Composting with worms.

My husband bought me some red wigglers through the mail last year for my birthday, since I was trying to go greener by composting and wanted to start a organic garden. Well before I recieved the red wigglers I was driving and saw a small fishing store that advertised red wigglers as well so I decided to buy a container of red wigglers from this guy to try them out. When I received the package of red wigglers that my husband had ordered through the mail I saw that they were smaller and that they had a more bibrant red color on them, my thoughts were that maybe they would get bigger and fatter like the ones I purchased from the sports fishing store, so I decided to place both worms together. At first everything was going well but now a year later everytime I look to see how many worms there are on my box I keep seeing less and less and sometimes I see a fat one just like the ones I purshased in the fishing store plus it takes a long time for the worms to digest the food. I guess my question is, what is going on with my worms? Are the big worms killing the red wigglers? and If so should I just start another container and order more red wigglers and throw this one away?

thanks

Carmen

Ps: I live in florida and have the box of worms in my laundry room so I know that it's not the cold that is killing them.

I don't know too much about worms but the first thing I'd do is make sure you're caring for them and feeding them appropriately--you do have to do things a specific way for the best results. There's a whole forum for vermicomposting, you might read some threads over there and ask them for some advice. Here's a link to it: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/wrigglers/all/

Thank you, I'll definetely take a look at that thread.

Red wigglers like you got in the mail are a different variety from fishing worms. I use both, but NOT together. I have a worm bin with my red wigglers in it, and I put fishing worms in my regular compost bins.

I don't know if they're eating each other, but I do know the bait worms aren't going to eat your kitchen waste like the red wigglers do, and the red wigglers don't eat garden materials.

I'd suggest you put all the worms you have left in your regular compost or in your garden soil, thoroughly clean your worm bin, and start over. You don't want any eggs left from the fishing worms when you get your new red wigglers, or you'll start the whole cycle all over again.