheat bran. The alfalfa meal by itself was a bit 'heavy', so I'm trying the mixtures. The worms seem to like it all. A handful or 2 on the surface every week or 2.

I also have a bag of laying mash. This will really fatten the worms up. Same deal, a handful or 2 on the surface (don't bury it, it will sour), moisten it down and the worms go nuts. IIRC, it was like $12 for a 50# bag and it will last a looooong time, well over a year.

Wet

 

[GrowRebel]

I knew I could count on you being there soil

That's what was in my bin too as far as the gnats and stuff. Last things I put in was newspaper strips, brown paper strips, computer paper strips, and a little potting soil, just a sprinkle over the top. I feed them rotten sweet peppers, cabbage, a little onions, lettuce, coffee grounds, and I keep the food on one end. The moisture was at the usual level. In fact I was wondering if the casting was so toxic to them why are they always in it even when I piled it up and put fresh bedding and food ... I thought they must not have gotten the memo ... but I guess they finally did.:confused2: :cry:

I have no idea what happen:huh: , and since I don't no way am I going through that again. At least for now. I'll see how the casting I buy works out. It's still cheaper than buying fresh potting soil.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidayseace: :ciao:

 

[soil]

The only place in the whole bin that i dont see the worms is at the very bottom , where the castings are pure an wet. its almost muddy so you can tell they cant just "swim" through it like the rest of the bin. (my bin is only bout 10" deep at the moment, the bottom 2" is like that.)

then on my compost bin , i put eggs an misc worms in there an over the last couple years they have always tried to get out of there , so i know they dont like my compost. the only thing different in the two , is the amount of food an paper , an the bin is a 33 gallon trash can so its very deep...... its proly 2 1/2 to 3 foot deep with compost right now. the moisture levels are alright and there is enough food in there but they just wont stay put.

i dont care bout the ones in the compost bin but its more info for everyone to suck up if needed.

hopefully you find a good casting dealer with lil to no filler.

Reb , i cant say this enough. The compost and/or castings are the single most important thing that makes my mix a "good soil". i been workin my *** off for three years to get my mix right (soakin up major amounts of info in the meanwhile) and i finally got it to where there is no food needed till week 3 or 4 of bloom. beautiful dark green!




soil

 

[ozzydiodude]

If you put to many onions in the worm ben it will chase the worms out.