Canadian Nightcrawler Set-up

[Poly]

I have a 25Gallon "little tikes" toy box, for a toy box, they sure are built out of thick, HD plastic!

Started off with the box:


Lined the botton with 2 inches of soil:


Another two intches of soil and I added apples, oranges and bananas and lettuce:



Looking bare:


That's better!


3 more inches of soil, then old moss from my toad tank, I knew keeping it would come in handy!


Added some rocks:


Fresh glass clippings over all that:


Then I ran out of soil, so it's only 3/4 full now, going to fill it up the rest of the way today, and should have my 300 (was going to get 200, but decided on 300) 4" Canadian Night Crawlers by friday!

Any suggestions, improvments, or problems I may encounter?

Is it true their temp needs to stay under 65F, and if it goes above that, they will start to die off...?

Thanks,

Royce

[frogluver]

From what I've seen or read, I believe that you are providing them the proper care. They do need cooler temps such as you described above and I wouldn't let the temp become too hot. I know that some people refrigerate their night crawlers.

[Poly]

From what I've seen or read, I believe that you are providing them the proper care. They do need cooler temps such as you described above and I wouldn't let the temp become too hot. I know that some people refrigerate their night crawlers.

Oops, guess I missed your reply Autumn! Yeah, keeping the temps down supposedly promotes growth. I don't want to refrigerate them because then they stop growing.

~Royce

[Poly]

Update:

Finally got my 300 Canadian nightcrawlers and 250 mealworms in!

The mealworms, were... uhh, well... not what I expected... I missed the part of the site where it said they were 20-25mm, not 1" mealworms like I'm used to!

Here were 300 of them, kind of disappointing, but they'll grow, so I'm not too worried.


Then the nightcrawlers, well they lived up to all my expectations...

Here's 75 of them in the bucket...


And here's 275 of them in the bucket...


Kinda felt sorry for them when I seen the containers they arrived in:



Overall, I am very happy, they mealworms have lots of food to eat and grow, and the worms have over 10lbs of rotting vegtables to eat!


I'll keep a stockpile for you "Mafoo"...


~Royce

[ViperJr]

Looking good!

Just a thing, 1" is 2.54 cm so I don't get what your confused about

[optimum]

nice set up now lets see them breed

[Poly]

Looking good!

Just a thing, 1" is 2.54 cm so I don't get what your confused about

Haha, sorry about that Martin! I use both the metric and standard systems, so for small measurments, I usually use mm, insetad of saying 1/16", 1/8", etc. and for larger measurments, I use inches.

nice set up now lets see them breed

Thanks, and hopefully they do!!

~Royce

[mafoo]

Update:

I'll keep a stockpile for you "Mafoo"...


~Royce

thanks for keeping nightcrawlers for me! soon ill be order 300 and starting to get my own so be prepared in december to have lots of nightcrawlers for me! also thanks for the info on keeping them, i thought u just put all the veggies on the top of the container and they go to the top to eat so im glad i know your have to bury them! :P

[ViperJr]

Haha, sorry about that Martin! I use both the metric and standard systems, so for small measurments, I usually use mm, insetad of saying 1/16", 1/8", etc. and for larger measurments, I use inches.

Well, that's the thing. You said "they are 2.5 cm instead of 1 inch", but that's (very nearly) the same length, so what did suprise you? I feel so lost...

[frogluver]

Oops, guess I missed your reply Autumn! Yeah, keeping the temps down supposedly promotes growth. I don't want to refrigerate them because then they stop growing.

~Royce

Haha, it's fine :P. That makes sense though .

[Poly]

Well, that's the thing. You said "they are 2.5 cm instead of 1 inch", but that's (very nearly) the same length, so what did suprise you? I feel so lost...

Ohh, jeeze, that's my error! The ones I'm used to are a good two inches... or 5-6cm, here, I took a photo to show the difference.


~Royce

[Poly]

thanks for keeping nightcrawlers for me! soon ill be order 300 and starting to get my own so be prepared in december to have lots of nightcrawlers for me! also thanks for the info on keeping them, i thought u just put all the veggies on the top of the container and they go to the top to eat so im glad i know your have to bury them! :P

Haha, well I'll be getting another 300 from my supplier soon, that 300 is for my toads (Could sell you atleast 150-200 of them, they are over 4" long, 1 worm fills my toad for 2 days!)

Yup, burry them, just like in a composter!

~Royce

[Poly]

Oh, by the way mafoo, I took some photos of the Nightcrawlers size, in the photo, it's extended, but there about 6" pulled together, and 10"+ when there extended, I was shocked at the size of them! I couldn't get a photo of it not extended because it wouldn't stop moving!

Here are the shots I managed to get:




~Royce

[Poly]

Getting another 1000 Nightcrawlers in... just bought enough food for another... 2 weeks, they consume 3-4lbs of veggies a week!


It's a lot cheaper when you buy the old, borderline rotting produce!

[Sandy Bear]

Poly, I have a suggestion for you. I used to buy Canadian nightcrawlers all the time, but I have found something better. I think you will like these other worms too. They are Red Wrigglers and European Nightcrawlers. Since you are going through all the trouble of feeding them and caring for them, why not just get a worm that will breed for you?
(Canadian Nightcrawlers are territorial, and need a lot of space. If they've been disturbed from their original home they usually won't ever breed)

I keep both the European Nightcrawlers and the Red Wrigglers, and I feed both of these to my frogs, some reptiles and my fish.
They are both a Vermicomposting worm. They are to be kept indoors, and they are very prolific. The European Nightcrawlers are quite new, so I don't have too much stats about them, but I know that the Red Wrigglers will double their population every 90 days.

For about the same price that you are spending on the Canadian Nightcrawlers, you can order in a batch of either of these and they will breed for you.
When I bought my European Nightcrawlers, I paid about $110 for 1 pound of worms with shipping/taxes. The last few times I've bought boxes of Canadian Nightcrawlers it was about $60-80 for 500 worms (depending on which bait shop I bought from).

The red wrigglers are a small worm
The European Nightcrawlers are a medium worm

This is the care sheet that I wrote on how to care for them:
Vermicomposting - Red Wriggler Care Sheet - talk to the frog

This is where you can order them from. "Cathy's Crawly Composters". I ordered my European Nightcrawlers from her, the worms are amazing and Cathy is a really awesome person.
Cathy's Crawly Composters - Products
She sells both the European Nightcrawlers and the Red Wrigglers. She's a Canadian worm farmer located in Bradford, Ontario.

These worms have many benefits: A home grown food source for your frogs, they make the BEST all natural fertilizer/dirt, and you will be recycling all sorts of food and paper/cardboard waste.