Worst night EVER!!!!

[Jrl6130]

So I was cleaning out the cricket tank and was putting the crickets into a separate fish bowl. Well... The fish bowl fell and I had shattered glass and over 100 crickets climbing around on EVERYTHING ugh I hate crickets... How do you guys clean out your cricket tanks????

 

[Mediabandit]

I transfer them from the dirty bin to a clean bin then clean out the dirty one. The difference is, I do all this in the bathtub so that there are no escapes. To move them I just pull the eggcrate they are on out of the old bin and place it into the new bin. I will place a few pieces of vegetables in the old bin to get the straglers which were not on the eggcrate. I buy 1000 at a time so I do this bin cleanning every 4 days to make sure everything is clean and healthy.

 

[Catalyst]

I ditched the crickets and used other feeders, haha. But seriously, when I was using crickets I would move all the crates etc to the right side and when the bugs would run over there I would clean the now empty left side. Then move everything to the left side and repeat. Since I wasn't a bit fan of having my hands in there with the bugs however (I'm a weenie, I know) eventually I had two cricket tanks that I alternated so that one was always empty. When it was time to clean the tank, I would shake all the crickets off the dirty egg cartons and they would run up into these plastic pipes/tubes I had propped up in there (capped at the top end so the bugs didn't just crawl out the top). Then it was just a matter of moving the tubes to the empty tank with the crickets inside. Then I would clean out the dirty tank and set it up with fresh substrates so it would be ready to go the next time I needed to clean the tank. Crickets are a pain in the butt and everyone seems to come up with their own ways of dealing with them.

 

[psychgrl]

Yikes! And I get mad when one or two gets loose and I have to chase them around the room! :shock: For what it's worth, I keep my crickets in Sterilite bins. What makes that easier for me is that the bins are lighter and a bit easier to manipulate-and they at least don't break if they fall. I hate dealing with crickets too! We've thought about starting a dubia colony but I have a new baby (dragon, that is) and the colony wouldn't get established quick enough for now. Good luck!

P.S. The idea of using the bathtub is great-thanks Mediabandit!

 

[Clbyuely]

Calm down. Man.
Things will pass away...

 

[BeardieMommy3991]

I use the half and half method. Chase the crix to one side- clean it. Chase em to the clean side- clean the other side. They usually get out of the way pretty easily XD

 

[Draake]

Crickets are horrible...all I have to say.
~Nick

 

[ClydesGirl]

I have a separate bin I use for feeding (it's identical to my main cricket bin, but without holes drilled in it). When I want to clean my cricket bin, I pull out all the egg crate and paper towel tubes and shake them into the feeding bin, then throw away the now-empty tubes and egg crate. I then tilt the mostly empty cricket bin on its side over the feeding bin and use an index card to coax any stragglers into the feeding bin. Once I'm left with only poo, shells, and dead crickets, I empty the cricken bin into a trash bag, then take it down to the kitchen for a thorough cleaning, while the crickets chill out in the feeding bin. Once I have the cricket bin clean, I put in fresh Cricket Diet and Cricket Quencher, a couple of fresh paper towel tubes, and then I dump all the crickets from the feeding bin back into the main cricket bin.

 

[kjinxx2]

I once dropped a full container of 1,000+ superworms on the floor they slid under my bed.... everywhere That was horrible.