Sophia

damn bugs are still moving around

I don't know about that. My husband says that soil will have naptha in it as it does absorb the oxygen but whether the worms will absorb it that way I don't know. I don't have any fish to feed them to at the moment and won't for some weeks anyway. Tonight's update is that after a day of no mothball inside the wooden box when I checked on the bugs they were moving around but still sluggish. There is now a mothball in there till the morning. I am not willing to sacrifice the whole worm colony for the experiment so if there is no further progress on it tomorrow I will probably flag it and revert to flooding the bugs out of one box. They have in any case been reduced by at least 3 quarters in the meantime.

morning update took the lid off the box and could only see 1 bug moving slowly but I didn't have time to wait and see if more were alive. Have taken the moth ball out and replaced the lid.

and is that the same stuff people have got in their tanks around here? if not, what is the kind you mentioned I should get to make a canopy in the other thread I started about floating plants?

definitely try the flourish excel squirted directly onto it. You don't even need much, I've had success with about 2ml worth on a little tuft. Turn the filter off so the water is kind of still and let it sit around it (you can see the water get all swirly where you squirt it in) for a few mins. I wasn't very good at waiting so did it every couple of days until I saw it turn pink.

I've been reading on a US site that the varieties are zenkeri or pubescens. I think zenkeri is the one I'm after - is that available here? How big will it grow without additional CO2 but regular feeding of flourish comp?

yes I did that and also these worms went for a couple of weeks without food and the bugs kept multiplying - and the drier the peat, the happier the bugs were. anyway back to the bug log - some progress! got back from work and checked on the bugs. The box was still pretty stinky and when I opened the lid I couldn't see any bugs. Upon holding it under the light and squinting hard I could see them on the surface and under the glass but not moving. As their air cleared with the lid off they slowly started to move again .... so with that I dropped a mothball down the side of the wooden box, left the container lids off, and put the wooden box lid back on. Still out of the airing cupboard but it's not cold down there so that's OK. Will check in the morning and see if the bugs start moving again. I have instructed the worms not to die.

how about some little red or orange fish to shoal about in the empty space?

If I can get away with it tonight I will put a ball in the closed box with the container lids off and see if any change. I wanted to phase the bug massacre in gently in case it hurts the worms... 8)

very interesting - this morning the bugs were wandering about the peat as normal. Obviously they are harder to kill than the Power Mothball packet suggests! I have now taken the mothball out of the wooden box, taken the lids off the plastic containers and put the wooden box lid back on completely. The box itself is still quite smelly so will see if that in itself is enough to ward them off.

fingers crossed it works! -------- I spoke too soon had to take the container out of the airing cupboard (is in the garage under the house), close the lid completely and leave it out of the warm.... could smell the naptha in the room above apparently. So anyway, will check it in the morning and see what it looks like.

I had the gh/kh tested yesterday - it took 3 drops to turn the water yellow, so it's not hard water as far as I can tell. There was also barely any difference between the oak water and tap water.

Today I went to check on the bugs and found more than a few in my 'good' worm colony so out I went to the chinese supermarket and got some POWER MOTH BALLS. Not just any moth balls, but Power moth balls haha. First of all I got the main bug colony and waved a mothball over it to see exactly how poisonous they are, thinking the bugs would divide like the red sea, but not so. More of a slow reaction, bugs crawling up the side of the lunchbox so I scooped them out over and over, cleaned the glass etc. I spent about 5 or 10 mins messing around with the bugs and the mothball. Then I decided to leave the ball on top of the glass, ie not in contact with the soil, but with the box lid on. I thought this might also have them crawling up the sides quickly. Again, not much of a panic reaction from the bugs but by this time there weren't that many left anyway. I did the same with my good worm colony and they had an hour or so with the lid on and the mothball inside - most of the bugs are under the glass though. As many of my worms are up under the glass in this box I didn't want to take the glass off to get the bugs in case it hurt the worms. Next I put both semi cleaned up worm containers back in their wooden box with 1 mothball and put the wooden lid on with a gap of about 5mm. The mothball packet says to leave the mothballs completely enclosed for 7 days to kill bugs so what I've done is quite a diluted version. The gas can get into the colony through the small vent holes but it can also escape into the airing cupboard. I checked the bugs after a couple of hours. The main bug colony is still very quiet, the smaller one not much change. I will check again in the morning.

very cool Jennifer I like those red rainbows too

slowly but surely my project has started... snaffled my first mini load of duckweed.

I never tried frozen food on my guys

I had 7 of them and found that they will dart to the top if it's something they want to eat. They will go for dried worms over flake bits, and live worms over anything. They love worms and their activity increases tremendously if you can get some. I had them chasing each other for white worms and bulging out their bellies (until I found out how fattening they were :oops: ) and later changed to grindal worms which are much easier for them to eat. They aren't too keen on eating processed food if you stay close to the tank either, sneak around the corner out of sight and they may play the game. The other thing they like (or mine did anyway) is if you float a little piece of shrimp pellet on the top - it expands and then slowly sinks to the bottom in tiny pieces, they go after these like live food too. I had a lot of current in my tank so against advice from others on a different forum I had my powerhead filter timed to turn off for an hour or so over feeding time. They will definitely go for live food and food they can see in a current but in my experience it's easier for them when there is less current too. Also once they were accustomed to darting up for their live food, they weren't so scaredy for darting processed stuff floating on the top. 2 or 3 of mine would always go up there. 1 of the smaller ones would rarely go to the top if it wasn't something squiggling.

since Sunday my bugload has gone down I scooped a bunch of them off over a few minute period and they have not replenished. Maybe I have high bug expectations but I would have expected them to multiply faster.

I read more about mothballs and it says in some cases the naptha will kill bugs with it's vapours and the rest it just sends packing. It's funny what Jen says about flooding the bugs with water... my worms are living on top of the water cylinder and they get warm and breed pretty well. Without additional water added I find water pooling as condensation on the lid and there are lots of worms squiggling around in each drop. I have no worms climbing up the sides but plenty on the lid - how is that ?? Since I couldn't find mothballs yesterday I cut a bigger piece of glass and the worms have come back to eat the meat under it and the mites have spread to the very edges. Taking the glass off does catch lots of mites. If I find mothballs when out shopping I will still try this way and next resort is to flood the bugs out. I think I can dry the culture well enough with draining it in a sieve and leaving the lid off for a few days.

I read about it online somewhere last week and I thought SURELY someone on here has tried it but it looks like it has to be me haha I think I will have to rehouse my good grindals in another box for the experiment, just in case. hmmmm now Barrie, I have clicked on your balldresses link, they are very nice. I do however have a question - will doves fly out of the skirt as I sashay down the street?

how many leaves and what size tank?

hmm well 40 leaves in a 30L tank won't have quite the look I was after..... but thanks for the tip that I don't know as I don't have a KH testing kit, will have to take some water to the LFS for that.

Has anyone tried using moth balls in the vicinity of a (grindal) worm colony? I have a wooden box with 2 plastic containers inside. One has a happy culture of squiggly worms, the other is overrun with bugs. If I put mothballs in the wooden box will the bugs die or will they migrate elsewhere?

I thought I would look into naturally lowering the pH of my water with oak leaves. I have 15L of water in a bucket with 4 oak leaves that sunk after a couple of days. On day 2 there was no change in the pH, and after a week it's the same. After a week the water was slightly yellow. So is it a bit of a myth that it does lower the pH or does it take longer? Next question: the pH tests at the highest end of the normal pH kit and at the lowest end of the High pH kit - does this mean it's somewhere in the middle?