# Rice Flour Beetles



## Phoxman (Jun 10, 2006)

I have searched the site for old messages and could not find a direct answer to my question.

I have had a culture of flour beetles for 15 months. I have only take larvae once. I checked on it today (first time in 6 months) and it was full of adults, but no larvae. What should I do to get new larvae?


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## stchupa (Apr 25, 2006)

You have too many adults, which emmit a chemical, as this build up along with the population of adults, that inhibits the hatching of eggs produced there afterwards. Take all but about 50 beetles from that culture, or start a new one and stay on top of it this time. It will take about a month to get sizeable larvae.


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## Phoxman (Jun 10, 2006)

*rice flour beetles*

Thanks for the advice, I was begining to think no one would answer!


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Huh... I've never actually heard that before... I've had cultures where the adults could cover the whole surface of the culture and had larvae out the wazoo...

Phoxman, when was the last time you changed the media? When you've got lots of adults and no larvae, and you haven't changed the media, its usually a sign that your media needed a change a while ago. I "cycle" my cultures to get maximum production, and my cultures can only go thru a couple cycles before its spent and needs to be replaced, only about 2-3 months of high production.


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## Phoxman (Jun 10, 2006)

*Beetles*

Great thought! The media was very old (at least 1 year)! I have changed it using whole wheat flour and yeast. 

Does anyone have suggestions for bettle media?

Thanks,


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

I'm interested in this as well. My RFB culture is doing ok, but my mini mealworm culture is doing a whole lot of nothing. I think it's a media issue since I just kept them in what they were shipped in.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I use the Ed's Fly Meat RFB media... works awesome and its a lot easier than trying to make my own... the best recipes tend to ask for something you need to order in bulk, blah blah blah.... and again, I'm lazy lol.

I really don't know much about the mini mealies... I've never worked with them (similar food type as the RFB larvae so I havne't bothered - I go for as many food TYPES as I can get), but possibly the same issue? I only know a few people with them, and one of them just tossed the culture because it wasn't doing anything for him.


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## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

> You have too many adults, which emmit a chemical, as this build up along with the population of adults, that inhibits the hatching of eggs produced there afterwards. Take all but about 50 beetles from that culture, or start a new one and stay on top of it this time. It will take about a month to get sizeable larvae.


Do you have a source in the primary literature that verifies this? It seems a little altruistic for the beetles to limit their own population size in this way...

~B


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2006)

I remember finding these (same as confused flour beetles, right?) or something very similar in an open can of fish flake food in the garage one summer. I simply closed the lid and began to culture them for my fish. Easiest live food culture ever! I eventually moved, cut way down on my fish keeping and lost the culture.

Anyway, they did VERY well on the flake food. Plus, the fish flakes might count as "gut-loading"...?


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2006)

> It seems a little altruistic for the beetles to limit their own population size in this way...


I believe this is the opposite of altruism. It isn't so much a matter of the beetles limiting their own reproduction as it is of the adult beetles emitting a chemical that kills the eggs/young. Altruism is a selfless act that benefits others, while this is entirely self-serving (limiting the population so there is more of everything for ME). :twisted: bwahaha!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

In flour beetles, there is a pheremonal response that will cause the adults to disperse from the population but this doesn't cause production to stop. Instead, the decrease in productivity is caused by egg predation by the adults. This predation can be significant enough to cause the population of the flour beetles to boom and bust. 

For some relevant publications see 

Benoit, H. P., E. McCauley, and J. R. Post. 1998. Testing the demographic consequences of cannibalism in Tribolium confusum. Ecol. 79: 

Brereton, J.L.G. 1962. A laboratory study of population regulation in Tribolium confusum. Ecology 43:

Ed


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## stchupa (Apr 25, 2006)

Megalotis said:


> > It seems a little altruistic for the beetles to limit their own population size in this way...
> 
> 
> I believe this is the opposite of altruism. It isn't so much a matter of the beetles limiting their own reproduction as it is of the adult beetles emitting a chemical that kills the eggs/young. Altruism is a selfless act that benefits others, while this is entirely self-serving (limiting the population so there is more of everything for ME). :twisted: bwahaha!


