I'm not familiar with using sea weed so I suggest you try it with a few worm first to see if it is safe (because of possible salt contents?) You might want to search "sea weed" on this site, see how others did.

I understand seaweed makes great worm food after the salt water has been rinsed off of it. It is not bedding. Rinse off your seaweed and feed it to your worms, but keep your paper/cardboard layer on top. You may want to treat it like you did your orange peels and pineapple until the worms let you know if they really like it.

I tried kelp a few years ago and the worms did not seem to like it. I put it in a corner of the bin and it lasted weeks. I left about 1/2 a bucket full sit around for a few months to age and add to my tea. Bad idea, VERY stinky! Fies loved it:) It ended up buried in my compost pile and worms ate the compost pile, so???

It definitely is NOT bedding, as it melts and liqufies as it rots away. If I get more I will blend it and use in my teas. Any extra gets burried in the garden.

I would give a quick dip of the fresh, juicy seaweed in a bath of fresh water, maybe even while still at the beach if possible. As sbryce said, under the cardboard. I bet seaweed exposed to the air will turn leathery and not let oxygen in. Maybe mendopete's bucket method is the best use. Keep the bucket in the chicken run and attract free feed for them.

Good luck with your vermicomposting, and it was 11:44 PM. Not a lot of time to get in a 5th question of the day. But I bet you thought of one or two already.

I just wanted to mention that the reason your four posts got such hearty replies while other posts do not is that you gave us detailed information to work with. With all that information long time posters could easily envision your system and pinpoint the information you needed. I would also like to encourage long time lurkers to post answers. No doubt there are worm keeping secrets to your methods that could help others. My worms seem to have taken a vow of chasity and constipation. For other vermicomposters tons of worms and castings is like rolling down hill.

Thanks everyone for your answers (so far). When I did a search on the forum - there was no mention of rinsing the sea weed before putting it my bin. And rinsing would lose all that wonderful sand! So I didn't rinse - I am going to check on them later - so I'll let you know what I see/find.

Also it does take seaweed a long time to breakdown - so I don't expect dining beachside to happen too fast.

Update: checked on the worms after adding the seaweed and found that things were fine - except that it was really wet in there. I pushed the seaweed over to one side and put in more bedding on the opposite side (and stirred it up to soak up some moisture). So - it looks like things are fine.

My worms have a lot of food now (seaweed plus their weekly feeding) - so I am planning to back off feeding until it is mostly gone and just add bedding as needed.

Finding the balance is the "art" of vermicomposting and I can see that this is a learned process and changes over time.

Thanks again everyone - if I didn't mention you by name (in this and my other posts) - I apologize - I appreciate each and every one of your responses.

Update on my seaweed feeding:
17 days after adding it to my bin without a pre-soak. Most of the seaweed seems to be gone - what is left is is the thin hair like threads - they are a bit coarser so that is understandable.

Mendopete said their worms didn't like it all. I do think my worms didn't like it at first (maybe too salty - maybe just 'cause it was something new) - I did give the bin a shower (over the sea weed side) to help remove the salt after seeing the posts here. Not sure if it helped or not - or just seemed to. As you know I have stopped showering them - but did do it one more time due to the salt issue. As Mendopete said - the run off was stinky! But my bin is not stinky at all - and no flies or maggots either - I think because I buried it well - I may have avoided that (and I have a covered bin.

I will pre-soak/rinse next time as equinoxequinox, Bryce, and Otis suggested and I read in the Farmers' Manual posted on another post by Colin3.

I do have access to seaweed (live near the beach) - but I think I will only add it occasionally - and not make it a regular diet - at least for now. I have a lot of food waste and folks have started giving me coffee grounds - so I don't need another source of food at this time. I am however going to start another bin as I have just added my third layer (last layer) and I seem to have more food waste than one worm bin/cafe can handle - and my composter is full! Adding the seaweed and needing to back off on feeding - had the worm food pile up (so to speak) - so because I don't "need" it now - I won't pick it up regularly.

Ha ha equinoxequinox - no chicken run here - I am a city/suburbs vermicomposter and we are not zoned for chickens!

Thanks again everyone. My worms thank you too!

I believe that your rinse saved the project. The salt in seaweed unwashed killed almost all the worms in my cousin's bin. Until she washed it clean, and let the worm population regrow, it was pretty sad.

I don't live near the sea, so have no clue as to how difficult it is to rinse off seaweed!

Years ago, my father had a pond that grew a plethora of algae. We scooped it up and spread it on our gardens. Best year either of us ever had. It seemed clear to us that water-grown vegetation takes up lots of great nutrients. But obviously, there was no salt.

Best of luck to you!