Are you a Tarantula hobbyist? If so, we invite you to join our community! Once you join you'll be able to post messages, upload pictures of your pets and enclosures and chat with other Tarantula enthusiasts. Sign up today!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dave Jay" data-source="post: 143726" data-attributes="member: 27677">Black and squishy, humidity too high, add ventilation, black and hard, too dry, add more cover like egg cartons and keep the food fresh.If I recall I made a thread on my method for breeding mealworms, I'll see if I can find the link but it is simple. Your tub doesn't seem to have enough ventilation which can lead to mould problems, but put very simply - a tub with at least one inch of rolled oats, egg carton and cardboard stacked to make layered shelter (the layers are important unless you seperate the stages), then add slices of carrot to one end only, directly onto the oats. The carrot disappears into the oats where what is not eaten dries out rather than go mouldy and more is added a couple of times a week. As the oats turn to frass (powder-like) more oats are added. Every year or two decide there is too much frass and too many dead beetles, tip everything into another tub, set it up fresh and sift the old substrate so you can add as many live beetles, pupae and worms to the new set-up as you feel like picking out, or just buy another tub of mealworms. I have two main colonies so that I don't have to wait while the cleaned colony gets back up to full production.Unless you need small worms use the largest worms and some pupae for feeding, they are usually in the top layers of cardboard anyway and you don't need many adult beetles to keep the colony going.Mine run for years just topping the oats up every few months and adding carrot and vegetable scraps, the effort and the cost are very minimal.</blockquote>

Verification