Alternative Roach/Superworm Keeping

[Taterbug]

Ah its great fun. I'd suggest trying out with a portion of your feeders first in case you don't like it. They are a real pain to sort back out completely like this.

I only have the superworms (Zophobias morio) and their beetles. I do feed them as well and they are an excellent part of the bioactive setup. They are more predatory than the dubias so they do the majority of cleanup of molts and dead roaches. They would be good to use even if you don't feed them off, though I've found they breed extremely well in this sort of setup. I dumped a tub of 50 larvae in and they morphed into beetles and the cycle continues. Having places for them to pupate, like some logs they can burrow into would be beneficial. My beetle population is reduced from its maximum but I have more larvae than I know what to do with so I'm not worried about that yet. (Local birds may be happy to eat the extras)

I've bought springtails and isopods from Josh's frogs and from neherpetoculture. I've been very happy with the service from both. I also order leaf litter from them as well. (which is unfortunately a consumable to the bugs) if you have clean pesticide free areas you can collect the leaves from safe trees (i stick to maple and oak)

In the dryer setups the tropical isopods don't do as well, so I keep a culture of them handy. I'll top off from this if I need to. The roach tank should be damp enough for them to keep going but its really easy to keep them in the container the come in and feed them bits of mushroom, rice and brewers yeast.
I also isopods that have come in on logs from outside that are a bit more tolerant of the dryness.
The isopods I have the best luck with are the ones from my backyard. I have a few hangers on of the dwarf isopods I ordered but most are the A. vulgare I collect from my yard. They even do really well in the dry bearded dragon setup.

Pepper doesn't bother the beetles. Some dragons eat them, but others don't like them. They have hard shells and a defensive stink to them so they may just be kind of gross. Its not bad if they are eaten though. Captive bred isopods can make a high calcium snack for dragons. (They are crustaceans and some have a Ca ratio of like, 16:1) Wild ones are not so great because they are 'bioaccumulators' of heavy metals. if you want to feed them you can pick out the adults as they breed to make sure you just have the captive bred ones. Pepper sat himself down for a whole meal of them one day.

 

[Rankins]

Taters bug set up looks pretty good. Got a whole ecosystem in there.
I ordered (2) 150 quart camping coolers to set up my dubia and orange head roach colonies. I'm going to heat them with a ceramic heat emitter and a thermostat. I'll put some vents in it and may even put a low speed fan inside. Since I don't want roaches in the house they will be in the garage. So the ceramic emitter should keep them nice and warm. Once its done, I'll post pictures.

 

[quyllur]

Just wanted to say thank you Taterbug for this write up.

I've been keeping superworms in bins with ground up oats and bran and bits of carrot or lettuce for moisture and found it stinks and the carrots either dried out or went moldy and got the substrate moldy around it. I keep them in my storage room where my hot water tank is which keeps the temps above 70F in winter, and currently average about 75F.

Anyway, I read your write up and put together a smaller version, similar to your first iteration. I mixed topsoil and sand about 50/50 (to go again I probably would do more sand less soil, but it works) to about 2" in the bottom of a cheap plastic bin from the Dollar Store, about the size of two shoe boxes side by side and a little taller. Went out to the park and pulled together some leaf litter, branches, and rocks. Baked the soil and sand and washed the other stuff in hot water. Put it all together and then moved both my beetles and worms in to the same bin. I probably threw away a fairly large amount of tiny worms and eggs as I couldn't separate them all from the larger pieces of substrate or even see them, but I moved a ton of worms and my beetles are still producing, so am confident it won't disrupt my colony.

The worms dug themselves straight into the dirt, and the beetles crawl all over everything, hang out under the leaves, dig in the dirt here and there. It's pretty interesting to watch. I put some carrot slices in there and they have been sharing very nicely along with eating the leaves. The other day I went in to 'make it rain' and some of the worms came up out of the dirt for the party, so that was pretty cool. I didn't bother with a drainage layer, as the storage room where they are kept is very dry, so I think I will just need to water carefully and let the heat and air do the rest. I'm looking for some isopods to act as my cleaner crew as well.

I'm going to do a very similar setup for my upcoming dubia colony as well.

One un-looked for, but very fortunate side effect of this new setup, my worms seem to be molting so much more often, every time I go look in there I see newly-white worms scraping their molts off.

 

[Taterbug]

Glad to hear it's working for you! You'll find the branches and leaves will need to be replaced periodically as they get eaten/burrowed into, I need to get more thick branches myself. As long as you are mindful of watering no drainage layer is not a problem. The purpose is just to give extra moisture a place to go instead of making a mud pit. If you weren't satisfied with the mix you can even add some more sand to an area (I did this on the cool side for the beetles to lay eggs) and the larvae will mix it up eventually.

 

[quyllur]

I can definitely get more sand, that's true, especially since I need to go out and get some for the dubias anyway.

Will the dubias burrow much in your experience, or stay more on the surface? Just trying to decide if they need as deep of a substrate as the worms, or would be better off with more room for rocks and sticks and leaves.

 

[Taterbug]

I can definitely get more sand, that's true, especially since I need to go out and get some for the dubias anyway.

Will the dubias burrow much in your experience, or stay more on the surface? Just trying to decide if they need as deep of a substrate as the worms, or would be better off with more room for rocks and sticks and leaves.

They burrow some but no so deeply - more areas to hide and cluster would be better than a deep substrate.

 

[quyllur]

Thanks for the help!