BSFL questions

[jalli]

sooo I've been feeding these for a lil while now as mulan's staple and I've been wandering if they fall into my plants will they eat the plants ? or roots ? also started pupating them into flies is there anything I can do to speed this up ? as I have very few dark or black larvae. I've considered adding sum leafy vegetables to their containers. ive been pulling them out of cold storage in groups off 50 or so every 3 or 4 days hoping to get the flies in a steady hatch into flies.

 

[Syreptyon]

I don't believe they will eat your plants' roots, but I'm not 100% sure. I've definitely heard of people tossing them into soil before to just let them hatch out into flies naturally. Do you gutload them usually? As for speeding up pupation, I'd like to hear if anyone has any advice on that, too haha

 

[jalli]

no i do not usually gut load them, I was just curious if feeding them would help them mature faster. any time I find black larvae I just put them into a container in her cage I have sum coconut fiber in.

 

[jamest0o0]

Give them something soft to gutload on. They pupate with warmth. Give them a couple weeks at room temp. They are great for the soil, I throw hundreds in my enclosure substrate.

 

[Syreptyon]

Even outside the desire for them to pupate, you need to be gutloading them to give your chameleon the nutrition it needs. BSFL are naturally very nutritious, but you should always be gutloading anyways

 

[NickTide]

If they eat any roots, it would be a minimum amount... nothing to worry about. They normally eat decaying matter If they dont find anything they might try to munch on live matter but I doubt they have the mouth parts to do so.

 

[jalli]

yeah I have always done it with crickets. glad I asked. I'll be stopping at the produce center after work for that.

running substrate free atm until I can figure out how I wanna go about doing that.

 

[jalli]

I always dusted for calcium with crickets, should I with the bsfl ? and if so how often ? I've been getting crickets only when I need to supplement for vitamins

 

[Syreptyon]

It is my understanding that BSFL are so calcium-rich that you do not need to dust them

 

[CJ's Exotics]

Wait, I thought that when you order them, they generally arrive in the pre-pupal stage? (Unless you are breeding them)

 

[jalli]

CJ yes I think that's what you call it, the maggot looking stage. I was asking for advice on getting them to the pupae, black hard shell, stage faster ? I know there's no way to speed up that actual hatching stage.