Yeah. I cannot believe no one here has ever heard of such a thing. I thought it was common knowlegde for anyone who wasn't considered a newbe. 
It is not so much dependent on a condensed populous, but more so the amount and consistant availablity of ventilation/air exchange. It's not
selfless, nothing is, just the way things work, for what survives today it must in some way be regulated or better yet self-regulate. Those who did not cartel in the past either caused/weighted their demise or converted to something else which followed an un-relative way of governing population. That being the case for everything now, flour bettles are somewhat unique, in that they became what they are today because of humans being unremmited in transforming the given habitat, in turn 
creating very unatural conditions in which something/many things
are bound to take advantage and evolve accordingly aquiring abilities forever unfounded otherwise. 
If these creatures were to go on lay their eggs and then have them hatch all successfully without any regulation (keep in mind no predators and the only competion is themselves at varying stages), the population of the larvae would soon counteract the adult. With a limitation on available reasources always being a factor, food is weighed evenly among that which is established and/maybe possible future predecessers. The young eating/needing much more than adult, also still being at the vunerable stage that determines devolpment. If allowed to develop only 
partially due to insufficient nutrition (stunted) through generations of succession and to perpetuate that subtle alteration in genetics over time,
time and time again, will become extinguished.
Selfless, no, they're still having sex I can promise you that. There not
giving any thought to it, they're just lucky they survived along with the
neccessary tool.

I had skipped over much of the explanation of this understanding and have to cut it there because I'm afraid this thread may not end. This is quite vague and probably confusing due to the holes I left, but there's just to damn much to it to be expected to explain in one sitting. See if you can't digest that. If not, then you can consider yourself in trouble.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I've had very little of this as a problem probibly due to my culturing style... open containers where I move the adults out of the containers... they are in a container for 3 weeks... then moved to the next container.... 3 weeks later the original container is ready to "harvest" for larvae... no beetles to hatch out...

The moving of the adults keeps the adult egg predation down, I also watch the amount of adults around each culture, and the open containers probibly keep the chemicals from being an issue...

This is how I've pretty much always cultured them (this technique was told to me after I got a good culture) so I just never had this as an issue (other than the old media) so I guess it just never came up.


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## Ben_C (Jun 25, 2004)

> I believe this is the opposite of altruism. It isn't so much a matter of the beetles limiting their own reproduction as it is of the adult beetles emitting a chemical that kills the eggs/young. Altruism is a selfless act that benefits others, while this is entirely self-serving (limiting the population so there is more of everything for ME). bwahaha!


You are absolutely right! After re-reading the original post, I can't believe that I wrote that. My mind was definitely on different things in addition to me not understanding what was said in the original post...



> Benoit, H. P., E. McCauley, and J. R. Post. 1998. Testing the demographic consequences of cannibalism in Tribolium confusum. Ecol. 79:
> 
> Brereton, J.L.G. 1962. A laboratory study of population regulation in Tribolium confusum. Ecology 43:


Thank you, Ed! Exactly what I was looking for.



> Yeah. I cannot believe no one here has ever heard of such a thing. I thought it was common knowlegde for anyone who wasn't considered a newbe.


I am a 'newbe' to rice flour beetle culturing, sorry if I implied otherwise. The previous post appeared to me as a 'good of the species' type explanation and I just quickly browsed it (which I should not have done) which is why I posted the way I did.



> If not, then you can consider yourself in trouble.


?????


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## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

Corey,
Could you please be a little more specific with your "style" of culturing. It sounds like a very intelligent way to do it. But I want to make sure I understand what you are saying.
Thanks


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The process I follow was told to me by Matt Mirabello, and I believe variations of it have floated around FrogNet for years. Lengths of time often depend on temperatures, and for the temperatures I keep mine at (room tem p around 72) and kept in warmer places they will develop faster.

I use 64 oz Gladware containers (and generic containers the same size, I LOVE these things, I use them from bugs to froglets to tads...) for each culture. You'll basically have 3 culture going in a "rotation" as I call them, each with RFB media (I fill about 1/4 of the way - use whatever brand you want, I use Ed's Fly Meat). Only one container in the rotation will have beetles in it at a time... basically you are moving the beetles from one container to the next in the rotation, every couple months changing the media and beetles.

