Worm problem, Mites

I started a couple new bins. One is fine, the other infested by mites of a couple different kinds. I have searched around and found that melon rinds are good bait and plan to use some as soon as I can get to the store, but this infestation is so bad I am wondering if I can use mozzie dunks or neem or something as well. The predominant mites are wee little white ones, but there are very fast brown ones running around too. I can't tell if any of the mites are predatory on the worms but there is a lot of worm death happening in this bin. Worried,

The interesting thing is I have been feeding both bins from the same source and the other bin has no mite problem. I got the worms a couple weeks ago from different sources and I suspect the infested bin became so from mites that came along with the new worms.

Who has experience with the mighty mite problems? i really want to annihilate these little suckers.

Mites can be a good thing they are considered shredders and help in decaying things such as dead worms etc. They can be predatory and also a food source for other artheopods. Unless they seem to be causing a problem with your soil food web id leave it be. Or get things that are considered predatory to keep the mite populations in check

Mites are great recyclers and decomposers , having a good population of them means food is plentiful and means there is a good soil food web. I'd honestly not worry about it to much

Seems like more than "a good population" to me. They are like this throughout the bin:

looks like there is too much fresh material in there IMO...you can see that some worms are dying and the mites are having a feast. Maybe remove a lot of the fresh material etc. and let them chill for a bit. Also, it looks very wet, almost too wet. do you have an aeration component in your bin to help with drainage? are there holes in the bottom? what does the bin smell like when you put your head in? what does your "bedding" consist of?

the more you let us know the more we can help

how often are you putting fresh material into the bins?

Cann said:

looks like there is too much fresh material in there IMO...you can see that some worms are dying and the mites are having a feast. Maybe remove a lot of the fresh material etc. and let them chill for a bit. Also, it looks very wet, almost too wet. do you have an aeration component in your bin to help with drainage? are there holes in the bottom? what does the bin smell like when you put your head in? what does your "bedding" consist of?

the more you let us know the more we can help

how often are you putting fresh material into the bins?

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After the first disaster, I have been very careful to not overfeed. This was a fresh pound of worms around 2-3 weeks ago now, and since then they have not received more than 1- 1 1/2 pounds of food. They have been congregating in the food supplied, but the fresh stuff never really becomes all castings, I am perplexed that wigglers are supposed to eat 1/2 body weight per day, but these guys don't even go through a few ounces in a day. I have not put any new food in for probably the last 5-6 days, and previously added only around a handful at a time, monitoring to see if they go for it. Usually in about two days they are swarming it.

i am feeding them mostly vegetable/fruit/coffee grounds/ with a lot of juicer carrot/greens wheat grass pulp, with some pulverized eggshell and a wee bit of kelp powder, and I have been adding the soil/seed/root beds from the wheatgrass I grow. This stuff has been alternately frozen and heating/composting outdoors in the weather, so it is not fresh going to the worms.

It smells like shit, truly, like feces in the bin. I think the fermented barley grain I used for tea for my plants which I added to the compost stuff prior to starting the bins And some home made bokashi culture may have turned into something anerobic. I don't know whether worms tolerate that or not, but they are known as manure worms, they should theoretically love the shit. The other thing is, I treat my other bin with a different batch of worms from a different supplier exactly the same, yet that one is doing fine. Worms are also not eating much, and has a few mites, but not infested, and the worms seem to be remaining happy

The bedding is a huge pile of strips of newspaper, and clumps of cut up corrugated cardboard.

Yes there are drain holes, no water pooling in the bin.

It has been damp and drying out so I sprayed it a tiny bit yesterday before the pics.

Whenever I get a bloom of mites I just trap them with some "bait" made of wet paper towel, newspaper or kiwi skins/melon rind on the top layer.

They tend to congregate on the "bait" and I just flush them down the toilet.

After about a week of this, they are usually under control.

Rising Moon said:

Whenever I get a bloom of mites I just trap them with some "bait" made of wet paper towel, newspaper or kiwi skins/melon rind on the top layer.

