Hehe, yes indeed! And congratulations on the pedelings!!! I love to hear more about how you keep your Ivories! I read that they're supposed to be so easy to keep and breed but I've been having some difficulty.
You know, I am still new enough at this that I am not always sure what I am doing wrong or right! I keep them in Hefty High Rise boxes. They are roughly the size of a ten gallon aquarium. The substrate is about six inches deep. It is about 50-60% coir and the rest is sterilized organic leaf mold and rotten wood and leaves. I started with about 30 Ivories. There were probably 1000 babies and I got nervous they were overcrowded so I gently scooped about 100 out; a few days later I took out 100 more. Then I worried the parents were going to crush them, so I started taking the parents out anytime I caught them topside. A few days later, I had a tremendous die off. I started seeing dead babies (just in the original enclosure). I feed them something fresh about 3 times a week; also fish and turtle food and maple syrup. I can't imagine they starved, but only babies in that original enclosure died; no adults and no rescued pedelings. I thought there was a total die off, but I still pull a few babies out every day. Some of them are 2nd instar and some are brand new babies. I didn't introduce any subfauna, but I found springtails and then around the time they started dying, I found predator mites. They are in most my enclosures and I am not having problems with loss anywhere else. I wondered if having taken the adults out, the substrate was getting anaerobic, without the tunneling of the adults. Or the babies ate everything at the surface and didn't go far enough below for more wood or whatever. My humidity is between 70 & 90% but I am keeping the babies closer to 50%. I drilled 10 1/4" holes at the top of the box. Pretty standard, but I don't know why the babies died. I have about 1000 Bumblebees and no die off there. Perplexing and frustrating to not know.
@mickiem Thank you for the info! I know the feeling of frustration and sadness at having die off and no idea why! Strangely, I have that problem more with some of the easy species and some will die in the same enclosure that others -- even of the same species -- are doing well and seem perfectly healthy in. I have one female Ivory left and I'm hoping that she mated during the brief period that I had males. I also just got three ebony Ivories and thankfully, all seem to be doing well so far!
Wow, 1000 Bumblebees! :wideyed: If ever you need to sell off some extras, I would love to buy some!
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