Container one gets beetles, and they stay in the container for 3 weeks. After 3 weeks they are moved to container 2... they've laid eggs in container one and larvae are developing, time for them to lay eggs in the next! They stay in container 2 for 3 weeks... then the beetles are moved to container 3. At this point container 1 should have larvae of large size ready to feed. If they are already pupating then you've got higher temps and you might want to cut the time down to two weeks rather than three... play with it. Container 1 will also have ready to feed larvae without having to deal with picking out the beetles... sift them out, feed them out, and container 1 is once again ready for adult beetles. Container 1 gets beetles, container 2 is ready to feed out... etc etc etc.

Using this method, every 3 weeks I've got a nice boom of larvae ready to feed, without having to seperate adults. I "refresh" adults every 6 months or so by raising up a crop of larvae into adult beetles, tossing the old adults, and introducing the fresh adults into the rotation. If you only feed them out occassionally, and/or only have a few frogs, one rotation is probibly perfect for you - just remember you'll probibly get a lot more larvae this way than just the one culture sitting on the shelf...

Now if you're like me, with a lot of mouths to feed, you'll want more than just one rotation going, you can have as many as you want going at one time to get the production you want. If you want them weekly, its simply a matter of having 3 rotations going at a time, same deal but you start a roation a week after the last one, so every week you're harvesting a rotation of larvae (my cultures are marked red, blue, and green for the different rotation, one/two/three dot to mark which container stage they are, and I have a calendar marked with the dates red, blue, and green are harvested).

I hope that was a good explanation and makes sense?


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Corey, how many larvae do you harvest from each culture you have? Do you have vent holes in your containers?

I've found that my cultures with ventillation perform much better than those without. Further, my closed containers occasionally spontaneously die off and smell foul when they do . . . although it is quite rare. 

I've never really cycled my cultures like you indicated, but it sounds interesting. Do you use a sifter to pull out the larvae?


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## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

Thanks Corey that was perfect. Just what I wanted. It sounds like a very sound idea.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I don't count the larvae, really depends on the amount of beetles you put in each culture... just realize that the more beetles and larvae in the culture, the shorter amount of time the media will remain viable.

Do not used closed containers. The die off rate even with ventilated containers is higher than it needs to be. I don't have ventilation holes in my containers... thought I mentioned before that I don't have lids on the containers at all - the beetles and larvae can't climb out, they need the higher ventilation (both to stay dry and evidently also disperse the chemicals mentioned before), and I don't have anything I'm keeping out of the cultures, so there was no point. 

Yes, I use a flour sifter to seperate the larvae/beetles from the media.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Have anyone tried keeping say a "broodstock" container in one place(using cheap medium like flour) and moving adults to a more nutritious medium for breeding and then harvesting larvae from this one. This could allow you to raise larvae in, say, fishflakes which would normally be very expensive. Then give these ones to those extra special frogs.

Also, does anyone bother to dust these guys? They hold a little dust on them but if you kept them in a dish the frogs might get some dust will eating them out of it.


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

KeroKero said:


> I don't count the larvae, really depends on the amount of beetles you put in each culture... just realize that the more beetles and larvae in the culture, the shorter amount of time the media will remain viable.
> 
> Do not used closed containers. The die off rate even with ventilated containers is higher than it needs to be. I don't have ventilation holes in my containers... thought I mentioned before that I don't have lids on the containers at all - the beetles and larvae can't climb out, they need the higher ventilation (both to stay dry and evidently also disperse the chemicals mentioned before), and I don't have anything I'm keeping out of the cultures, so there was no point.
> 
> Yes, I use a flour sifter to seperate the larvae/beetles from the media.


I don't know if my experiences parallel yours, Corey, although there is some overlap. I have been keeping the same strain of RFB larvae (Tribolium castaneum, not confusum, although I understand that the culturing is the same) for about 17 years. Originally, I grew them as a food supplement for killifish by keeping the cultures in a few gallon pickle jars filled with flour on the floor of the basement--no lid. When I went to college, my father continued the culture just by leaving it sit there, and maybe changing the flour every 6 months.