They tend to congregate on the "bait" and I just flush them down the toilet.

After about a week of this, they are usually under control.

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I put in several watermelon rinds yesterday. haven't checked yet today. Fingers crossed!

Damn, no offense, but that looks like the bottom of a dirty trash can.

brotherjericho said:

Damn, no offense, but that looks like the bottom of a dirty trash can.

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What's your point? Do you keep worms? If so, how do you avoid feeding them garbage, shredded paper etc? That's what red wigglers are supposed to eat/ live in

turnip brain said:

What's your point? Do you keep worms? If so, how do you avoid feeding them garbage, shredded paper etc? That's what red wigglers are supposed to eat/ live in

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Ignore my idiotic response, I was thinking something entirely different when I read this thread. My apologies!

The watermelon rinds are only marginally working. I rinsed a few hundred mites off them, but there are thousands of the buggers in the bin.

I am going to try going through the worst parts of the bin and manually remove the highest concentrations of mites and potentially mite attracting food, then start layering a heap of bedding material with the food in the pre-feeding bin I keep outside. Maybe by changing the concentrated character of the food source itself to more nitrogen/carbon layered than all nitrogen based food.

BTW, there are a few mites running around in the pre-compost bin, but no infestation, but then, it has still been freezing at night and today, we are getting more snow!

brotherjericho said:

Ignore my idiotic response, I was thinking something entirely different when I read this thread. My apologies!

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No worries, thanks

Found this info, seems more comprehensive than anything else i found so far: http://mypeoplepc.com/members/arbra/bbb/id16.html

great link! thanks. I'm having this issue also...but what about when it's time to harvest and use castings? if bugs in the bin are ok, then fine i'll just deal with it, but I dont want to use mite infested castings on my plants. id much rather just kill everything that's not a redworm is BT safe for worms?

I would agree that it's also way to wet. Rather then moist. But then again hard to tell just from the pics

Well, things got bad enough that i am going through the bin, removing the healthy live worms and cocoons and am starting over.

There are areas that are indeed too wet, the areas of food which do have a higher concentration of mites as well. The worms are hanging out in the dryer corrugated cardboard bedding. Very few are in the newspaper.

I have been using a lot of juicer pulp and I think this stuff gets too compacted, I'll try mixing a lot of bedding with this food to keep it aerated, and use predominately cardboard for their bedding.

The other bin does fine despite being fed the same food. Still scratching my head as to why the difference.

Just make sure to later your material , don't add any water or anything unless it's getting dryer then moist. Def. Don't want it wet, which could have cause anaerobic conditions according the smells you described. And when you feed put food just below the surface of soil in either a clockwise or counter clockwise rotation. Little at a time make sure you mark where you last put food checking on it occasionally and by the time you come completely around your first spot that you started should be completely good decomposed etc. Just make sure you don't add to much newspaper or cardboard at a time which can retain more water, making it way to wet in certain areas

I do feed one area, check and see how they react.

There isn't much "soil" per se, just paper/cardboard bedding and food. What do you think of adding bagged organic compost for some "soil"?

snowboarder396 said:

Just make sure you don't add to much newspaper or cardboard at a time which can retain more water, making it way to wet in certain areas

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How to dry if too wet then? I thought adding dry paper/cardboard would do.

i would pick up some dry aged manure and mix that in there...the worms need some sort of bulk material to feed on besides the food scraps...paper and cardboard won't really do.

i say start over with a new bin full of manure, old soil, leaves, maybe some pumice or lava rock, and then a small amount of newspaper/cardboard if you really feel you need it. then give them a tiny bit of food (old lettuce, banana peel, etc.) and see if they migrate towards the food source. if your bedding is good enough the worms will be content to just eat the bedding...they are nicknamed "manure worms" after all...

i think your issues are coming from too much moisture, too much fresh food, and lack of aeration in your bedding/ a lack of true bedding in general...newspaper/cardboard isn't the best bedding by itself. maybe try coco or peat...or manure..or soil...or bagged compost...or something along those lines

if it smells bad something is wrong...