Hi Fisheggs,
Not bad, but you know worms don't like light and your bins are transluscent. Either you had better keep the whole thing in a very dark area - otherwise maybe paint outside of bins black colour.

Here is a link that might be useful: Make Your Own Worm Farm

".........and then masked off the outside so that they aren't transparent. The following pictures are pre-masking."
How are you going to mask it?

I used a primer meant for plastic and then painted over that, after roughing up the plastic with sandpaper. If that doesn't stick, I'm planning on just wrapping it with the blue tarp-like fabric from a couple of those gigantic Ikea bags that I have hanging around (with duct tape). Not too elegant!

Actually, I guess that I do have a question about light - I didn't paint the bottom drainage bin, and it will let some light into the bottom side of the middle container. We're keeping this in a dark basement (light gets turned on maybe once a day for a brief period). Does anyone see any reason that I should mask off the bottom bin as well? I do like the idea of being able to quickly assess the amount of drainage to see if I've got any moisture issues.

I guess it does make it quick to see down there but keep in mind that most people's experience is that if you are maintaining moisture well you should not get very much liquid accumulating in the bottom. You probably should get some depending on what you are putting in your bin, fruits tend to have a lot of water in them.

I don't see much value in keeping very much leachate for very long. As it accumulates over time (bits of bedding VC will get down there too eventually) the mixture can start to smell. It's also questionable as too how much benefit there is in leachate. I think there will be some benefit since it does flow through VC as it makes it's way down but there are good arguments for and against and I haven't come across anything that was 'scientific' and definitive. I empty out any leachate every few days and just chuck it on my lawn.

One benefit of the nesting bins is that the upper bin is resting on top of(making contact with)the lower tray VC allowing the worms to migrate to the upper bin. Keep in mind that what you'll be feeding your worms is composed mostly of water so as they chew up the food and bedding the volume of VC will shrink over time. When you start feeding in your second bin you'll have to keep checking that there is still contact between the upper and lower bins so that your worms will be able to migrate upward. After you have your upper bin going for a while I can almost guarantee you will still have worms chewing on your lower bin contents for quite some time.

Thanks - I probably will make a normal rubbermaid bin next time but will report on how well this one works. I had a few of the sterilite containers sitting around, so this was essentially a free project (except for the worms and paint. And paper shredder). I don't expect to keep the leachate around, and would have used a shorter bin if I had one.

The question about whether worms can make it between bins is a good one - I'd read so many stories about worms crawling completely out of bins that I didn't think that this was a problem. I suppose that one thing I could do if there isn't a lot of traffic is to add in some food-free bedding to the lower bin to give them a better pathway upwards. It'll be a few months before I get to that point anyway, but I'll report on any problems I run in to.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

Yeah, making use of what you already have makes sense. I think that you can use just about any container as long as you know the basics of what worms need and what people find to be workable solutions.

I think you did good. I'm thinking about buying bins which are shorter in height and painting for a stacking system. Haven't been able to find any that are colored. Some of those which are shorter are also longer and wider which would allow me to have more worms per bin. Let us know how the paint works out.

"Actually, I guess that I do have a question about light - I didn't paint the bottom drainage bin, and it will let some light into the bottom side of the middle container. We're keeping this in a dark basement (light gets turned on maybe once a day for a brief period). Does anyone see any reason that I should mask off the bottom bin as well? I do like the idea of being able to quickly assess the amount of drainage to see if I've got any moisture issues."
The bottom side of the middle container will soon be covered in worm poo so no light will shine into the middle container anyway. IMHO, I would leave the bottom container clear for the reasons you stated. Good Luck with your worms.

If this will be kept in a dark room, you may not need to mask it at all. The small amount of light that the worms will be exposed to shouldn't bother them much. Even if it is not kept in a dark room, the worms will simply avoid the outside of the bedding.

Belindach,

I did do a survey at my local target to see what sort of things they had available - there were some cubical bins that nested on their lids very nicely, but they were rather high compared with most people's systems, and were not long at all. Did come in great colors, though! Rather expensive, especially compared with the existing (e.g., free) ones that I had at home.

