Excavator clay for Goliath grub?

[NocturnalSkies]

I’ve been raising a Goliath grub for a bit now, the little guy molted into L3 on Nov 8th and is doing great. I have pure Georgia red clay that I’ve been planning to mix into a smaller amount of regular soil and also place some larger chunks of clay around the container once it starts showing signs of wanting to pupate. I’m wondering though if anyone has ever used excavator clay for these guys? This is my first time with a Goliath and I wanna make sure it makes its pupation successfully!

 

[The Mantis Menagerie]

I asked Jonathan Lai about this product years ago. He said it may work. I personally used a solid layer of pure red clay I collected in my yard, and the grubs were able to make pupal cells in it. The benefit I saw in excavator was that it was a consistent, mainstream product, so any success would be more easily reproducible with precision. Unfortunately, when my grubs reached pupation age, there was a bizarre shortage of excavator at all my normal sources, so I was unable to experiment with it after all.