Whiteworm

[rocknurworld2006]

When ive put the food in and the next day or so when i look its covered in eggs, is this how they breed?

 

[BigC]

Whiteworm some times come with an infestation of mites (usually brown coloured and moving) These rarely do any damage to the culture , they just look bad. What colour are they. If they are white then they are most likely to be from a fly. If you get a fly infestation then immerse the culture in water periodically and run the water off and let it dry out somewhat (not totally dry) and restart from there.
Regards
BigC

 

[rocknurworld2006]

Whiteworm some times come with an infestation of mites (usually brown coloured and moving) These rarely do any damage to the culture , they just look bad. What colour are they. If they are white then they are most likely to be from a fly. If you get a fly infestation then immerse the culture in water periodically and run the water off and let it dry out somewhat (not totally dry) and restart from there.
Regards
BigC

there are the mites.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

Whiteworm some times come with an infestation of mites (usually brown coloured and moving) These rarely do any damage to the culture , they just look bad. What colour are they. If they are white then they are most likely to be from a fly. If you get a fly infestation then immerse the culture in water periodically and run the water off and let it dry out somewhat (not totally dry) and restart from there.
Regards
BigC

ok here is a pic it is infested with these mite things crawling around cant even see any whiteworm, could these eggs be from the mites? the mites are white,cream colour.

this is a pic of the bit of food that was put in 2 days ago covered in eggs and the eggs look like they move but not from the position there in

 

[BigC]

Media looks a bit too damp to me. Dig that mass out and discard. Dry the media out a little and stir it up (is there whiteworm in there) Place a small piece of moistened bread in the centre and cover (whiteworm dont like light) store at the proper temp (thats important) and replenish the bread when need be. Dont start feeding from your culture for at least 6 weeks this will give it time to get established. As the culture grows then feed more bread to it, dont overfeed though so as the bread goes mouldy. Incidentally what type of media/soil/loam are you using for the culture, do you have ventilation holes in the culture container.
Regards
BigC

 

[rocknurworld2006]

Media looks a bit too damp to me. Dig that mass out and discard. Dry the media out a little and stir it up (is there whiteworm in there) Place a small piece of moistened bread in the centre and cover (whiteworm dont like light) store at the proper temp (thats important) and replenish the bread when need be. Dont start feeding from your culture for at least 6 weeks this will give it time to get established. As the culture grows then feed more bread to it, dont overfeed though so as the bread goes mouldy. Incidentally what type of media/soil/loam are you using for the culture, do you have ventilation holes in the culture container.
Regards
BigC

it looks more damp than it is.

that mass was milky bread, cover has ventilation holes in it , it does have white worm in it i added 3 cultures of it.

but it seems to be more of tese cream coloured mites than anything

any idea what these eggs are? are they from the mites?

 

[rocknurworld2006]

bump

 

[rabbut]

I had those over my culture when I had it... Can't tell you what they are, sorry...

I tended to find that watered bread worked best for me. The milk will laden the worms with fat, that will get passed onto the fish. This is both good and bad. For general feeding, water IMO would be best, but if looking to breed the fish that you are feeding it to, the fat can be useful to them

I am waiting for a friend to drop off a new culture for me after a slight accidental cooking of my old culture. The recent raise in temperature made my "over winter" storage spot too warm Observe BigC's point about temperature. These worms will survive extream cold, but they don't do heat at all IME.

HTH
Rabbut

 

[rocknurworld2006]

I had those over my culture when I had it... Can't tell you what they are, sorry...

I tended to find that watered bread worked best for me. The milk will laden the worms with fat, that will get passed onto the fish. This is both good and bad. For general feeding, water IMO would be best, but if looking to breed the fish that you are feeding it to, the fat can be useful to them

I am waiting for a friend to drop off a new culture for me after a slight accidental cooking of my old culture. The recent raise in temperature made my "over winter" storage spot too warm Observe BigC's point about temperature. These worms will survive extream cold, but they don't do heat at all IME.

HTH
Rabbut

are the mites harmful to fish?

 

[rabbut]

I had those over my culture when I had it... Can't tell you what they are, sorry...

I tended to find that watered bread worked best for me. The milk will laden the worms with fat, that will get passed onto the fish. This is both good and bad. For general feeding, water IMO would be best, but if looking to breed the fish that you are feeding it to, the fat can be useful to them

I am waiting for a friend to drop off a new culture for me after a slight accidental cooking of my old culture. The recent raise in temperature made my "over winter" storage spot too warm Observe BigC's point about temperature. These worms will survive extream cold, but they don't do heat at all IME.

HTH
Rabbut

are the mites harmful to fish?

The bolded point above highlights my uncertainty here, but IME these things aren't. Without knowing what they are though, I cannot give a deffinate answer.

All the best
Rabbut

 

[BigC]

Never had a major problem with mite effecting the cultures, and I must have droped a few into the tank at some stage with no ill effects on my fish. I admit they are unsightly and if my memory serves me right thinking back to an old journal you can get rid using moth balls just having one in the corner of the culture but they contain Naphthaline and I dont know if that would have an adverse effect on fish. You can clean up the culture to a certain degree but if you've got them then in my experience you'll always have them. Flies are a major pest extremly hard to eradicate all the maggots. I use 1lb Ice-cream tubs with B&Q pond soil for the substrate, its nice and loamy with some grit added, this I found is the best medium I've used so far. The lid of the container should have hundreds of little pin holes for ventilation rather than larger as the larger the vent hole the more nasties can access and infect the culture medium.
Read this very informatitive article from the Australian Rainbow site regarding whiteworm cultivation, It will explain all you need to know.
http/members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Whitewrm.htm
Regards
BigC