Closing the circle: What to do with Chaeto

[philosophile]

So, early last fall, I decided to take PaulB's advice and start a white worm culture. The fish and coral love it, and I've slowly been ramping up the culture so I can have a regular supply of white worms to feed the tank.

Ramping up the culture involves feeding them food scraps, and adding more bedding as the population demands, once in a while changing the bedding altogether, etc. I've done vermicomposting before, so none of this was new or unusual for me.

I had a bunch of bad lettuce that I was feeding the worms, and spent some time ripping them up before feeding the worms, and suddenly it hit me.... I have a source of greens that I've always wanted to do something with! So out of the sump comes a handful of chaeto. A rinse in RO water, pat dry on a towel, and into the worm bin! A few days later, the worms are thoroughly enmeshed in the chaeto, eating the bacteria that is feeding on the chaeto breaking down.

I love the idea of closing this circle. Worms feed on chaeto, fish and corals feed on the worms, and the chaeto feeds on the fish waste, which goes back to the worms. Now to be clear, the worms are a supplement food only, they are just part of a balanced diet. The worms will also probably need more than just chaeto to eat, especially if you want them to be as nutritious as possible. But, it's an easy project to get started and, I've been finding it pretty rewarding.

If you plan on doing this, I'd note that chaeto will make your bedding pretty wet, so you'll want to definitely pat dry, and possibly add some dry bedding or let the chaeto dry out a bit before you add it to the worm bedding.

I'm also doing the same with my freshwater anacharis.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

What has been your observed consumption rate? Do they switch from eating the baceria to eating the chaeto itself?

I haven't started one of these cultures yet, but I am an interested. Finding them to be good chaeto consumers would be a good way to responsibly dispose of it when harvesting it from a refugium which might push me into starting one.

 

[philosophile]

What has been your observed consumption rate? Do they switch from eating the baceria to eating the chaeto itself?

I haven't started one of these cultures yet, but I am an interested. Finding them to be good chaeto consumers would be a good way to responsibly dispose of it when harvesting it from a refugium which might push me into starting one.

Well the chaeto is a thick walled plant, so the worms, being smaller than earthworms, would probably have a hard time ingesting then directly. Red worms might be able to do it. So I think that the worms will simply need to eat the bacterial decomposition of the chaeto. So overall it will be a slow process (they eat the lettuce I give them equally slowly). So a ball of chaeto, might take about a week and a half, maybe longer, to really break down, and feed the worms, given the right conditions.

White worms are temperature sensitive so you dont want a hot compost pile. You just need to trust the bacteria in your bin to do a lot of work. Alternatively you could compost hot in a separate bin and then feed the remains to the worms.