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How do you culture microworms, and infusoria?

†Aquapickle†

I tried microworms once, and basically, you take some oatmeal (not the flavored kind, but plain rolled oats, and cornmeal works too, but I find it more messy) and wet it in warm (but not hot) water so that it's wet, but not soupy. For added nutritional content, you can add a pinch of yeast or there are lots of other things people add, but it's not really necessary. I use 1/4 cup oats in a washed yogurt container, but a clear plastic container like for hummus spreads, salsa, or gladware will allow you to see what's going on inside better. Poke some tiny holes in the lid (or make sure you open it at least once a day) and cap the container. The holes should be very tiny, or flies may try to lay eggs in your mash. Then just wait. Your first culture may take a week or more to start producing worms. Make sure that the mash doesn't dry out, but also make sure it isn't too soupy. Some water may collect on top, and this is okay. Don't stir the mash. The microworms are very hard to see until there are a lot of them, but you might notice a slight shimmer on the surface of the mash, and they will start to climb the walls of the container, making waht looks like a milky film on the sides. That milky film is the worms. To collect them, just take a q-tip, popsicle stick, your finger and swipe the sides of the container. I would shake them off in a little bit of tank water and then use an eye-dropper to feed them to my fish. Make sure you don't overfeed, because the little worms get lost in the gravel and die, then you can have water quality issues.

To speed the process along, you can put some worms from a previous culture on a new mash and you'll have lots of worms in just a few days, instead of waiting over a week. For consistent feeding of fry, keep 2 or more cultures, starting the new one from the old one and making sure that you always have a full culture.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Infusoria culture 101.

Step 1 : Get a 1 gallon jar (US pickle jars are ideal for this).

Step 2 : Add water.

Step 3 : Add some crumbled dried lettuce leaf, some scrapings from an over ripe banana skin, and some crushed fresh peas (NOT ones from a tin as these have additives!). Dried hay is also a good medium, and traditionally used in biology labs.

Step 4 : Add one or two aquarium snails to speed things up.

Step 5 : Wait.

First of all, the water will go cloudy. This is a bacterial bloom, but this won't persist. When the water goes clear, there will be a layer which contains some tiny specks moving about. Some of the infusorians among that population will be just big enough to see with a hand lens moving about (particularly if there is sunshine playing on the water, as some infusorians affect polarised light). This is your infusoria culture. Extract the infusorians using an eye dropper or siphon some out, then feed to your baby fish.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Thanks guys! that was very helpful. i was looking to feed it to my baby corys.

Thanks a ton!!!

†Aquapickle†

If you have a tank with Apple Snails, the water will be full of Infusoria & you can put some in the Corydoras tank. You can also feed the Corydoras fry some crushed sinking pellets.


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