When I started keeping darts, I wanted to keep these guys with a lid on them, as I have curious dogs, and live in a small house. My wife would not like having her flour infested, and I have heard of a few people who had this problem (although I never have).

I added a lid to the cultures (1/2 gallon plastic jars filled half way with media), and cut a hole in the top plugged with open cell foam for ventillation. That way, if a culture is knocked over, no mess.

Over time, I made multiple cultures, and I did not take the time to cut holes in the top of many of these. If you sift your cultures at least every other week, I found that there was no significant difference between vented versus non-vented jars as long as the cultures were only half-filled.

With 6 cultures, I found that I could harvest around 1000 larvae every other week--and that's quite a bit of food for not much work. However, every now and again, I would get a culture that would crash if I did not harvest it for a month or so--so there is some credence to die-off from closed containers. However, it's only happenned to me three times in my five years of keeping the larvae as I do currently.

So, I guess that the experiences I have that differ from Corey's is this: I make my own media, and I don't find that it really goes "bad" very quickly. I refresh it when it looks like I need to, which is about every few months. Then, I only replace half the media so that I have plenty of eggs left in the new culture. I usually try to ensure that a few adults make it in each culture.

Further, I obviously don't ascribe to the "don't use closed containers" mantra, as I like the safety of a closed container if something gets knocked over. With my sponge-corked containers, I've never had a culture "die off." The production may taper somewhat, but never a crash, so I am not sure what might be causing Corey's "die off rate even with ventilated containers is higher than it needs to be." I'm sure that there is probably some chemical given off by the adults, but I don't notice production being significantly affected unless the containers remain closed for months (which I have done at times).

I'm guessing that these differences might be caused by a difference in media. When I was experimenting with media recipes, I noticed that if I used brewer's yeast in the mix, a substantial amount of yeast would cause the media to become more crusty and cakey, and it would begin to foul rather quickly. In fact, all of my culture crashes occurred when brewer's yeast was added to the mix. However, the brewer's yeast mixes were admittedly more productive--so there may be some of that chemical warfare that was going on there. I just found that the change in the media consistency made it more difficult to harvest, so I adapted my media accordingly.

I would recommend these feeders to anyone with darts, and they are so simple that I believe that experimenting a bit can let you find out what works best for you. I know that even my intermedius love them, and they are one of the best ways to fatten up frogs for breeding. High in protein and fat--a great weekly treat!


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Can't T. castaneum fly? 

Also, does the hard shell give darts any trouble?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Hard shells should not give the frogs problems like the urban legends you hear about other herps... remember a number of these guys eat mainly ants, don't get much more chitin than that :roll: 

These are best as a nice "treat" as variation in their diet, so I don't bother with trying to get powder to stick to them (flies are much better for that). 

Also note that the culture rotation method I was talking about produced a huge amount of larvae - way more than only a few frogs need, or should have of these guys. I was definately doing more than 1000 per culture every time I pulled larvae, and with my collection size 1000 doesn't always get you very far! This also accounts for why my media doens't last as long - it lasted twice as long when I wasn't using it the way I do now, but overall production with just letting the culture sit there and do its thing was significantly lower. This is a "high production" method used by a couple of people who easily have well over 50 frogs to feed... so this method provided a weekly "treat" meal with the amount of larvae that could feed a smaller collection for a week.

These are NOT a staple food, but can be a regular part of it in correct doses. I don't have constant variation in most of my frogs diets... they kinda go thru a rotation. Only fruit flies for a couple months, then mostly pinheads, a couple weeks of mostly RFB larvae, a couple weeks of aphids when I can get them, a couple weeks of termites... I basically change the food around the time of year... FFs and pinheads are the most consistant "staple" thru the year, but I will purposely put certain frogs on only termite/RFB larvae diets for a time, to coincide with "season" changes that I've done with increasing rainfall (and thus switch to the fattier "candy" foods for a bit) as the food and rainfall changes trigger a strong seasonal chance reaction in the frogs (which is needed for the seasonal breeders).

The only die offs I've had with RFBs is when I had not so well vented lids on the contianers and left them be for a long time. Having little to no production is another story, and was either remedied by new media because the old stuff burned out, and/or replacing the adults because they were past the high production stage and just old.

