Question about storing crickets for Gecko

[bdeslaur]

Would this enclosure be good to house around 500 crickets? If not, do you recommend another enclosure (maybe cheaper?). https://www.reptmart.com/p-2449-65-gallon-reptarium-enclosure-for-sale.aspx

*EDIT* I figured out a much better way: use a huge tub.

 

[Angrychair]

just go to wal mart and buy a big tupperware tote for $15

edit: i just read your edit.

 

[Crewdog00]

I've got a question about storing crickets. I got 36 small ones, and 25% of them died. I placed them in the plastic cube with food and water for the crickets in the Organge Cubes.

Am I doing something wrong that my crickets are dying. I would like to buy 500, but I'm afraid a quarter of them will die off.

 

[mudskipper]

I've got a question about storing crickets. I got 36 small ones, and 25% of them died. I placed them in the plastic cube with food and water for the crickets in the Organge Cubes.

Am I doing something wrong that my crickets are dying. I would like to buy 500, but I'm afraid a quarter of them will die off.

Are you providing them with enough hiding places? Clean water and good quality food?

I have a couple of these containers for baby and adult crickets.

There is a larger version with 4 black tubes, too. For water, I use a small vial filled with water and plugged with a cotton ball, which I clean every few days. I use plastic bottle caps for food. I put in 3 kinds: high quality dry dog food, high quality fish food flakes, and Fluker's High Calcium Cricket Diet. I also put in slices of apples, carrots, or whatever veggies I happen to have. These things are definitely better than those orange cubes.

 

[mudskipper]

For this small container, I only put in 50 adult crickets at a time though. For 500, you could use a plastic tub and egg crates for them to hide. 500 crickets will be loud and probably smelly.

 

[Crewdog00]

I have 2 orange food/water cubes and the two black tubes that come with the circlet keeper kit.

 

[meg1877]

are you sure they were dead crickets and not the skins? Crickets shed their skin as the grow. Also make sure they have alot of surface area or they will kill each other for space. If you order them from a cricket breeder you can see if they send egg crates with the crickets. Also in my tub I got there was a lip around the edge,on the bottom and I noticed the crickets had trouble getting over the lip due to the smooth surface so i sanded it with sand paper to allow grip. now I have less die off. I think they were getting stuck in the lip and dieing. Hope this helps!

 

[Crewdog00]

I checked and double checked. They are Dead Crickets. I had 36 in a Kricket Keeper. And the label says you can keep 36 in there.

I have now moved them in a 5.5 Gallon fish tank for more surface area. I counted a total of 5 left and will see how they do.

 

[Taesolieroy]

For my crickets I just have a 10 gallon bin I picked up from the grocery store for $8, sawed a small rectangular hole in which I superglued and taped on some petproof screening I happened to have lying around on both sides (as well as plugging any holes large enough for a baby cricket to squeeze through with a few layers of tape as they WILL chew through the tape!). This works well in allowing air flow, controlling light (crickets like being in dark places but it's convenient that they'll climb the walls when the lid's open so it's easy to scoop them up!) and it also reduces the smell output so I can clean it once a week and not have to worry about the surrounding area smelling like ripe crickets. However.. it's like herding cats scooping them up to transfer into a holding bin so the main bin can be cleaned!

I easily store 500 in there at any given time and keep the extra cartons (that still look good) they send out in the crates from the feeders in a storage bag to switch out when the old ones get too foul. The one carton I'll use (if big enough) I'll rip into 3 or 4 pieces to stack up in a kind of pile so they have a lot of climbing/crawl space to hide in, then two dishes with the water crystals to prevent drowning, and yes.. the orange cubes. Now and then I'll put an apple core in there from when I feed my sugar gliders and use up the good slices. The crickets also enjoy eating the Reptical Calcium +D powder and Fluker's Multivitamin - could dust that on whatever food you go with to gutload the crickets, but I still coat all my crickets in the mix to make sure my gecks are getting what they need.

Regardless how many crickets you get, you will always get some number of dead ones, so it's best to bulk buy to last a month as several keepers suggest, and for 3 leos, 500 is more than enough for my lot :3 along with the treat of wax and butterworms that come with each order of crickets. You can control the death rate by how well you set up the tank for the crickets - deep ones are preferable as those little suckers can JUMP! I've had a few nearly jump clear of the bin from the bottom of it a couple times. Only thing that I would suggest is to keep the crickets in a different room if you have your gecko tanks in your bedroom. My bin is situated just outside the door, and I only get the juvenile crickets so there's no chirping (yet!). If any do before my geckos are big enough to handle them - Xeeva the sugar glider gets them!

 

[Crewdog00]

My cricket tank. 36 medium and 36 large all in one 10 Gallon tank. Food and water and cricket orange cubes.

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