Worm Discovery

Worm discovery gives hope to fish farmers

Posted Mon Nov 24, 2008 11:18pm AEDT

A marine worm species discovered on a fish farm near Darwin is being hailed as a cheap and effective way to remove pond sludge.
When Berry Springs barramundi farmer Adam Body emptied a fish pond in October, he found something he had never seen before.
"It had no black sludge. You could walk across the pond. The only thing that were different were all these two millimetre holes everywhere," Mr Body said.

Living in the holes was a creature Northern Territory Museum's Dr Chris Glasby says is like a blood worm.

"It's a rather threadlike worm if you like, and its red in colour," Dr Glasby said.
The worms had been feeding off the sludge, naturally cleaning the pond.

Mr Body says the worms' work saved him time and money, and he hopes other farmers will benefit from the find.
"With this now, we can cycle our pond straight back into production, so we don't have a delay. We don't have the cost of scraping the bottom of the pond, or dealing with all of that sludge," he said.
"So these worms are saving us significant time and significant money, allowing us to turn our crops over a lot faster."