Good point about worm poo on the bottom of the container. Sounds like I don't have to start racing into the basement for quick trips (good thing, since I'm 6 months pregnant!) to minimize light exposure.

Only downside from the worm perspective is that we have higher-than-average radon in this area. I'm guessing that they can deal. :)

My local Target has bins half as high as normal bins plus they are longer and wider. I have seen bins which go under the bed which are huge but clear.

I think that the lower sided bins may be the way to go if you like poking around and maintaining (i'm in this group) your bin more often.

Fisheggs:

Even though you have a piece of screen between the middle working bin and the bottom drainage bin, some worms will drop through and will have a devil of a time climbing back up. Try some landscape cloth (available by the yard at the hardware store) or a remnant of tightly woven fabic instead. The liquid drains through, but the worms stay put. I always find worms lolling around this trampoline of fabric. When I used plastic window screen, I always found some swimmers below.

You mentioned "add(ing) in some food-free bedding to the lower bin to give them a better pathway upwards." But you should remember that the bedding will decompose and become food over time. Some worm systems use only shredded paper or cardboard.

As you said, it will be a number of months until you have to deal with this anyway, but I'm guessing that if you have enough material in the bin to begin with, and mound it up in the middle so the lid pushes it down a little, you won't have any problems with worms being able to get up to the next system. You might have to re-form the mound every month or so, but you won't get one big brick of compost in the end.

I know a guy on another site that uses the lids like you are in his stacking system. He does so because he doesn't like how compacted the compost in the bottom bin becomes when the top bins are laying directly on top of the compost. I copied him but I have less than a lb. of worms in the bottom bin, so I haven't gotten to add another one on top yet. I use fluffed machine shredded newspaper and every time I 'fill' the bin, it's back to half that height a week later. It's going to take some time to get enough compost for me to be able to stack the next one and keep the compost in contact with top of the lid. Let us know how it goes when the time comes.

I have clear sided storage containers from the local hardware store that are just over 6 inches tall, but longer and wider than the standard rubbermaid. The worms hang out on the edges in the evenings and stay in the middle during the day. That way I get to watch what they're doing without bothering them quite as often. When I add food, I'll make sure a little of it is in contact with the sides so I can see what's happening. They don't seems to be bothered by artificial light, but are long gone by the time I wake up, even though they never get direct sunlight. (They're indoors.)

Fisheggs & susanfromhawaii:

The stacked system looks pretty deep. If you add bedding to the bottom (drainage) bin, you end up dispersing your worm population before the main working section has gotten a chance to get really going. It will take longer for your 1,000 to find each other and breed. They like to be crowded. For comparison: I have a 3-tier Worm Factory; it is 16" square and each tray is 3.5" deep. I currently have over 4,000 worms working all three trays; but the specs say that it can house 8,000.

As a newbie you will probably enjoy fussing with your worms, but later on, mounding the bedding so that the bins contact the lower material and waiting for the guys to consume all of your food waste gets old. I know whereof I speak. When I first got started with my WF I was impatient and put shredded paper in all three trays. It was slow going for months. Even now, 14 months later, with all three trays writhing with worms, I can't process all of our weekly food waste.

folly grows:
are you feeding all three trays or just the top one?

Hi folks -

Thanks a lot for the input - I will definitely consider lower height bins for the next iteration.

I've been good about poking around at them, only going to peek about once a day. Is that good? :) At first they all stayed in the peat moss that they came packed in, but by day 3 they'd migrated to the food area that I'd put in one corner. There was another mass of them concentrated in a food-free area that was mostly newspaper.

I can definitely see how it's hard to see what's going on with a tray this deep, and I wish I'd not painted the outside. The bin is in a very cool, dark basement, so they'd probably have been fine with the intermittent fluorescent light that we turn on when we check the cat food.

They certainly aren't making quick work of the banana peel in there!