Pale/white larvae in my crickets?

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Varalidaine

Juvie Member
I had recently purchased 200ct crickets from Rainbow Mealworms for my 3 month old bearded dragon. I usually keep him on Phoenix Worms, but the relocation was stressing him out and he wasn't that interested. The crickets did the trick and he eats well now, about 26 crickets a day, all during one meal as he doesn't like to eat before 1pm and lights go off at 7:30.

Originally, I had put all 200 crickets in a plastic critter keeper, but immediately could see the smaller ones escaping. I then got a plastic tub with a lid and put the critter keep in it. I would feed whatever ones had escaped the critter keeper and were wandering about the tub. The first day I got them, I fed them with the powdered Repashy (Superload?) product but mixed with water to form a gel. I put some both in the critter keeper and in the tub for the escapees. This is my first time dealing with crickets and I will be honest, I know I was a bad cricket keeper.

As I fed all remaining escapees, I decided to wash the tub and transfer all remaining crickets to it. Upon transferring, I noticed a piece of egg carton on the very bottom had white mold on it. Not a lot, but all of the cardboard pieces were damp feeling and one piece had some white mold. As I chase out the very last live crickets, I notice this wriggling around in the poop. I know here is probably a lot of poop, and I should have taken care of them, but I was just clueless and hoped my guy would eat them faster so it wouldn't be a problem. So of course I panic, and think all of my crickets have some sort of parasite crawling out of them now. Upon research, I saw some people suggest gnat larvae, though these are bigger than gnats so I can't imagine they would get smaller. Others suggest housefly, but they were in a sealed container so I can't imagine how a fly got in unless it was in the first few hours before I put them in the tub or the 20 or so minutes a day I spend feeding my boy.

Does anyone have any opinions? I decided not to feed him any more of he crickets just in case it was a parasite. Do these wrigglers look familiar to anyone? Should I just get rid of the crickets? Oh, and there weren't any of these in the outer tub, only in the small and decidedly unclean critter keeper.



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CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
I'm not sure exactly what those are but I'd be cautious. They're possibly just larvae from cleaner crew bugs which are harmless but I can't say for sure. I'd isolate the crickets as you've done and ensure they stay clean and dry (use water gel or fresh veges instead of standing water) and just watch them for a week or so. If they act normally and there aren't any die offs they should be fine. Otherwise I wouldn't chance it with them and replace the order with a new one that goes into a fresh container. From what I know, Rainbow is a good company so it should be fine to continue working with them if you've been happy so far.
 
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