These things are so easy that everyone should have a culture or two just lying around, even if you don't put the serious effort into getting a ton of production.

Dendrobait - I don't understand your reference to raising larvae in fish flakes? Are you trying to gutload them? My whole feeling on that is kinda... in this case why bother... these larvae are nutritionally different from the staple feeders we give our frogs that there is more nutrition in the fact that they are different in the first place, than trying to gut load them or dust them. The key with a healthy diet is as wide a range of different food item types as you can manage (rather than food item varieties - such as lines of fruit flies... FFs are very similar in nutrition where as RFB larvae are vastly different which is what you want), and the vitamin powder basically tries to cover the bases that the bug variety didn't get.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

> Dendrobait - I don't understand your reference to raising larvae in fish flakes? Are you trying to gutload them? My whole feeling on that is kinda... in this case why bother... these larvae are nutritionally different from the staple feeders we give our frogs that there is more nutrition in the fact that they are different in the first place, than trying to gut load them or dust them. The key with a healthy diet is as wide a range of different food item types as you can manage (rather than food item varieties - such as lines of fruit flies... FFs are very similar in nutrition where as RFB larvae are vastly different which is what you want), and the vitamin powder basically tries to cover the bases that the bug variety didn't get.


 But it doesn't seem like it would be hard to put some extra oomph into these guys if you chose to, simply drop give them a more nutritious place to stay for a little bit. What you could do is harvest out a few days worth and put them into a container with some ground fishflakes. They could be removed easily and might have some extra protein or vitamins in them at that point compared to if they had just come out of flour. Maybe if I cared for a collection of 50 frogs I'd think differently but my philosophy here is "It might be good, and its easy enough!" Btw, are your food variations along with seasonal variations "scientific" or just random? I know when some fishkeepers simulate dry and rainy season they will give the fish alot of mosquito larvae on the onset of the "rainy season" in thought that this is when they will be most abundant. By giving them extra RFB I'm guessing this is the philosophy you are thinking of?


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

KeroKero said:


> Also note that the culture rotation method I was talking about produced a huge amount of larvae - way more than only a few frogs need, or should have of these guys. *I was definately doing more than 1000 per culture every time I pulled larvae, and with my collection size 1000 doesn't always get you very far!* This also accounts for why my media doens't last as long - it lasted twice as long when I wasn't using it the way I do now, but overall production with just letting the culture sit there and do its thing was significantly lower. This is a "high production" method used by a couple of people who easily have well over 50 frogs to feed... so this method provided a weekly "treat" meal with the amount of larvae that could feed a smaller collection for a week.


How big were your cultures? 1000 larvae per culture per week sounds pretty incredible, considering that female RFB's typically only lay "300 to 400 eggs in flour or other foods during a period of five to eight months (two to three eggs per day). Within 5 to 12 days, these eggs hatch into slender, cylindrical, white larvae tinged with yellow. The length of the larval period varies from 22 to more than 100 days; the pupal period is about 8 days." That is according to the Ohio State University entymology department. http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/2000/2087.html, and holds pretty true to my experiences.

Even with more than 50 frogs to feed, if each culture was producing 1000 larvae each week, that would get you 20 larvae for each frog from each culture per week. 20 larvae is more than enough for even my most greedy tincs, and about 5 will make a female intermedius look like it swallowed a dime. 

I'm not saying it's impossible, but I will say that it sounds pretty incredible. Even assuming that your females outlaid the average 2-3 eggs per day by 4 times (assume production of 10 eggs per day), each female would only be producing 70 eggs in the one week period before you ran them over to another container. That would mean that you need approximately 130 females per culture to sustain the sort of egg production needed to get 1000 larvae per week per culture. That means you have about 250 adult beetles per culture at any given time. I average about 20 or so adults per culture at any given time in 1/2 gallon containers.

I'm just having a hard time getting the numbers to work here, but if you can get that kind of production, I definitely need to pick up your tricks. With that said, the method I described above gives me enough to feed a 40 frog collection one day each week (I have two 6 culture "cycles" going--I just sift one half one week and another half another week). However, my 1000 larvae per six cultures every two weeks ends up only being about 90 larvae per culture per week--which is pretty much in line with OSU's estimate of 2-3 eggs per female per day.

