charlie3t8
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2017
- Messages
- 4
So, I’ve ordered 3 x 9kg bags of traeger oak pellets to make my own millipede substrate (as I don’t have anywhere near me that I can collect from I would consider safe from pesticides). And ordering 70+ litres of substrate gets expensive and honestly can’t be sure what’s in it anyway.
After researching a lot it does seem a fairly simple process and I was going to follow this method:
Soak pellets in water until broken up and damp (not dripping) - should expand to 3 x volume of dry
Add wheat bran and active yeast
Mix thoroughly
Leave and stir every few days, keep warm
There’s a particular site with a good guide (not sure if I’m allowed to post a link) but it suggests that beginners should start with flour, not wheat bran, as even though it's faster it's less likely to go wrong. It also states that the additives should not be more than 8% of the total mix, which sounds sensible to me as millipedes I assume can’t eat that... but most other recipes have a ratio of 5:1 which would mean around 20% of the total mix.
So my questions are (apologies there are a lot)
What should the ratio of additives to pellets be?
Flour vs wheat bran - is it really too easy to mess it up using wheat bran? I’d prefer bran as it’s supposed to make the process faster
Is it better or faster to store in bags rather than tubs? Or use smaller tubs rather than massive ones? I was going to use 2 x 50 litres RUBs
Should I add ventilation holes in the tubs?
Will it go faster if I keep it warmer, and is it possible to over-warm?
And finally - is there a better method for millipede-specific substrate? As all the recipes I found were beetle-specific
After researching a lot it does seem a fairly simple process and I was going to follow this method:
Soak pellets in water until broken up and damp (not dripping) - should expand to 3 x volume of dry
Add wheat bran and active yeast
Mix thoroughly
Leave and stir every few days, keep warm
There’s a particular site with a good guide (not sure if I’m allowed to post a link) but it suggests that beginners should start with flour, not wheat bran, as even though it's faster it's less likely to go wrong. It also states that the additives should not be more than 8% of the total mix, which sounds sensible to me as millipedes I assume can’t eat that... but most other recipes have a ratio of 5:1 which would mean around 20% of the total mix.
So my questions are (apologies there are a lot)
What should the ratio of additives to pellets be?
Flour vs wheat bran - is it really too easy to mess it up using wheat bran? I’d prefer bran as it’s supposed to make the process faster
Is it better or faster to store in bags rather than tubs? Or use smaller tubs rather than massive ones? I was going to use 2 x 50 litres RUBs
Should I add ventilation holes in the tubs?
Will it go faster if I keep it warmer, and is it possible to over-warm?
And finally - is there a better method for millipede-specific substrate? As all the recipes I found were beetle-specific