FrankiePinchinatti
Arachnoknight
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2019
- Messages
- 192
Sorry for the flood of questions but I am trying to get a thriving cleanup crew going for my dubia colonies and I just have so many question about it.
From the way that I understand it, dubia roaches, lesser mealworms and dermestid beetles are supposed to live together harmoniously where the lesser mealworms eat the dubia droppings and discarded food, then the dermestid eat the dead dubias and everyone lives happily ever after but it seems to be a bit more complicated than that.
I ordered a few starter packs of lesser mealworms and dermestid a while back and dumped them into one of my bins and then after a couple of weeks I could hardly find any of them. I was concerned that my dubia bins are too overcrowded and since I witness cannibalism between them during molts that maybe they were eating the mealworms and dermestid larvae when they were molting so I separated any cleanup crew that I could find and placed them into a separate bin of just frass and dead roaches. The lesser mealworms are doing GREAT in this bin, however the dermestids seem to be limping along, I have only seen 3 beetles and 1 larva recently.
1) If the lesser mealworms are supposed to eat the roach droppings and I assume they do not eat their own, then how do I know when the droppings are "spent" and need to be discarded?
2) I assume that I'm at this point in my side bin as it is now giving off a pretty strong ammonia smell, but how do I separate all of the extremely tiny baby mealworms from the frass?
3) And I'm assuming there are probably also hundreds or more of microscopic eggs in there as well, should I set this aside to try and harvest a 2nd batch of mealworms in a few weeks?
4) As I said, the mealworms are booming while the dermestid have basically died off. The mealworms are actually doing their job and eating the dead roaches, they reduce a dead roach to bare exoskeleton remains in less than a day. From what I understand, the dermestid lay their eggs on rotting flesh so the larvae have something to eat. Could the mealworms be cleaning the dead too quickly, and maybe eating the dermestid eggs in the process?
5) I know a lot of my problems deal with my overcrowded roach bins but I'm conflicted as to what to do with them. I've tried selling them on a few sites but get few hits. I don't want to just kill them, yet I've already expanded from 1 to 3 bins to buy time and obviously can't keep expanding forever. On the other hand, if I get a big enough operation going maybe I can sell wholesale to pet stores? So anyone have any ideas on that front of dealing with an excess of roaches?
Any help on any of these questions or just general advice would be appreciated.
From the way that I understand it, dubia roaches, lesser mealworms and dermestid beetles are supposed to live together harmoniously where the lesser mealworms eat the dubia droppings and discarded food, then the dermestid eat the dead dubias and everyone lives happily ever after but it seems to be a bit more complicated than that.
I ordered a few starter packs of lesser mealworms and dermestid a while back and dumped them into one of my bins and then after a couple of weeks I could hardly find any of them. I was concerned that my dubia bins are too overcrowded and since I witness cannibalism between them during molts that maybe they were eating the mealworms and dermestid larvae when they were molting so I separated any cleanup crew that I could find and placed them into a separate bin of just frass and dead roaches. The lesser mealworms are doing GREAT in this bin, however the dermestids seem to be limping along, I have only seen 3 beetles and 1 larva recently.
1) If the lesser mealworms are supposed to eat the roach droppings and I assume they do not eat their own, then how do I know when the droppings are "spent" and need to be discarded?
2) I assume that I'm at this point in my side bin as it is now giving off a pretty strong ammonia smell, but how do I separate all of the extremely tiny baby mealworms from the frass?
3) And I'm assuming there are probably also hundreds or more of microscopic eggs in there as well, should I set this aside to try and harvest a 2nd batch of mealworms in a few weeks?
4) As I said, the mealworms are booming while the dermestid have basically died off. The mealworms are actually doing their job and eating the dead roaches, they reduce a dead roach to bare exoskeleton remains in less than a day. From what I understand, the dermestid lay their eggs on rotting flesh so the larvae have something to eat. Could the mealworms be cleaning the dead too quickly, and maybe eating the dermestid eggs in the process?
5) I know a lot of my problems deal with my overcrowded roach bins but I'm conflicted as to what to do with them. I've tried selling them on a few sites but get few hits. I don't want to just kill them, yet I've already expanded from 1 to 3 bins to buy time and obviously can't keep expanding forever. On the other hand, if I get a big enough operation going maybe I can sell wholesale to pet stores? So anyone have any ideas on that front of dealing with an excess of roaches?
Any help on any of these questions or just general advice would be appreciated.