You could use your aquarium water, that's even better.

If it doesn't hurt humans, it won't hurt worms. Tap water is fine. If you want to use an aquarium water conditioner, that won't hurt the worms, either.

Chlorine can evaporate in 24 hours. Use a container that has a lot of surface area. If a gallon milk jug do not fill right up to the top but leave head space for greater air to surface ratio.

Call your water company to see if they use chlorine or chloramine. To remove that you will need the aquarium chemical.

As otis11 says the dregs from cleaning the freshwater tanks would be perfect.

Chlorine is in my water. Many health conscious people go to great lengths to remove chlorine from their drinking, cooking and bathing water.

If I use straight tap water I bet I kill some of the good bacteria that is working for me. They probably recover quickly.

In the past I've used Distilled water in my bins. That's because I had a machine at work that produced the stuff and I could get as much as I wanted. I'm no longer with them and so I won't have free access to that anymore but I still have about fifty liters saved up for the forseeable future. After that, I've got a water filter, the type you'd mount under a kitchen sink (to improve the quality of your drinking water), that comes with a Charcoal filter that I could connect in-line with a garden hose for watering the bins. I do all this to try and keep the pH as level as possible.
On the other hand, unless you eat only Organically-grown Fruits and Vegetables, then what with the chemical Pesticides and Fungicides that your produce is being sprayed with, the Chlorine is probably the least of your problems.

Shaul

In some cases the "organic" herbicides and pesticides are worse than the petroleum based ones. Rotenone, is particularly nasty. Copper sulfate isn't much better.

If it's a large organic mega grower, it's probably as bad if not worse than typical agri-business. (these guys sell to Wal-Mart and Whole Foods and other chains). On the other hand, if it's a local organic farmer with 20 acres, that's probably kewl. You find this stuff at local farmer's markets.

Here's a snip from Berkeley.

Contrary to what most people believe, "organic" does not automatically mean "pesticide-free" or "chemical-free". In fact, under the laws of most states, organic farmers are allowed to use a wide variety of chemical sprays and powders on their crops.

Here is a link that might be useful: Berkeley

This post was edited by JerilynnC on Mon, Dec 31, 12 at 7:53

I tried using the "dregs" from gravel washes on the house plants, and it started smelling pretty bad. As for the city water, I do know that I have a water filter on my refrigerator, and it's been there for 13 years. The indicator on it that's supposed to tell me when to replace it still reads okay, so the water commission must be doing something right. :) I understand that doesn't mean it is chemical free, and I'll check out the link to Berkeley for sure.

Jerilynn, I totally get the pesticide thing - I work in the pet industry, training employees on the products we sell, and one of the things I train people on is how to sell and use insectides on pets and premises. Believe me, they can be really nasty things, and that's exactly what I teach. I am SOOO glad that the more botanical products are finally taking hold, although some of those (as you pointed out) need even more care than some chemicals. Ever seen a dog or cat with a limonene reaction? It's not a pretty sight....

I generally don't do organic in any strict sense. If it's convenient and no more expensive than the alternative, I'll go for it, but I don't seek it out. My questions are intended to achieve the best environment possible for the worms that are working for me.

After reading all of your comments, I think I will use the aquarium water conditioner, not so much for the chlorine but the chloramine. It might even be interesting to see if the water conditioner has any effect on container plants! I've been using a one gallon watering can, but sometimes have to put off watering for a day to wait for chlorine to evaporate. Somehow I don't think it will, simply because it's used in planted aquariums, and in the 30 years I've been doing aquariums, I've never seen or heard of a bad reaction to it. or even a caution not to use it.

""started smelling pretty bad"" I guess not enough O2 in there. I pre-rot my worm food and sometimes it did get anaerobic. When feeding, I put it on top of some bedding and covered with dry shredded paper. The smell was gone after a day. I think an established bin can handle that. I wouldn't do it in a new bin.
I haven't heard any negative reports after using aquarium dregs in a worm bin.

