Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've been thinking about vermiculture as a way to feed my fish and I was starting to run some numbers to see how practical it would be.

My goal is to raise 30 bluegills to 1lb each. So at the max. end of the feed range I'll be feeding them 3% of their body weight a day (it is 3%, right?) which comes out to .9lbs of feed a day. The protein requirement for max. bluegill growth is around 40%... so would I be correct in thinking that for the protein part of their diet I could give them straight worms... so 40% of .9lbs of worms a day? If I am correct that would be .36lbs of worms a day or 10.8lbs of worms a month.

If those numbers are all correct then...

From what I understand about worms.
1. they double in number every month
2. they eat 50% - 100% of their body weight a day in food*

So going from that I could need 11lbs (10.8lbs... whatever) in worms to produce 11lbs of worms a month. 11lbs of worms eating 50% of their body weight a day in food will require 5.5lbs of worm food a day. I've also read that you should have 1 square foot of room for every 1lb of food you want to compost per week. so 5.5lbs * 7 days = 38 square feet of worm bed! Ok wow that's a lot of space... at 1 foot deep that would be an area 3 x 12.5 x 1. Thats a lot of worms!

Do I have some numbers here wrong? If this is the case I don't think this would be very practicle even for a meager 30lbs of fish.

* - I've read from some sources that even 50% of their weight a day in food is actually to much food, but perhaps they didn't have their vermiculture running at max. effeciency.

I would have to come back to this when it's not 3am and I have access to some books to run numbers thru....
It depends on the beds and the food you are feeding them.
They are a top fish food though. But ya always gonna be tricky to get enuf to raise food fish on.

that is a big worm bed. I have no idea if your number constraints are correct, but even if they are, you'll get lots of nice compost to use/sell.

when everthing is running sweet we can get over .5kg of worms /100cm2. we have roughly 160m2 of worm bed surface area and will feed them between 1.5-4m3 of food per week consisting of resturant waste, supermaket waste, paper waste, grass clippings and compost. along with the odd mafia job

worms will regulate their population depending on the conditions, i.e. food availabilty and existing population. if you continuously harvest a small amount of worm they will continue to breed. if there is no room for more worms ...no breeding

as far as a fish food.....wouldn't know

http://www.lakemac.com.au/page.aspx?pid=286&vid=14

the problem your going to have is that those feed % are for dry food. the worms are mostly water.
the other issue, is you'll be hard pressed for generate enough scraps for them to eat.

Ah right... the worms are not pure protein because they're mostly water...

I have a goat and he makes a lot of poo hehe, I assume that would be a good worm food?

at 1 foot deep that would be an area 3 x 12.5 x 1. Thats a lot of worms!

is that about 1m*4m by 30cm deep? if it is i would feed them about 1 wheel barrow load per week of the mix (wastes and grass) that about 200ltrs. not sure how many pellets one goat pumps, might need other sources.

are you going to start off slow and breed numbers up?

how are you going to house your wormies? indoors or out?

check thru the threads for info on black soldier fly mrgrackletx. If you google it you will find many studies have been done in the USA. They are an amazing self harvesting waste converter that reproduce much faster than worms. I would put my worms in the grow beds to handle the fish solids and try and encourage bsf for waste conversion.

hey worms,

i would love to see some pics of your setup.

do you breed commercially?

thanks

geebus bio, have a look thru the members threads. worms there bro.

iv'e seen his ap setup but was referring to his vermiculture setup. i thought it might be relevant to this thread considering. or did i miss a post on his vermi setup?

I think Worms works for his local council at their facilty?

sorry man, jumped the gun.

Worms,
yeah 3x12x1 feet is roughly 1m x 4m x 30cm
I was going to start with just 1lb (2.2kg) of worms and breed them up. I guess I'll get to the point where I'm at the maximum due to my worm food input. I was going to house them outside in a part of my yard with deep shade. I haven't decided on what they're going to live in. I'd like something like one of the commercial Worm Bungalows ( http://www.compost-bin.org/worm-bungalow/ ) but that suckers over $500US. Basically it's a 3' diameter 3' high cylinder where you put food in the top and castings come out the bottom, and they say it'll support 40,000 worms (40lbs). I like the size, I like how many worms you can house but I don't like that it's got electrical climate control. I suppose though that if you're composting that much food then you need a way to keep the heat from building up in there....

I could just dig a trench and keep the worms in the trench, seems simple, cheap and easly expandable by just digging the trench longer as needed.

As far as feeding the worms.... Yesterday I pulled out a lot of cucumber vines and threw them in my compost... is that good worm food or does it actually have to be the vegi/fruit matter, not just the leaves/stalks?


twintragics,

yeah I saw the bsf thread and it definately perked my interest as I've already got plenty of black soldier fly/larva in my compost already. I'm definately going to revisit that thread and do some more research before I'm settled on anything. I find black soldier fly larva all over the place near my compost.

Quick note, the english-metric conversion goes the other way. 1 kg = 2.2 lb.

If you put the worms in a trench, wouldn't they leave into the ground?