Coffee as a Substrate for Centipede

[sisyphus]

Hey everyone,

Although I have lurked this forum (without sign up) for years, today I have created an account to ask a question that I couldn't find otherwise (apologies in advance if I didn't search hard enough, please link me to it).
Can I use ground coffee beans (after extraction of a nice cup using my Moka pot) as a substrate for my centipede?

My centipede likes to burrow inside the substrate and I believe coffee grounds make a very good burrow-able substrate.
For the past 2 years, I have kept it in a self-made substrate using some garden soil, beach sand and coconut husk.
My only concerns are that coffee absorbs water and oxidizes too fast. Can this be a problem?

Thank you!

 

[chanda]

You're joking, right??? Coffee grounds are acidic. They can be used to repel insects and rodents in the garden. They are toxic to cats and dogs because of the caffeine content - and caffeine is also a natural insecticide that helps to protect the plants that contain it. A substrate of pure used coffee grounds, while it might resemble the popular coconut substrate, is likely to be lethal. Small amounts of coffee grounds mixed in with regular substrate may not be enough to cause problems - but why risk it?

 

[sisyphus]

You're joking, right??? Coffee grounds are acidic. They can be used to repel insects and rodents in the garden. They are toxic to cats and dogs because of the caffeine content - and caffeine is also a natural insecticide that helps to protect the plants that contain it. A substrate of pure used coffee grounds, while it might resemble the popular coconut substrate, is likely to be lethal. Small amounts of coffee grounds mixed in with regular substrate may not be enough to cause problems - but why risk it?

It was a very stupid idea, I will just use my earlier method of creating substrate. Caffeine is a literal insecticide, should've researched more before asking.
Thanks!

 

[TheHouseof21pairs]

It’s gotta be a joke. Cannot find any valid reason why anyone would put a centipede in coffee

 

[sisyphus]

It’s gotta be a joke. Cannot find any valid reason why anyone would put a centipede in coffee

I decided to test the claim anyway, my ~1.5 year old (I've had it for 1.5 years, I don't know the exact age) house centipede which I found in my bathroom is now dead.

+4 hours: It began to move slowly
+10 hours: It didn't move until I touched it
+16 hours: It didn't eat the spider I usually offer it
+22 hours: I woke up from sleep and it was lying upside down, dead (pic related)

I felt a little bad, so I stored it inside a vial immersed in gel hand sanitiser.



I am not a professional and I just held on to this house centipede as an experiment to see how long could I observe it. I have written logs of every single time I fed it, its movement during the summers and winters, tried to note down its behaviour like antenna dexterity (my hypothesis was, like humans, centipede would either be left or right antenna-d but the hypothesis turned out to be false as for a sample of size 240, I got p value < 0.001 so I rejected it). I have collected data and done similar p-value tests for container exploration, eating habits (correlation between movement and #days spent without eating), I also observed that for 5/5 times this centipede was a cannibal, no matter how well or poorly fed it was. I wanted to see it moult but it never happened, I really regret that.

Finally, I am working on using CNNs to automate the process of collecting data: Like burrowing schedule, movement, speed, reaction to light, cycles and more. Although the project isn't going very well because of a lack of image data.

 

[Edan bandoot]

View attachment 382291


I decided to test the claim anyway, my ~1.5 year old (I've had it for 1.5 years, I don't know the exact age) house centipede which I found in my bathroom is now dead.

+4 hours: It began to move slowly
+10 hours: It didn't move until I touched it
+16 hours: It didn't eat the spider I usually offer it
+22 hours: I woke up from sleep and it was lying upside down, dead (pic related)

I felt a little bad, so I stored it inside a vial immersed in gel hand sanitiser.

View attachment 382292 .

I am not a professional and I just held on to this house centipede as an experiment to see how long could I observe it. I have written logs of every single time I fed it, its movement during the summers and winters, tried to note down its behaviour like antenna dexterity (my hypothesis was, like humans, centipede would either be left or right antenna-d but the hypothesis turned out to be false as for a sample of size 240, I got p value < 0.001 so I rejected it). I have collected data and done similar p-value tests for container exploration, eating habits (correlation between movement and #days spent without eating), I also observed that for 5/5 times this centipede was a cannibal, no matter how well or poorly fed it was. I wanted to see it moult but it never happened, I really regret that.

Finally, I am working on using CNNs to automate the process of collecting data: Like burrowing schedule, movement, speed, reaction to light, cycles and more. Although the project isn't going very well because of a lack of image data.

You put it in there knowing it's an insecticide??

 

[goliathusdavid]

View attachment 382291


I decided to test the claim anyway, my ~1.5 year old (I've had it for 1.5 years, I don't know the exact age) house centipede which I found in my bathroom is now dead.

+4 hours: It began to move slowly
+10 hours: It didn't move until I touched it
+16 hours: It didn't eat the spider I usually offer it
+22 hours: I woke up from sleep and it was lying upside down, dead (pic related)

I felt a little bad, so I stored it inside a vial immersed in gel hand sanitiser.

