Anglers love to store worms in the fridge, keeping their fishing worms alive until their next fishing trip. Some worm farm owners like to delay their growth or reproduction by storing them in the fridge.
Some common worms kept the refrigerator include nightcrawlers, red wigglers, and mealworms.
These worms can survive the chill of the fridge (or die trying after a few weeks!).
As long as your fridge is not freezing cold like in the North Pole, worms can survive there. But for how long? And what do you need to do to keep your worms healthy in a fridge?
Some worms will die under the fridge’s temperature, while other worms can survive and in this article, we’ll be looking at the species of worms that are good and can last in the fridge, and for how long, under which circumstances.
Read on to learn more about these exceptional species of worms. Let’s get to it..
Can You Keep Worms in The Fridge?
Yes, you can keep worms alive in the fridge.
For most worm types, ensure that the fridge temperature is always between 45 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Aside from keeping worms in a worm box, you can also preserve the leftover worms from your previous fishing expenditure in the fridge.
Or you can store your excess mealworms or earthworms in a worm box until you’re ready to make use of them again, either as fishing bait, composting worms or feed worms to your pet.
Try not keeping worms in the fridge you also store your food – This is fine if the container you’ll be storing them in is small but will take a significant amount of space if it’s large, thereby, making the temperature in your fridge unevenly spread.
A pro tip is to use a white refrigerator as black absorbs heat and wouldn’t allow your aim to be met.
Another fridge that’ll work perfectly for storing worms is the small dorm-sized refrigerator.
How Do You Keep Worms Alive in The Refrigerator?
Keeping worms alive in the refrigerator boils down to a few things:
- Temperature
- Time
- Oxygen
- Worm Food
We’ll go into more detail below.
As it is impossible to catch all the fishes in the river in a day, so this often means using all the worms in your bag isn’t possible.
Oftentimes, you have to take some back home as they didn’t make good fish food that day.
A rule of thumb based on research states that worms will survive in a fridge for up to three weeks, however, if you want to keep them alive even longer, then follow the tips below:
How to Increase the Life of Your Worms in The Fridge
1. When you’re done fishing, grab a 7″ x 7″ plastic container.
Pack them all in with leaf litter, soil or whatever the preferable worm bedding is for your species (you can also add other organic material you can get your hands on that makes good worm bedding).
You could also purchase commercial worm bedding but this isn’t really necessary unless you really don’t have access to any suitable bedding.
2. Do not leave the worms open in the scorching sun.
Worms need moist soil or moist compost to breathe and keeping them in direct sunlight will dry them out and suffocate them in a few hours (maybe sooner!) as they absorb oxygen from moisture on their skin.
You should dip them into the water from time to time to keep the worms fresh.
3. You do not want a water-logged container, so you drain the water from the container.
On the flip side, worms can also drown if kept submerged in water. Keep the soil moist
4. Keep a spray bottle of water handy to spritz the worms every few days to ensure they stay moist and don’t dry out or suffocate.
5. Puncture a few air holes (small enough so the worms won’t escape) in the container and put the worms cool in the fridge.
A few holes allow the worms to breathe and ensure you don’t lose any live worms.
6. Ensure to spray water in the container about once or twice a week.
7. Periodically turn the mixture of weeds and worms so that their activities are just within the soil.
8. With this practice, you can preserve the fishing worms even longer till you go out fishing again or you’re ready to put them back into your worm farms or harvest worms for whatever you need them for.
How Long Do Nightcrawlers Last in The Refrigerator?
Night crawlers have different sub-species including;
- European nightcrawler
- Canadian nightcrawlers
- African nightcrawlers.
And the way they can endure the cold in the fridge differs.
Nightcrawlers are the most popular fishing worms and are widely used by anglers all over.
However, how do you keep your nightcrawlers alive?
If you’ve got the European or Canadian nightcrawlers, then you can be sure of them lasting in the fridge.
Canadian nightcrawlers and European nightcrawlers can survive up to a month in the fridge (temperature of 33 degrees F are good to aim for) but will require food and attention after that period.
If you don’t want to feed them, take your worms fishing immediately before this period to ensure you still have live worms.
On the other hand, African nightcrawlers can not survive the chills of the fridge for very long, so if that’s the species with you, keep them away from the fridge.
However, you can find cool spots around your house to shade them under.
The benefit of the African species is it can withstand higher heats but the fridge is not the proper temperature for them.
How Long Do Red Wigglers Last in the Fridge?
Red worms will not last long in the fridge, so do not even attempt to put them in there if you want them to stay alive.
Like the African nightcrawler, the red wigglers hate icy cold places but rather prefer cool and dry locations.
The best place to leave them in is a styrofoam container where they can survive up to two weeks even left unattended. (Make sure it’s a covered container with enough moisture content and small holes for air circulation)
To recap, leave the red worms out of the fridge, and put them in a worm box around cool and dry areas.
How Long Do Mealworms and Superworms Last in the Refrigerator?
As for mealworms, you can store them in the fridge for up to two weeks unattended, however, in the third week, you need to bring them out, add water for them to rehydrate and allow them to wiggle all they want.
Mealworms should remain in that condition for about 24 hours before putting them back in the fridge.
Superworms, however, can not stand the cold temperature of the refrigerator as the cold will put them in hibernation mode and completely stop their growth.
How Long Will Worms Live in A Small Container in your Fridge?
Some worms will live up to three weeks, others up to a month.
If you leave them in a small perforated container inside your fridge, ensure to check up on them after this period to defrost, supply water, add new bedding inside and food, and allow them to wiggle a bit.
Summary and Final Thoughts
Worms stored in the fridge last for about three weeks but can live even longer if you sufficiently feed them.
They obviously won’t create many worm castings if you do not feed them much.
Many anglers do this without a problem or commercial worm farmers do this without issue.
Although they do not need to be fed for a period in the fridge, however, after 3 weeks, you’d have to give them food and a chance to rehydrate, so that they do not die.
For example, the African nightcrawlers won’t last in the fridge if the temperature is below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
On the other hand, other worms will live comfortably under teeth-clanging temperatures.
This article has extensively answered the question; How long are worms good in the fridge?
And we’ve highlighted the kinds of worms that’ll do well in the fridge as well as those that should be kept out of the fridge.
We hope it helps. Cheers!
