Tips for breeding nightcrawlers?

[truecreature]

Hey guys! So I've been wanting to get into breeding nightcrawlers for my animals to ease some of the strain on my poor aching wallet. I'm mostly looking at following this guide - https://www.trails.com/how_31902_breed-nightcrawlers.html - but I would super appreciate it if I could get some critique on my setup plans or any additional tips. It'd suck if I spent like $80 on worms only for most of them to die lol.

But this is what I'm thinking of doing so far:

- A 45 gallon opaque plastic tote with holes drilled along the upper sides.
- Fill it up most of the way with a substrate made up of top soil, peat, and sand. Not sure what ratios to go with. 2 parts soil, 1 part peat and 1 part sand?
- It mentions keeping a certain pH level, so get some powdered limestone and a pH meter. However, it doesn't say how much limestone to use per amount of substrate so a little iffy about doing that wrong.
- Feed with chick feed.
- The temperature in that room can get down to 68 in the winter. Too cold?
- Have heard something mentioned about eggshells, but not sure of the purpose.

 

[Josh999]

I have zero experience with nightcrawlers, but I've kept my share of worms in general. 68F is certainly not too cold. I'd worry much more about them getting to warm. I don't know the temperature range for nightcrawlers specifically but worms in general like it cool, and I know nightcrawlers like it cooler than most. As for eggshells, they serve the same purpose(a ph buffer) as limestone. And you can certainly feed earthworms chick starter, but you can also give them pretty much any compost your household produces.