Taterbug
BD.org Addict
I've been experimenting with keeping some of my feeder insects in a terrarium and wanted to share with everyone an alternative to keeping their roaches in a plain old bin. The advantage is that I basically do not have to clean - the super-worms/darkling beetles eat the molts and any dead roaches, the smaller bugs eat the small things and keep fungus/mold in check, the soil soaks up any moisture from food (I also spray it down from time to time to keep the soil moist) but it doesn't get all rank like when the food goes too long in the other tank and the whole thing just sort of smells... earthy. (My egg-crate bare bottom roach tank on the other hand has a distinct... bug smell).
It does have a couple draw-backs... I have one adult dragon, so I don't need to sort and don't feed smaller sizes, it would be a pain to get lots of little dubia out. I am ok with dirt, leaves and wood being part of my food chain (more variety) - selecting safe materials (wood, leaves, organic soils etc) is important though.
The first setup was just soil (organic potting soil) in a 20L with some isopods. The heat mat is on the side with slate and debris piled against it for the heat gradient.
The current setup is the same 30g with a better soil mix, isopods and springtails. It has a drainage layer, more branches (maple and oak mostly) and orchid bark and leaves mixed into the organic soil. There is also a lot of sand on the cool side, the darkling beetles really seem to like laying their eggs in the sandy soil.
Isopods (rolly polly bugs) and Springtails (they are very tiny)
The roaches are doing well, there is a heat mat under the left side and keeps the soil about 80F max. They burrow and cluster on the warm side, but are really all over the place. Its actually been fun to watch them - they are active little bugs that interact with each other and explore their environment even during the day (just not as much as at night). They have come out en-mass more than once when they can smell me cooking - its a little strange.
The superworms do a good job of cleaning any and all dead roaches and molts. They are also breeding like crazy. I will probably need to thin the population, this might be one of the draw backs actually as I don't want the superworms to out-compete the dubia. After I get rid of my other dubia colony I plan to have the other tank just supers so I don't need to worry about that. Its been pretty easy (with a little digging) to get ANY size of larvae and man are the little ones TINY. They pull things like mango pits and seeds under the soil and pick them clean and will even core core out the squash seeds and eat the insides.
I've also been experimenting with foods - the idea being to round out the diet of the insects to pass the goodness along. (Studies show that insects fed good diets all their lives are more nutritious than ones simply gutloaded prior to being fed off.) I stick with dragon-safe foods of course, mostly they get the salad leftovers, scraps and rinds. They do get meat every-now and then (not to much since the I don't want the roaches eating too much protein) but the superworms even cored the marrow out of chicken bones. The supers have different tastes in food than the roaches and even the different ages of roaches seem to have different tastes.
Bonus time-lapse of them eating homemade bread.
http://skies-of-salt.tumblr.com/post/128743900459/today-i-learned-the-roaches-love-bread-this-is
It does have a couple draw-backs... I have one adult dragon, so I don't need to sort and don't feed smaller sizes, it would be a pain to get lots of little dubia out. I am ok with dirt, leaves and wood being part of my food chain (more variety) - selecting safe materials (wood, leaves, organic soils etc) is important though.
The first setup was just soil (organic potting soil) in a 20L with some isopods. The heat mat is on the side with slate and debris piled against it for the heat gradient.
The current setup is the same 30g with a better soil mix, isopods and springtails. It has a drainage layer, more branches (maple and oak mostly) and orchid bark and leaves mixed into the organic soil. There is also a lot of sand on the cool side, the darkling beetles really seem to like laying their eggs in the sandy soil.
Isopods (rolly polly bugs) and Springtails (they are very tiny)
The roaches are doing well, there is a heat mat under the left side and keeps the soil about 80F max. They burrow and cluster on the warm side, but are really all over the place. Its actually been fun to watch them - they are active little bugs that interact with each other and explore their environment even during the day (just not as much as at night). They have come out en-mass more than once when they can smell me cooking - its a little strange.
The superworms do a good job of cleaning any and all dead roaches and molts. They are also breeding like crazy. I will probably need to thin the population, this might be one of the draw backs actually as I don't want the superworms to out-compete the dubia. After I get rid of my other dubia colony I plan to have the other tank just supers so I don't need to worry about that. Its been pretty easy (with a little digging) to get ANY size of larvae and man are the little ones TINY. They pull things like mango pits and seeds under the soil and pick them clean and will even core core out the squash seeds and eat the insides.
I've also been experimenting with foods - the idea being to round out the diet of the insects to pass the goodness along. (Studies show that insects fed good diets all their lives are more nutritious than ones simply gutloaded prior to being fed off.) I stick with dragon-safe foods of course, mostly they get the salad leftovers, scraps and rinds. They do get meat every-now and then (not to much since the I don't want the roaches eating too much protein) but the superworms even cored the marrow out of chicken bones. The supers have different tastes in food than the roaches and even the different ages of roaches seem to have different tastes.
Bonus time-lapse of them eating homemade bread.
http://skies-of-salt.tumblr.com/post/128743900459/today-i-learned-the-roaches-love-bread-this-is
