How to culture vinegar eels (on oats — no vinegar)

A word about the name first: most overseas guides culture vinegar eels (Turbatrix aceti) in a bottle of diluted apple cider vinegar. Ours are not kept that way — we culture them on oats, in the same tubs and by the same method as microworms, and that is the method this guide teaches. If you can keep a microworm tub, you already know how to keep these; the eel tub simply goes on the same shelf, with its own label.

Setting up the tub

• Shallow plastic tub with a lid — poke small ventilation holes
• Plain oats, instant porridge or instant potato flakes
• Water to make a thick paste, about 1 cm deep
• Your starter culture, spread over the surface
• A label — vinegar eel, microworm and banana worm tubs look identical

Keep the tub at room temperature (18–27 °C), out of direct sunlight. Worms should be climbing the sides within about a week.

Harvesting and feeding

The worms crawl up the walls above the medium. Wipe them off with a wet finger, cotton bud or small brush, swirl into a shot-glass of tank water, and pipette over your fry. There is no vinegar to rinse off — there is none in the system.

Here is the magic: unlike microworms, vinegar eels keep swimming in freshwater for hours. Fry that hunt at the surface or mid-water get time to find them, instead of the food sinking past and fouling the bottom.

Keeping cultures going

A tub produces well for about 2–3 weeks, then sours — same rhythm as microworms. Start the next tub before you need it, and run two staggered vinegar eel tubs so you never face free-swimming fry with nothing small enough to feed them.

Because all three worm cultures share one method, one shelf runs the whole fry menu: banana worms, microworms and vinegar eels side by side, each labelled with worm type and start date.

Video guides: watch it done

Prefer to see it before you try it? These third-party videos walk through the same culture, step by step. (Overseas setups may differ slightly — follow the advice on this page for our cultures and conditions.)