Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've been patiently raising composting worms with the hopes of eventually adding them to our AP system. I just added a pinch (maybe ten worms) to each grow bed.

In the meantime, I've been reading about all the amazing things worms are supposed to do for plants and for AP systems.

This article is probably the most interesting to me, about how worms actually destroy pathogens, fungus and anaerobic bacteria making them even more valuable to keeping a clean and safe system than just the benefits they give from converting fish waste to plant food.

http://api.ning.com/files/MTfZNQq36upc7 ... hogens.pdf

While worms are great stuff, don't let this fool you into doing something crazy like letting your chickens poop in your system or something.

Worms are wonderful in that they promote all sorts of beneficial bacteria and tend to help the beneficial bacteria out compete the less beneficial bacteria, BUT if you have anaerobic conditions in your system, please don't expect the worms to go down there and FIX it. They help fix anaerobic conditions in soil by tunneling down and creating aeration paths into the soil but it isn't like the worms will be able to do that to a grow bed that doesn't drain, they can't create an air tunnel under water.

Make sure your water is well aerated so that the worms will be able to survive under water in your system and they can still continue to do good things but don't expect miracles.

I added about 20 worms to each grow bed a year ago.
My beds are now FULL of worms.

If I pull out a root ball and sit it on top of the growbed to dry out, the next day it is full of worm eggs.
And the root balls are always full of worms too, so now I just cut pants at the base and let the worms do their thing.

Worms are great in that their population self regulates. If there is plenty of space and food, they populate it. If there is a lack of space or food, they just don't breed as much.

I'll often leave the root ball on top of the media to dry out for a day or two before taking it away to let the worms go back down into the media, or if I'm trying to populate a new worm bin, it is an easy way to get some worms out of a grow bed for a new worm bin.

No, I don't expect any miracles from my worms.

I posted this because I've come across some different places with vague warnings about introducing e coli to aquaponics through worms. While I'd never go digging through a manure pile for worms for my system, I think maybe the concern's a little overplayed given that worms are very effective at ridding their immediate environment of human pathogens.

Yea totally agree, worms are great.

But then again I suppose I can understand putting the warnings out there because some people might otherwise unthinkingly buy worms from somewhere where they ARE coming out of a manure pile and put them along with some of that manure bedding right into their AP systems.

What's wrong with worms who come from a bed with manure in it? o.O

Nothing, you just should probably put them into a manure less environment for a time to let them clean up a bit so you can put nice clean pathogen free and beneficial bacteria rich worms into your system.

The warnings most likely stem from systems which did not practice good, clean habits and introduced improperly washed worms which still had contaminated soil on them. E. Coli normally is found in warm blooded organisms (usually in the lower instestines) which can contaminate manure. Soil can also be contaminated through any number of warm blooded animal droppings (birds, cats, dogs, gophers, mice, moles, squirrels, etc.) or by use of manure based fertilizers. It is therefore crucial to pay special attention that if using worms, clean them thoroughly, to prevent contamination of your system. However flies can also potentially introduce contaminants in your system, so you can only do so much.

Here is a good resource about keeping your systems clean from contaminants:

On-Farm Food Safety: Aquaponics from the University of Hawaii
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/FST-38.pdf

Most of those "vague" warnings... come from a certain Hawaiin group... who might have been in a "vague" state when posting anyway..

the concern about E Coli could be the case in some situation and it would be carried through the worm bedding, as some use to feed cow/horse manure to worms and if the manure it's not well aged...... could still carry unwanted live pathogens, specially in a hot weather country where E.coli thrive!

Many farms use worms to deal with the manure of farm animals. Many of those farms also sell worms and worm castings. The dire warnings of some about "not adding worms because they will introduce e. coli" are probably from people who are near to or know about these farms feeding warm blooded animal manure to worms.
People write about what they know about! and don't always go searching for what they don't know about, especially when they don't realize they don't know.

If you get worms that were fed things that could be contaminated with pathogens, then it is best to keep those worms in an otherwise pathogen free environment for a time before introducing them to your system. The general rule about uncomposted manure is if you apply manure to a field, you then need to wait 4 months before you can harvest crops for human consumption from that field. This is why many operations will age their worm castings for 4 months before harvesting them.