With regard to gut loading, I don't see the need. I dust mine with the 50/50 repcal/herptivite and feed the larvae in black plastic dishes dedicated to each tank. When I use petri dishes, too many frogs try to attack the larvae through the sides of the dish. A little extra dust in the dishes do not hurt anything, and if the frogs eat some dust while feeding, that's just more vitamins.


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

Dendrobait said:


> Can't T. castaneum fly?
> 
> Also, does the hard shell give darts any trouble?


I've read they can fly "short distances," but I've never seen mine try to fly at all. Regardless, I didn't want to chance it, and that's the other reason I use lids.

The hard shells on the adults don't bother the frogs at all if fed infrequently. Besides, you want to feed mostly larvae and not beetles. While I have read that the adult beetles are found to be disgusting by darts, that has not proven true in my experience. My frogs will eat the beetles and the larvae both--no spitting out of either. However, I've not offered the beetles to my thumbs or pumilio. I try to return most of my adults to the cultures to keep laying eggs.

I would definitely give these guys a try, as they are very easy and make a great backup source of food.

I would also like to address the question about random versus scientific feeding. I know it probably wasn't meant as a jab, but I will say that I used to feed mosquito larvae to my killifish quite extensively during the warm months. I never did so to simulate the rainy season, even though many of the fish I kept definitely had a rainy and dry season. Rather, I fed mosquito larvae because they were high in fat and protein, and seemed to be some of the best food for getting females in breeding condition (read, fat and full of eggs). 

I think that feeding a variety of foods IS scientific (or at least logical), and not merely random, as a varied diet should give the greatest spectrum of different macro and micronutrients, which is the best thing for the frogs. I think that I what Corey was indicating, and I fully agree with her there.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Interesting on the darts eating the adults. I've heard from other that feeding them the adults will cause them to not only turn up their noses at the beetles but at the larvae too. Maybe some people's darts are just used to being fed in certain ways.

I agree on the mozzies, I've never seen any killifish turn them down and they seem to bring in eggs like nothing else. Put in a days worth and the next day pick out lots of eggs. Not a jab at all...sorta wondering if he has a system in which he feeds out the foods, maybe a pattern he follows along with his dry/rainy season?

I have a culture of T. confuscum...but over the winter all it was was adults. After reading this thread I replaced the medium and now plenty of larvae. The original medium was 50-50 white flour and potato flakes...dunno if the extra protein did them any good. Also, as Ed suggested in another thread while they don't need moisture little veggie bits are still a big hit with the adults.


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## dragonfrog (Feb 16, 2006)

Corey,
I am using today to get your rotation plan put into affect. And I have a question. After the first container (#1), which contains the adult beetles, has sat for 3 weeks, how do you seperate the adult beetles after the eggs are laid? Is there a simple way?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I have a ton of adults in the containers, I don't even want to bother counting them, but well over your 20 adults per 1/2 gallon!! While 250 is a bit much, I wouldn't be suprised if it was closer to 100-150. They are in there for 3 weeks, so thats 3 weeks of egg laying for the ladies, so they produce a ton of larvae while in there. Its not 1000+ per week for me, its 1000+ per harvest which represents 3 weeks of egg laying in that culture. 

It also seems my frogs may prove greedier than yours, as I've had my male azureus go for 25+ larvae in one sitting :shock: I also tend to work with some heavy feeders (allobates, epipedobates) which eat larger foods for their size comparatively, and seem to eat more of it, so 1000 RFB larvae gets me about one feeding per harvest (and no, i'm not going to give a number of frogs or tell you what types, lets just leave it as a larger collection than yours currently, with some real pigs).

The seasonality was partially due to availability of some foods, their evident reactions in some frogs, and later biogeography studies in college (where I ran into some research that supports this). If there are strong enough seasons (seasons occur even in the rainforest) then invertabrate life will vary over the year... some stuff more common (or in an area where the frogs can eat them, such as above ground) or variations within the bug population (winged termite or ant swarms during parts of the year must be yummy) these variations are normal, and most often coincide with environmental changes (rainy season, etc). These changes in food along with weather combine to kinda be a "double dose" of seasonal change, and this seems to work real well with my more seasonal frogs.

