Questions about keeping giant water bugs

[Globsterzone]

Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum, so please let me know if I am doing anything wrong Yesterday I caught a small giant water bug (it is about 1/2 inch long and I am pretty sure it is an Abedus) and am currently keeping it in a critter carrier. Right now the container is about half full of water with several submerged and partially submerged sticks for it to hide in/rest on. After doing a bit of research I've come to the conclusion that it needs to be fed something live that is about half its size every other day, which will probably end up being crickets and other small insects I catch for it. Apart from this it seems to be a pretty low-maintenance critter to keep. I do have a few questions though:

• Does the enclosure need any kind of substrate on the bottom, and if so what should it be?
• How often does the water need to be changed, and how sensitive is this species to the cleanliness of the water?
• Is this species easily stressed out by noise/light/vibrations?
• How long will it live and how large will it get? (I have seen conflicting information on this)
• I have also found a few water scorpions in the same lake (long and skinny Ranatra species) and was wondering if any of them could be safely kept with the water bug, assuming both are well fed.

I've attached a few photos of my water bug as well as one of the water scorpion I found. Thank you for reading!

 

[chanda]

I kept several Abedus sp. that I caught last spring for a few months, before finally releasing them. One was a nymph when I caught it, the others were adults. I kept them separately - one in a 32oz. deli container with a screen lid, the other two in a divided breeder box (essentially an oversized kritter keeper). Each container contained no substrate, just a couple of inches of water, and some floating bits of cork bark, a few small rocks, and some plastic plants, for hiding under/resting on. I did not change out the water at all, just added fresh water as it evaporated. (I used filtered water from the reverse osmosis filter in my kitchen, plus water from the stream where I initially caught them.) I fed them each a live cricket or sometimes a cockroach nymph roughly once a week. They were really aggressive feeders and fun to watch! (If possible, it's best to avoid using wild-caught feeder insects because you have no way of knowing if those insects might have been exposed to pesticides or parasites that they could transmit to your pets.)

I would not recommend keeping the ranatra in with them - or anything else that you want to keep alive. I had some assorted water beetles, damselfly naiads, and other small aquatic critters in with mine when I first caught them - and they were all devoured over the first few days. I know the Abedus were not underfed because if I offered them crickets more often, they did not take them. I just ended up having to fish dead crickets out of the water.

I can't tell you how long they live as I caught mine in the spring (maybe February or March?) and released them in July. As for how big it will get, yours is already full grown and will not get any bigger. You can tell because it has its wings.

 

[Globsterzone]

I kept several Abedus sp. that I caught last spring for a few months, before finally releasing them. One was a nymph when I caught it, the others were adults. I kept them separately - one in a 32oz. deli container with a screen lid, the other two in a divided breeder box (essentially an oversized kritter keeper). Each container contained no substrate, just a couple of inches of water, and some floating bits of cork bark, a few small rocks, and some plastic plants, for hiding under/resting on. I did not change out the water at all, just added fresh water as it evaporated. (I used filtered water from the reverse osmosis filter in my kitchen, plus water from the stream where I initially caught them.) I fed them each a live cricket or sometimes a cockroach nymph roughly once a week. They were really aggressive feeders and fun to watch! (If possible, it's best to avoid using wild-caught feeder insects because you have no way of knowing if those insects might have been exposed to pesticides or parasites that they could transmit to your pets.)

I would not recommend keeping the ranatra in with them - or anything else that you want to keep alive. I had some assorted water beetles, damselfly naiads, and other small aquatic critters in with mine when I first caught them - and they were all devoured over the first few days. I know the Abedus were not underfed because if I offered them crickets more often, they did not take them. I just ended up having to fish dead crickets out of the water.

I can't tell you how long they live as I caught mine in the spring (maybe February or March?) and released them in July. As for how big it will get, yours is already full grown and will not get any bigger. You can tell because it has its wings.

Thank you for your advice! I'd definitely prefer to feed them store bought feeder insects but the place I live does not allow me to keep them. As it is I'm only allowed to keep the Abedus because it counts as a "fish tank."

 

[MTA]

Feeding once a week will do just fine anymore might foul the water more. Since you cant keep insects you could try feeding feeder fish but they might be medicated which would surely harm your fish. Ranatra can be picky about food sometimes but things that really entice it to eat are things struggling at the top of the water and aquatic creatures. Abedus will eat almost anything that moves.

 

[Canadian Tired]

Careful, they can fly. Dont get bit, it hurts very badly. They are not going to need substrate, they eat minnow (and minnow eat them where i am from depending on the various stages in life they are in). However small feeder guppies should be sufficient if you follow the basic guidelines for tarantula care (monitor it, remove them if nothing is happening).

Dry leaf litter helps as they pretend that they are leaves in order to ambush. Just make sure they float on the surface of the water.

PS dont get bit, that rostrum will hurt, I would personally prefer to get a broken toe than get bit by another giant water bug.

My last water bug was about 3 1/2 inches, and I found it crawling out of a sewer grate. An interesting note is if you take them into an elevator and go up, that they scream like lobsters in boiling water. It likely has to do with equalizing pressure.

 

[basin79]

This is a video of my Lethocerus africanus.

I use gravel, bogwood and live plants. I clean the water whenever it's needed. After a few weeks it tends to have lost the sparkle so I clean the gravel and replace the water with fresh treated water. Add a bit from the kettle to get it up to temp. I put the little rascal in a cricket tub with damp moss whilst I do this.

Skip the 2:27 in this video.