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Advice Ragworm

Valleyboy said:
Plenty of sea peat or vermiculite and regular paper changes. As MrF says , smaller packets helps and limits loss. Check for damaged/bloated worms and discard. If you do ha\/e to put them in a fridge, don't ha\/e it turned right down
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I’ve had shop bought worms in that vermiculite and they seemed to die and dry out very quickly.
Not sure if it was coincidence but I think I’d prefer peat
 
Mr Fish said:
I’ve had shop bought worms in that vermiculite and they seemed to die and dry out very quickly.
Not sure if it was coincidence but I think I’d prefer peat
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I suppose too dry will be as bad as too wet. I always find it toughens up the worms well but I ne\/er keep them for long anyway , they are normally used on the day or day after purchase. I \/ery rarely dig rag, probably not more than twice in the last ten years if you discount maddies
 
If I’m keeping them in the fridge for a couple of days I mix pearlite in with them just enough to take the dampness off the worms. Always try and use mushroom trays and leave them unwrapped on the paper. Also try not to let the fridge go below 5 degrees found that a death sentence for rag.
 
Valleyboy said:
I suppose too dry will be as bad as too wet. I always find it toughens up the worms well but I ne\/er keep them for long anyway , they are normally used on the day or day after purchase. I \/ery rarely dig rag, probably not more than twice in the last ten years if you discount maddies
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I think I bought these and fished chesil in the night, but they were already turning after a few hours.
Had a ferry to guernsey in the morning so kept kept them for that but they were dead pretty quick despite electric cool box etc.
 
Valleyboy said:
I suppose too dry will be as bad as too wet. I always find it toughens up the worms well but I ne\/er keep them for long anyway , they are normally used on the day or day after purchase. I \/ery rarely dig rag, probably not more than twice in the last ten years if you discount maddies
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I’d love to dig it but none around here. Maddies yes, loads
 
Mr Fish said:
I’d love to dig it but none around here. Maddies yes, loads
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They are rare around here as well or seem to be. I'd ha\/e to tra\/el 60+ miles with no guarantee the beds are still there. I used to dig a lot on the Welsh side of the bridge between sudbrook and Newport but so did a lot of other people so I doubt those beds are still there
 
I dig fresh rag locally about this time of year for the winter months and keep them in a small fridge in my cabin in a bucket. Any broken worms I put in a separate bucket both have aerator stones in them, I cut a one inch section out of the magnetic strip on the door for the air pipe.The broken ones normally heal after a few days but have to change the water every 12 hours once healed I put them in a bucket with the whole worms. I remove any dead worms if they to squishy I chuck them if not I salt them and freeze them. The whole worms I change the water every 48 hrs. I keep 5 spare water bottles full of sea water in the fridge so it's the same temp as in the bucket so it doesn't shock them on a water change and kill them. I also remove any spawning worms (bright green ones) and place on news paper with vermiculite which normally changes them back to red after 24hrs and these are the worms I use first for fishing or salt them up and freeze. Once the worms are established in the buckets they will start to make a slime ball which they live in, do not remove the slime I've found by trial and error the worms use to much energy creating more slime and can turn them or kill them as it weakens them making more.if the ball gets to big in the bucket remove half of it. I've been keeping rag worm this way for the past 15years and always have a supply of fresh rag I also use this method on keeping lug and yellow tails the same way but change the water every 24 hours. Hope this helps?.
 
Oh I forgot to mention I got a beko under bench fridge with a freezer compartment second hand £30 and the aerator pump cost me £20 new hers some pics of the yellows and lug haven't got any of the rag yet. These are on my work bench at the time I was experimenting with them as you can see I use one pump with a splitter to aerate to buckets. These kept for about two months not in the fridge it was cold enough in the cabin winter months last year. The yellows and lug were shop bought aswell.IMG_20210206_150030.jpg
 
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