View attachment 382292

I am not a professional and I just held on to this house centipede as an experiment to see how long could I observe it. I have written logs of every single time I fed it, its movement during the summers and winters, tried to note down its behaviour like antenna dexterity (my hypothesis was, like humans, centipede would either be left or right antenna-d but the hypothesis turned out to be false as for a sample of size 240, I got p value < 0.001 so I rejected it). I have collected data and done similar p-value tests for container exploration, eating habits (correlation between movement and #days spent without eating), I also observed that for 5/5 times this centipede was a cannibal, no matter how well or poorly fed it was. I wanted to see it moult but it never happened, I really regret that.

Finally, I am working on using CNNs to automate the process of collecting data: Like burrowing schedule, movement, speed, reaction to light, cycles and more. Although the project isn't going very well because of a lack of image data.

Let me get this straight. You came here, learned coffee was an insecticide, used it as substrate knowing it would kill your animal, and monitored the slow terrible death of the centipede. That is the literal definition of un-ethical animal testing. This is an utter sin to all ethical researchers who care about the animals they work with.
It's very clear you are not a professional. A professional would never do this.

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

yikes.

 

[Scorpiobsession]

I am very annoyed about this and I finally am able to respond to this, it's not going to be pretty.

I decided to test the claim anyway, my ~1.5 year old (I've had it for 1.5 years, I don't know the exact age) house centipede which I found in my bathroom is now dead.

You're going to test putting an insect in an insect poison substrate, that is used to kill insects. Doesn't sound like much of a test; it's like testing, oh I wonder what will happen if I spray an ant colony with ant poison. It's sad that you murdered it.

I felt a little bad, so I stored it inside a vial immersed in gel hand sanitiser.

You feel a little bad that you intentionally killed a centipede. Oh well, it's okay since you put it in hand sanitizer.

I am not a professional and I just held on to this house centipede as an experiment to see how long could I observe it.

Professionals usually care about their subjects and if they die it was in the interest of saving more of the animals in the future. How long can you observe it? As long as it takes until you decide to put a centipede in a tub with insecticide substrate. Sounds like a fun experiment, murder.

I have written logs of every single time I fed it, its movement during the summers and winters, tried to note down its behaviour like antenna dexterity (my hypothesis was, like humans, centipede would either be left or right antenna-d but the hypothesis turned out to be false as for a sample of size 240, I got p value < 0.001 so I rejected it). I have collected data and done similar p-value tests for container exploration, eating habits (correlation between movement and #days spent without eating), I also observed that for 5/5 times this centipede was a cannibal, no matter how well or poorly fed it was. I wanted to see it moult but it never happened, I really regret that.

Sounds like a lot of work to put into a centipede just to kill it. You do not regard the life of the centipede. Oh, lets see if these are a cannibal for my pointless experiments just to test a hypothesis. But when it doesn't work you have to kill the surviving ones in insecticide. Imagine if this were a dog forum and someone killed dogs to see if dogs would eat dog meat and when their studies were done they bathed the dogs in poison and they unsurprisingly died.

Finally, I am working on using CNNs to automate the process of collecting data: Like burrowing schedule, movement, speed, reaction to light, cycles and more. Although the project isn't going very well because of a lack of image data.

It's one thing to experiment, it's something else to experiment by killing them. With. No. Purpose

 

[spideyspinneret78]

That's messed up. Why hurt this innocent creature such a stupid reason? Just flat out cruel.

 

[sisyphus]

I can't say I didn't expect people to get angry, I felt stupid while even posting it here. At this point any explanation from my end won't mean much but try I shall.

Did I regard the life of this centipede?
At first, I did not. As I said, I found this centipede in the bathroom. It was right after my sister was screaming and going to kill it (like everyone always does). Ever since it was already dead to me and just something amusing, it was never a living thing. Although, gradually, over time I started understanding it better and had regards for its life.

On cannibalism:
For the first 2/5 I unaware centipedes are cannibals, I merely put them together to reproduce. For the rest of the times, I just varied food shortage/abundance to verify if they are cannibals in all cases (They were). The sin of ignorance.

Was this cruelty?
Depends, farmers kill millions of centipedes (when overpopulated, usually they are a good thing otherwise) using insecticides every day. I don't believe in "Other did it so I did it" so for me the final call was "not all creatures are created equal". They are not, only in idealistic worlds with infinite privileges does a human value every single living life equally. I wonder what are the views of this board on people stomping on spiders and centipedes just because they were scared of them.

Professionalism
I am not a professional. However, there are several accounts of professional researchers testing claims such as the mobility (for more than 14 hours) of centipedes without brains and more. I don't believe their research led to saving centipede lives any more than my (phoney) work.

wHaT iF iT wAs a dOg?
It wasn't. There's no point in comparing for the same reason there's no point in comparing oh-so-innocent-bacterias you just killed by boiling water or a goat next to the cutting block. There are no comparisons, none. If it matters, centipedes have no long term memories, let alone emotional sufferings. Only you do.

Regret
I do. Strangely, I felt bad and utterly stupid right after it died. I don't know what was I thinking, a fatal experiment makes (and made) no sense.

I believe the stupidest that I did (and continue doing) is trying to explain my "cruel anti-centipede-istic" actions on a forum that loves them. It's like going in vegetable heaven and telling the residents that I pluck the vegetables from the ground and eat them (sometimes even raw). Finally, I apologize, I should understand the group sentiment and discontinue my pointless explanations.

 

[Arachnopets]

ADMIN NOTE:

We're done here.