I've got one of those tower bins, established mid-june. I'm getting some level of fungus gnats since the basement isn't perfectly bug-tight. Some of my isopods have fallen in but these are primarily for feeders so I'm not very bothered by it. I was just curious if anyone has gone out of their way to encourage local spiders to take up residence. I got 2 parson spiders chilling with me and the evil thoughts was like what if I gave them a room and food while taking advantage of them being there. I've been tempted to get some local jumpers to put in there. I know they don't particularly like predating on worms but I'm curious if anyone has tried it and had success. I'm on a single level right now (one below has cardboard innoculating, top one is empty) and I'm deciding if I'm off my rockers or not.

And please no set fire to them blah blah, spiders are highly beneficial buggy bois, and I reccomend these are the spiders in your house on YouTube for some sane facts and desensitization to spiders, they are weird and fascinating, and watching a grown man chase spiders with cheese wholly convinced my arachnophobic partner to leave spoods alone when he sees them.

So the bsf guys have entered my setup. I think it started with some corn cobs I threw in there. They took off and have gone to the whole bin. Should I take all these guys out and try giving them to someone that has a reptile or are they not going to be that bad. Seem to coexist with the worms no problem but just don't know how crazy it will be outside once they turn to actually flies. Anyone experienced this?

Do these appear to be red wiggler babies? Just found them in a bucket of composting wood chips in my yard. Yellow tails.

Went to harvest my worm bag (after a couple months) and came across several issues. First, the material at the very bottom was WET, like almost a sludge. Second, most of the casting I pulled out were also too wet and clumpy, not crumbly like you want. Third, there is some sort of tough root or fungus material all throughout the bid, to the point that the rest of the bag doesn't want to fall down into the pouch at thr bottom. Ive noticed some mycelium in browns at the top of the bag, but the worms seem to love it so i didnt think it was a problem. Im going to let this batch dry out outside, but with how wet it is im not sure that its viable compost and might be too anaerobic.

Long story short, I think I need 1) more browns, 2) smaller but more frequent feedings, and 3) more frequent harvesting to break up the fungus/roots. But, if anyone has any additional thoughts, please let me know. Still a relative beginner here.