Beatles keep dying!!! someone help

[drewlowe]

I started my mealie colony no problems only a few have died amongst the few thousands i have. I've even got the little aliens. The problem i'm having is once the aliens turn into the beatle i don't think they are fully developing ive seen pics of darkling beatles and they arn't coming close to it. Then they are dying within a day or two of emerging. What am i doing wrong.

they are housed in a (kinda like) rubbermaid container (no lid) with oats, wheat germ, and wheat bran, baby cereal (rice), and powdered milk. At times i will throw tropical fish flakes in there. They also get carrots and potatoes.

temps are around 77 to 80

Thanks for any help.

[Pixie]

My guess is that you have all of these in the same container and it's the mealies that are eating your pupae and young beetles.

As soon as you find a pupae or "alien", take it out and put it in a small container with the same substate going. Keep that container just for pupae and beetles. I actually have an intermediate container for pupae and throw them into the breeding/beetle container once it's completed its metamorphosis.

When breeding mealies, 2 containers are pretty much necessary to separate the different stages. Most information sheets say you don't need to but if you can't get beetles to mature, breeding is moot!

Pixie

[drewlowe]

i did that last week pixie i made a whole nother container up cause i was noticing some of the aliens where missing their heads (lol) but they are still not coming out right. *sigh* maybe i'll give it another week or two.

any time i notice a new alien i immediatly throw it in the "beetle container"

[Bryce Masuk]

You dont actually need to seperate them with kingworms you do but mealies are different I just put them in a tub and forget them I used to have a colony of 100 000 plus mealies in huge rubbermaid tub using the never look at them and chuck in a carrot every week

[Siretsap]

I had soo much trouble getting my superworms to change into beetles. Now, I have 100 little cups, I isolate my worms and let them change, and do they ever produce thousands of worms once they reproduce.