Ants in wormery!

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Anastasia, Jan 8, 2007.

  1. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    HELP! We moved the wormery last night because we have an owner inspection on Wednesday and it was whiffing the garage out (no air flow, worms are fine coz it's cool but it does smell). The ants found it today, no idea how argh! I just flooded the tray it's on so they can't get in or out now but there are a whole heap stranded IN the wormery. Is there anything I can do to help my wormies? I hate to think of them stuck in there with nasty ants :(.

    There are also lots of little crawling buggy things, really really tiny things. Any idea what they might be?
     
  2. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Not sure what your bugs are, but I've had ants in with the worms, and although I've had some worm farms die off, I don't think it was the ants... Could've been I suppose... Is the worm farm itself moist enough? I usually see ants when I'm not keeping them wet enough. I know the literature usually says ants are bad, but I reckon they're alright...
     
  3. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Anastasia,

    Get on top of the ants issue. Worm eggs are Happy Meals for ants.

    Also, if you worm farm is on the nose they are probably getting too much food. What sort of bedding are you using? Although the ants may be there as much for the moisture as anything, especially with the ground drying out in summer.

    You can do a lot of damage to an ant nest with a vacuum cleaner... :D Stomp on it a couple of times and then jam the vacuum cleaner down, follow this up with a kettle full of boiling water and they will probably leave town.

    cheers

    floot
     
  4. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    Ooh should have mentioned sorry. The garage is completely inside, it's actually been converted into a room so no access to outside. They got moved to a bench in the laundry where there is more airflow (we leave the screen door open). So not outside at all. No idea where the ants are actually coming from as out back"yard" is all decking and there are probably ant nests all under it.

    The wormery is very moist, the worms seem happy enough. I often leave it quite a while between feeds to try to get the smell down but it doesn't work, they will just start mounting escape missions to look for food. They do eat the food, it's just that there is probably a bit in there that is difficult to eat (like avo peel, etc) so maybe if we clean that up it won't be so bad. Oh gee the thought of doing that makes me wanna hurl LOL. I know I also need to harvest the castings soon but... I'm just scared I'm gonna muck it up hehe.

    Floot do you reckon if I get the watering can and give the wormery a sprinkle the ants will be less than impressed?
     
  5. Veggie Boy

    Veggie Boy Junior Member

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    Limeis meant to help get rid of the ants - though has not been that good for me. To stop them getting in, A good ring of grease on each of the legs is the go.

    One thing that is worth a go is the following ant killer. Grind some bakers yeast into a fine powder and then mix in some honey to make a stip paste. Roll into balls and put some where the ants can get to it. What happens is the ants eat it and die when the yest activates with water in their guts (pop).
     
  6. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    Hey, you know that worms don't eat food, right? As in, they don't eat the avo peels you put in there. They eat the bacteria that eat the avo peel. So, that's partially why you are supposed to put small amounts of food in there quite regularly I suppose.
     
  7. Susan

    Susan Junior Member

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    Ants in worm farm

    Hi Anastasia'
    Just a thought have you thought of putting containers of water under the legs of your wormery so the ants can not communt
    back and forth to their nest
    Greenly
    Sue
     
  8. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    I'm not using a commercial one. It's a styrofoam box with a tray underneath (which I flooded with water), and we just discovered today a bunch of bigger worms which we rescued from drowning but we couldn't save the thousands of tiny hatchlings :(. I'm feeling pretty crappy about it. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get one of those premade setups gah.

    Yeah Richard I did know that it's just easier to say "eat the food". I figure most people here know what I'm on about LOL.
     
  9. FREE Permaculture

    FREE Permaculture Junior Member

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  10. ho-hum

    ho-hum New Member

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    Hey Chick,

    You now have the 'can o worms'?


    Not that long ago you had a 'bathtub' which could handle a bucketful of all sorts of putrid waste. Are the two system synonymous?

    floot
     
  11. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    I don't know, I don't think there is any advantage in the premade setups, except for the dealers.
    Any container with good drainage should do. You probably don't want to design the thing so that they can't escape. If they escape that means you need to manage the farm differently, because if everything is right for them, they won't escape...
    An old bathtub is really the primo home worm farm in my opinion. A close second would be a dead fridge.
     
  12. Anastasia

    Anastasia Junior Member

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    Well, yeah they're trying to escape because of the ants. I just don't know how to get the ants OUT of it.

    We have not the room for a bathtub or dead fridge set up. Townhouse, tiny deck. Need something compact which also won't have management going "what is THAT?"
     
  13. Richard on Maui

    Richard on Maui Junior Member

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    I really doubt that they are trying to escape from the ants...
    Off the top of my head, they would be escaping for these reasons:

    * too wet
    * too dry
    * not enough food/over population
    * too much food
    * too acid
    * too alkaline

    As Mike said, ants may eat their eggs and limit the population, but I don't think the worms would look at this and say, "Shit, let's get outta here!"...
    Of course, I've been wrong before!
     
  14. Scott A. Meister

    Scott A. Meister Junior Member

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    let there be light!

    Richard,

    You're absolutely right. I just finished doing a presentation on worms, wormeries and worm farms here in Tokyo. Prepping for it, I did a TON of reading, and the reasons you mentioned for worms leaving is dead on. It's often the case that worms in new worm farms/wormeries abandon ship because conditions aren't ideal. The same reasons you mentioned are also perhaps a part of the reason the wormery is smellin'. If it smells "fishy" the worms might be dieing...again for possibly the same reasons Richard listed above. Or...you seem to be procrastinating the job of harvesting the castings....worms will die if they aren't seperated from finished castings...they constantly require new bedding, this is why the stacked worm condo is ideal...it gives the top feeder worms a chance to "move on up...to the top" (like the Jeffersons) into a newer condo when their done. They're also protected from the possible hazard of drowning in their own worm-tea or over-wet conditions.

    The solution for run-away worms, is to keep the wormery/worm farm basked in light (but be careful not to heat it up too much with lights) until things get balanced out or tweaked enough until they're happy. Worms hate light more than uncomfortable conditions, and should stick it out in the wormery until the ant solution/food balance or moisture problem is fixed. I wouldn't worry too much about the loss of eggs. The way worms produce, you should have quite a few on your hands in a little while after things get settled again.

    If you'd like to see all the info I gathered on worms, worm farming, as well as some step by step plans and pics on how to make your own can-o-worms/worm condo, you can read the presentation I did HERE.

    Any additional comments or suggestions you might have are welcome.

    Cheers!
     

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