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Message Subject: Help! My Crawlers are dying!

RSR

Posted 5/21/2008 10:41 AM (#69763)
Subject: Help! My Crawlers are dying!

Member

Posts: 174

I have the temp ok in my basement but I think I might have too many in the container. I bought a flat about a month ago and have been feeding them the food that comes with the worm ranch but they look sick and I'm afraid I am going to lose them. Help!

stick bait

Posted 5/21/2008 11:48 AM (#69770 - in reply to #69763)
Subject: RE: Help! My Crawlers are dying!

Member

Posts: 84

I'm sure others have better ways, this is what works for me. I keep them year around.
I like to keep crawlers in a styrofoam container (so they can breathe) and use spaghum moss for the bedding. Commercial bedding (paper) also works well. Both types of bedding keep my hands clean and not full of mud.
The whole works goes into my basement fridge which I keep around 43 degrees. Occasionally I add enough water to keep them moist. Try to remove any dead or dying crawlers as they will eventually wreck to whole batch. Good Luck

Jayman

Posted 5/21/2008 2:48 PM (#69779 - in reply to #69770)
Subject: Re: Help! My Crawlers are dying!

Member

Posts: 1656

IF they look sick, best thing you can do is dump in in the garden and pick them up a week later...cause it's problably too late.

I have a VHS free fridge that is in my garage. I keep it set to 30 degrees....optimum temp for beer.

I like to deal with half flats, seems I have better luck with keeping crawlers alive. Full flats = too many. I used a styrofoam bait box that I store the crawlers in the fridge with, When I head out for a day on the water, I dump the whole styrofoam box into a coleman 16qt cooler and that's my worm box in the boat. At the end of the day I dump them back into the styrofoam box. At which time I will pick through and toss any dead or sick looking crawlers.

I use the sizes I do because they fit in the fridge and the boat convienently. But just as important is the amount of mass, it takes more time to heat up that much mass on a hot summer day and the cooler is set colder to help get the crawlers back to that comfy cool over night. And besides it keeps my beer nice and cold, did I mention that?

I would suggest erroring on the side of too dry vs too moist. Too moist and your crawlers will die too dry and they will shrink, quick fix for that, take 'em out of the cooler they day your fishing and keep a dozen or so in a ziplock bag of water. They plump up and are nice and "clean" when you reach for another one to bait up.

Good Luck.

Edited by Jayman 5/21/2008 2:50 PM

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