I'm so not a wine drinker.... but...

[YavannaV]

I bought this for reptiworms.

Is 55 degrees the ideal temp?

Our little Ziggy is adoring the worms and is up to around 25 a day (at 5-6 weeks old).

We don't really like wine, so I've put bottled water and sparkling water in the extra shelves. It's a six bottle cooler and super quiet and reasonably priced. I've just been putting vitamins on his salads and 1x a week calcium on the salads because the reptiworms have such a high calcium content. Is this a good idea? I absolutely hate crickets and the roaches are illegal here in Florida. I'm thinking butterworms and waxworms would be a good alternative for occasional use but I plan to have reptiworms as the staple. I will never use superworms ever again as it led to Dreganna's impaction. No hard shells/chitin ever.

 

[esn]

In time you can culture the "reptiworms" yourself. They're just soldier fly larvae.

That seems a bit cold to me, but I've never been exact on temperatures for them. Whatever the source you get them from says to put them at should be fine.

There are other species of roaches that are legal and available in Florida. You should be able to find colonies on classifieds like craigslist or kingsnake.com.

 

[YavannaV]

Roaches give me the heebie jeebies so I was rather glad to use the excuse that I live in Florida to not consider them as a staple. The conditions here are too ideal for an escapee to populate and thrive so I doubt I'd ever start a colony because we don't have roaches in our home (we've done the sticky mat test and it was empty after I freaked out about seeing a palmetto bug).

I've still been buying crickets to offer as an alternative but Ziggy isn't too fond of being fed in a separate plastic bin and I don't want them hiding out in the enclosure to come out and bite him during the night. So far, we've been having fantastic luck with the reptiworms being kept in the wine fridge. They aren't moving when we take them out but wake up and start wiggling about 20 seconds after. The website said they could last two months in the wine fridge but would die in the coldness of a regular refrigerator. The only annoying thing with them is the storage medium that is in the container. It sticks to them.

I did read somewhere that you could take a spoonful of the worms and drop them into a cup of water and the medium will sink and the worms will float but I think that might drown them? I haven't tried it yet and looked for more info about it and haven't found the thread again. If anyone does do this method, please let me know how that works for you.

Thanks.

 

[esn]

I did read somewhere that you could take a spoonful of the worms and drop them into a cup of water and the medium will sink and the worms will float but I think that might drown them? I haven't tried it yet and looked for more info about it and haven't found the thread again. If anyone does do this method, please let me know how that works for you.

This will absolutely work. Don't worry about drowning the bugs. It takes quite a while to drown any type of worm/larvae. I've frozen mealworms up to an hour without any die off (to rid of mites), and have left various bugs in water for up to ten minutes without anything. The most curious are earthworms, which I've left over 24 hours in water without them dying. After that it took over 48 hours for the body to stop moving, and another 24 to decompose. This wasn't some evil experiment - I was feeding them to axolotls. But yes, that method will work for sure. You could also try a small strainer if you have one. I personally never liked reptiworm's packing material, but it can be rinsed off rather easily.You can also use feeding tongs and pick them out and quickly dip them in water if you don't like the idea of floating them.

 

[ashleyelsha]

I thought I was going to do reptiworms and phoenix worms as a staple, till my dragon started polishing off 50 of them at a time and was still hungry. I buy crickets in bulk and freeze them after gutloading them. It is working great and my guy is growing about an inch a week I swear. I measured him about a week ago and he was 10 and a half inches, I measured him today and he is 11 and a half inches. I was still supplementing with phoenix worms until I ran out, but the crickets are just so cheap I haven't bought any more worms yet, although I was going to get him some butterworms for a treat because petsmart has them. I did order some crickets online and gutloated them myself then I froze them, It was a pain cleaning up afterwards. I just found out I can order 1000 crickets for $24 at my local petstore, and they are already gutloaded so I just take them home and stick the bag right in the freezer... piece of cake. Then I thaw out what I want to feed, dust it, and voila. Fat and happy lizard. I hand feed him a lot of the crickets because it helps me get him to try new foods but now that he's used to it I can dump 20-25 crickets on top of his salad in the morning before i go to work and by the time I get home they are gone and he will eat 20 more. I hand feed him as many as he will eat and he usually eats around 20-25 so that's how I know how much to leave on his salad in the mornings.

 

[Flynnthedragon]

I would try that temp but only put a few worms in there in a cup. if they die then its to cold its best to have a few die then stick all the worms in there and die and all that money in the trash.