fluxlizard
Avid Member
Can anyone with a bit of experience help me out with figuring out how to breed superworms?
I've been trying with a couple hundred beetles the past month or so but I haven't found any baby supers.
My setup- beetles are put in a 20 gallon rubbermaid storage container directly on the ground up bran bedding which is about half full of bedding (well more than bran, but it's all dry and ground up) apple slices are supplying the only moisture. I've got a cardboard egg container for them to climb on and they congregate in this. 1x per week I move the beetles to a new container. These storage containers are directly on a concrete floor. The room reaches ~80 or sometimes a little more 6' off the ground. Haven't bothered measuring temp on the floor in the boxes but it is probably several degrees cooler down there. Maybe more because of the concrete floor beneath. Night temps drop probably 20 degrees, maybe more some nights.
Now my Questions- the idea of keeping the beetles directly on a substrate of food came from watching youtube videos. I have also read stuff that suggested damp wood shavings necessary and pieces of weathered cracked wood, peat moss, even leaves or mulch for egg laying. Should I be using one of these instead of the substrate of dry food? I went with the food after seeing the videos because it seemed simpler than sifting tiny worms out of mulch or sawdust. And another thing I read said rolled up currigated cardboard for egglaying? Are these necessary or can the beetles lay directly in the substrate. Should the substrate be slightly damp for success (which would mean no dry bran or food for egglaying?)
How important is temperature for successful hatching? Do I need to keep them warmer at night and get them up off the floor at all times? I know too cool is bad for supers, but not sure if 60s to low 70s just slows down everything or prevents successful reproduction?
Any simple but easy tips? I want decent production but I don't want to have to artificially provide extra heat on the tubs- maybe I should only breed these in the summer months when the building is warmer? My 3 species of roach are going great in these conditions (hissers, dubia, lobsters) although I tend to keep most of the roach tubs up off of the floor once they are loaded (I load them up and start new as I feed, sorting my adults into new tubs which are kept on the floor for a few weeks until they have plenty of adults- maybe I need to keep the super beetles and eggs off of the floor until they hatch? I keep my normal mealworm colonies on this floor and they do great as well, but maybe the temp is too low for supers?).
Thanks!
I've been trying with a couple hundred beetles the past month or so but I haven't found any baby supers.
My setup- beetles are put in a 20 gallon rubbermaid storage container directly on the ground up bran bedding which is about half full of bedding (well more than bran, but it's all dry and ground up) apple slices are supplying the only moisture. I've got a cardboard egg container for them to climb on and they congregate in this. 1x per week I move the beetles to a new container. These storage containers are directly on a concrete floor. The room reaches ~80 or sometimes a little more 6' off the ground. Haven't bothered measuring temp on the floor in the boxes but it is probably several degrees cooler down there. Maybe more because of the concrete floor beneath. Night temps drop probably 20 degrees, maybe more some nights.
Now my Questions- the idea of keeping the beetles directly on a substrate of food came from watching youtube videos. I have also read stuff that suggested damp wood shavings necessary and pieces of weathered cracked wood, peat moss, even leaves or mulch for egg laying. Should I be using one of these instead of the substrate of dry food? I went with the food after seeing the videos because it seemed simpler than sifting tiny worms out of mulch or sawdust. And another thing I read said rolled up currigated cardboard for egglaying? Are these necessary or can the beetles lay directly in the substrate. Should the substrate be slightly damp for success (which would mean no dry bran or food for egglaying?)
How important is temperature for successful hatching? Do I need to keep them warmer at night and get them up off the floor at all times? I know too cool is bad for supers, but not sure if 60s to low 70s just slows down everything or prevents successful reproduction?
Any simple but easy tips? I want decent production but I don't want to have to artificially provide extra heat on the tubs- maybe I should only breed these in the summer months when the building is warmer? My 3 species of roach are going great in these conditions (hissers, dubia, lobsters) although I tend to keep most of the roach tubs up off of the floor once they are loaded (I load them up and start new as I feed, sorting my adults into new tubs which are kept on the floor for a few weeks until they have plenty of adults- maybe I need to keep the super beetles and eggs off of the floor until they hatch? I keep my normal mealworm colonies on this floor and they do great as well, but maybe the temp is too low for supers?).
Thanks!
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