Water filters like those in water containers and refrigerators are usually a bit of charcoal. This does not remove chlorine but it may make the water taste a bit better. Usually the instructions say to change every few weeks to three months due to bacteria build up.

This post was edited by equinoxequinox on Tue, Jan 1, 13 at 0:09

"" Posted by equinoxequinox (My Page) on
Tue, Jan 1, 13 at 0:08

Water filters like those in water containers and refrigerators are usually a bit of charcoal. This does not remove chlorine but it may make the water taste a bit better. Usually the instructions say to change every few weeks to three months due to bacteria build up.""
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Actually, the refrigerator filters and the things like Brita pitchers do remove some chlorine. (well, at least mine do).
I did some experiments with a chlorine test strip. My tap water has between 0.3-0.5 ppm of chlorine. I couldn't detect any in the water out of the fridge or brita pitcher, using these strips.

When my brita filter is due for replacement, I'll spike the water with a bit of clorox and see if the brita pitcher removes all of *that*.

Here is a link that might be useful: Test Strips

This post was edited by JerilynnC on Tue, Jan 1, 13 at 2:11

I stand corrected.

I'm learning so much from all of you, I have to shake my head. Some of it is of the DUH - - why didn't I think of that?? variety. I checked both my tap water and fridge water with a dip strip and show under 0.5 ppm total chlorine, so why did I worry, right? I'm so conditioned to "treat" aquarium water for all the bad, bad chlorine, ammonia, etc, that once I thought of all the worms and microstuff growing in the bin, well, if it's bad for fish, it must be bad for them, too. Thank you ALL for the input.

I stopped worrying about chlorine in the tap water and never noticed a problem.

Here's a quote by Kelly Slocum (from Worm Digest), that refutes my earlier claim that chemical pesticides affect the quality of worm castings:
"as to banana peels, i would strongly disagree with concerns over using them. while your point about pesticides is well taken and something folks should keep in the back of their minds, pesticide residues from banana peels or any other store bought, non-organic produce is not an issue. castings produced from commercially produced fruits and veggies have been tested for pesticide residues many times and have routinely shown no detectable levels. using non-organic produce in a worm bin produces a very safe end product".

kelly

Kelly Slocum chief science officer, vice president bon terra, inc. phone 360.253.5465 fax 360.253.5466 email kelly@bonterra.net http://www.bonterra.net

Posted by: Kelly Slocum On: 2003-11-07 08:40:00

Otis, I apologize for not answering your comment before now, but, yes, the bad smell from the dregs was probably from lack of O2 at the surface level of my houseplants. What I was doing was filtering the runoff from the gravel wash through cheesecloth, and just adding the remains to the soil in the containers. Lesson learned - it caked on the top and really did stink. I used a fork, broke it up, and flushed with water. However, moving it through the soil in the containers did have a visible impact on growth of the plants. I didn't have a reason to take photos at that time, but I will next time the DH decides to do the right thing by the fish.

I've also realized that my original concern about the chlorine in tap water was one more instance of the duh factor. Worms are not fish. They don't live in the water, and they don't "breathe" the water.

I do have to admit that I almost lost my first worm bin this week. I read somewhere that layering food with bedding (lasagna?) was a good thing, so I did that Sunday. Yesterday morning I could not find a single moving worm, but I did nothing, hoping that what I'd done wasn't bad. I almost didn't check today, but being a holiday and with nothing much else to do, I looked and saw nothing moving anywhere, no matter what I moved by hand. However, I did remember reading here that a lot of remedial efforts were probably successful due to the aerating part of rescue efforts, so I did a thorough comb through with a large fork, and under the layers are bunches of living moving worms! I haven't killed them yet...

Whenever I suspected that something is going wrong in a bin, I carefully lifted the contents (bedding, VC) with my fingers (chop sticks, garden fork or the like) to sort of get air in there. It's often mentioned that mixing bedding/food in the bin will cause it to heat up. At this stage that is what I wanted to prevent. So, just sort of "tease" it to aerate.

