alien mealies...

[cwazy]

alright so i broke down, and ordered some mealies... in attempt to start a colleny.... so we ordered 1000, ended up with a lil over 1500!!! so we took about half of them and put them seperate to adventually turn to aliens... my question is... how do i find the aliens... do i have to sift them daily? will they pupate *sp?* at the top??? how do i find em??? thanks for any and all help!

also went with some branflakes, old fasion oats, and baby rice cerial for the mealies to be in... plus dropping in some carrots... this sound good? so far so good anyways!

thanks in advanced for any and all help :main_thumbsup:

 

[nats]

They will mostly come to the surface.
Dont worry, you cant miss them

 

[ryanrex]

They're so CREEPY! Honestly, they scare me, I cant touch them...

 

[GatorGirl286]

haha i just started my colony so i havent seen any "aliens" yet (hopefully they arent TOO creepy!), im glad you asked this question, bc i was all "ugh do i have to sift this thing all the darn time?" lol

 

[shadowx362]

they are easy to get. They usually are on the top or under or by things(ex.potatoes, carrots...)
Good luck with you colony

 

[laurlaur12]

i'm still waiting for my aliens

 

[cwazy]

thanks all for the replies... now ill wait and see

so does my substrate sound ok???

 

[sauroid]

your bedding mixture seems fine.

 

[Geck-O]

Well, I always find my aliens at the suface. I have never found an alien below the surface before. When I do find the aliens, I put them into another container with all the beetles. Still waiting for some little mealies though....

 

[laurlaur12]

yay, i had an "alien" this morning!!! hopefully tha means more are on the way and i can stop having to go to the stupid petstore to buy feeders!!

 

[Bennayboi]

I find if you dont offer any moisture they turn into pupae much faster. And they normally go to the surface before pupating so theyre easy to spot. Simply getting a bunch of mealworms and putting them in oatmeal and ignoring them for a few weeks will turn almost all of them into pupae or beetles.

 

[cwazy]

a small update...

well.. after growing impaitent and finding next to no funny looking guys... we cut back on the carrots and we are now pulling anywhere between 5-30 pupaes a day out!!! we currently have apx. 70-80 pupaes sitting and waiting and apx. 8 beetles!!! so with that said hopefully something will get rolling here soon...


now for the questions as always

the bedding for the beetles... should this be the same as it is for the mealies???

thanks again to everyone for all of your imput!!!

 

[nats]

I use the same bedding.
I put several dozen beetles in about 2'' of Fluker's cricket chow, no moisture, and took them out after about 4 weeks.
I now have hundreds of tiny mealies.
Now, they are a little over 1/4'' and I can add them to my main colony.
To transfer them, I put some slices of potato in there, and wait for them
to cling to it. Then just lift the potato and shake it over the colony. It takes
a few day to transfer all of them this way.

 

[fallen_angel]

We don't separate our worms, pupae, and beetles. We have 800 mealies stored in the fridge and the rest are all in a bin. For bedding we use about 80% bran, 20% oatmeal, throw some calcium powder and multi-vitamin powder in there, and carrots for moisture. We also keep orange peels on the top because the worms and beetles like to congolmerate and hide underneath of them (they too provide some moisture).

 

[nats]

We don't separate our worms, pupae, and beetles. We have 800 mealies stored in the fridge and the rest are all in a bin. For bedding we use about 80% bran, 20% oatmeal, throw some calcium powder and multi-vitamin powder in there, and carrots for moisture. We also keep orange peels on the top because the worms and beetles like to congolmerate and hide underneath of them (they too provide some moisture).

What do you do when you have to replace the bedding?

 

[hoppslover]

Well, when I replaced my bedding I waited until my worms were all grown up lol. Or atleast until they were to big to fall through my sifter. I don't actually replace the bedding but I do sift out the worm poo. Then I just add more bedding. I also add dried milk to my bedding I figure this gives them calcium and other vits. My colony is going like gang busters.

 

[Zynx_Keekeio]

this stinks so much because I bought mealworms from my work and then most died but a few turned all white and creepy lookin like white worms and I was like, eww what is this and I touched them and they wiggled, so i fed them to my leos, if only I had kNOWN!!!!!
*sniffle*

 

[nats]

this stinks so much because I bought mealworms from my work and then most died but a few turned all white and creepy lookin like white worms and I was like, eww what is this and I touched them and they wiggled, so i fed them to my leos, if only I had kNOWN!!!!!
*sniffle*

They turned white and creepy looking?? :main_huh:

Not sure I know what you mean, except they may have pupated!?