"" Posted by thedogsLL none (My Page) on
Tue, Jan 1, 13 at 8:47

I checked both my tap water and fridge water with a dip strip and show under 0.5 ppm total chlorine""

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Don't forget to test the test strip. Just add a tiny bit of clorox to some tap water and test it, the chlorine value should be off the scale.

Yep, I do that once a month or so, just to make sure that I get good results for the aquariums. I often think it's a waste of strips on my part, since I order a bottle of 100 x 3 every other month. They stay pretty fresh in this house! Still do it, though, just to be on the safe side. I've seen humidity ruin test strips too many times.

Just occurred to me, maybe I need to up the ordering qty.

I took a quick peek when I got home from work a bit ago, and the worms are back to wiggling like crazy to get away from the light. They are all over the tray, fat and happy, so I apparently didn't stir too much! Otis had me a bit worried that I caused a problem trying to help them.

This post was edited by thedogsLL on Wed, Jan 2, 13 at 17:12

If you've noticed, instructions for making worm tea often caution to use water that has off gassed the chlorine---in order not to kill the microbes you're wanting to mulitply. It's going to depend somewhat on the concentration of chlorine your water department is using (and this can change seasonally or with an event), but sitting for 24 hours should do it. Placing the water in the sunlight or aerating it will speed things up.
Chloramine is a much more stable and could take a week or so, depending a lot upon temperature.
Aquarium water conditioners often say not to use with fish intended for human consumption. This could be because the company never saw a reason to pay for that testing; check out the MSDS for the active ingredient and make an informed decision for yourself.

Interesting. Thank you, Tai-tai. The company I work for is a pet product manufacturer and wholesaler, so I know exactly what you mean about paying (or not) for the testing to add something to a label.

Your comments caused me to actually check the ingredient list on the Prime I use for the aquariums. Turns out, while it may be safe for ornamental fish, I'm now wondering how safe it is for ME! LOL! Apparently one form of it is used to bleach pulpwood...of course as we all know, a substance can have many different forms. I did call the city and they assure me that it's safe, and they are sending me an analysis that should tell me exactly what and how much of it they add. I do know that the city of Lynn MA is very frequently at the top of the water quality list in the state. Not really sure how that relates to real life, but there it is.

After I looked it up, I made a decision. I'm going to stop worrying so much about how I'm doing what I'm doing and go with my gut. Before I found this forum, I was thinking about the worms in terms of what I grew up with. That would be down South, rural, with gardens and worms and harvests, and pigs and cows and never having shoes in the summer. Nothing was as good as planting something and finding a worm when you dug the hole. That meant that the plant was going to grow really great! Add to that, I'm at about 10 weeks with the bin, I have small 1.5" worms that tell me they are reproducing, and the first tray is almost full of castings, so I think I'm doing okay. I have almost no moisture in the bottom, more like condensation than actual liquid pooling, and while I occasionally find a couple of worms on the inside of the lid, it's very few. Most seem to be very happy down in the bedding and food. I haven't missed how many times I've read here about people coming to the forum when the bin died around this time, but I hope I've read enough of the comments to not let that happen. We'll see, right?

So far I've learned a lot here, and look forward to learning tons more, and chiming in now and then. I also plan to keep reading everything (I used to go through paperbacks at the rate of 2-3 a week, but now it's all either worms or roses online), and learning different facets and ways of doing things with my worms and what they give me! I do have a totally unrelated question now, but I'll do that separately. See? I'm even learning about forums at 60+ yrs, or, at least, I THINK I am. LOL! I'll have to figure out how to add a photo before I add bedding again....

And just remember, you're not a true wormophile until you've tried naming all of your worms....at least once.

Shaul

Well, there is Harley...He's the big guy! Or, gal???