A varied diet is EXTREMELY important, and most people take that as being the biggest variety of bugs they can get year around. I just do the more seasonal approach... FFs as the main food for this many months... aphids for a couple weeks... termites for a couple weeks a couple times a year, everyone gets shorelinite beetles when the "boom" of them comes every couple of months in the cultures...etc etc. With the RFB larvae, I'll feed them to say only to the tinc group frogs for a while... then switch the tinc group back to FFs or onto another bug... and put the epi/allobates onto mostly RFB... that type thing. I'm now trying to coordinate these changes more with changes in seasons I'm attempting to trigger my harder to breed frogs to breed (or breed more consistantly).

I use a flour sifter to sift the adult beetles out of the culture and into the next. The eggs and small larvae (The earliest would have hatched I guess) are too small to get caught in the size mesh I use, and stay with the media the beetles are sifted out of.

I've had some frogs eat the beetles, come don't, varies from frog to frog honestly (siblings even had different opinions on the matter!). The adults are more important for breeding for me, and I don't want to have to remember which exact frog likes or dislikes them, so I just skip the feeding of adults bit. Funny I'll have frogs that will totally ignore a RFBeetle, but wil come flying across the tank for a similarly sized and colored shorelinite beetle, lol.


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

KeroKero said:


> I have a ton of adults in the containers, I don't even want to bother counting them, but well over your 20 adults per 1/2 gallon!! While 250 is a bit much, I wouldn't be suprised if it was closer to 100-150. They are in there for 3 weeks, so thats 3 weeks of egg laying for the ladies, so they produce a ton of larvae while in there. Its not 1000+ per week for me, its 1000+ per harvest which represents 3 weeks of egg laying in that culture.


That makes a bit more sense. I'm sorry, I misread your 3 rotations/3 weeks as 1 per week. I'm still quite surprised that you can get 1000 larvae every 3 weeks from 16 ounces of media in a 64 ounce container, with 100-150 beetles in each. I guess may have to try it. If this is a realistic expectation, then I'm all for it. I just don't want newbies to read about some fantastic production they should be able to get and rely upon it to their frogs' detriment.





> (and no, i'm not going to give a number of frogs or tell you what types, lets just leave it as a larger collection than yours currently, with some real pigs).


What's that all about? Sorry, but I think that is unnecessary.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The only major problem with getting that reproduction is the rate I go thru the food... and that can get pricey even when I'm not buying Eds stuff. When I don't change the media fast enough, its noticable with severe drop offs in production rate - typical of pushing the limit of any population. I've cut back on my adults as I'm feeding less, so hopefully the media will last a tad longer, and the population crash will be less of an issue.

I was already getting emails about some of the frogs I mentioned, and since I'm not currently breeding anything, I'm trying to keep my "please put me on your waiting list" emails down.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Anyone have a good media recipe for RFB's?

I would like to mix some up and get the 'rotation' going :wink: 

thanks

S


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## AZDR_A (Mar 20, 2004)

We use 2 parts whole wheat flour(strained), 2 parts white flour, and 1 part brewers yeast. Every 2 months add about 1/2 cup yeast to recharge the cultures. 

Here is a link to more info, some of it's a little old, but still pretty similar to how we still do it!

http://www.azdr.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=53


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Well, tried doing the beetle transfer method in hopes of getting pure larvae and I think I was too slow. I believe I counted off 3 weeks, but when I went in to remove the beetles I got larvae too.

I'm currently using plastic jars originally for peanuts. No idea how big other peoples cultures are but it seems a bit time consuming to get all the beetles out.

I thought up a method to seperate larvae from beetles but haven't tried it yet. Perhaps if you strain out a mix of larvae, beetles, pupae, and dead things/shed skin you could put it on a small sheet of cheesecloth. After maybe 10 seconds you could pour them mess off and hopefully you'd have some larvae and maybe a few beetles clinging to the cheesecloth. You could do this several times until most of the larvae are out.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Sounds like your beetles are kept at a higher temp then mine, so you should probibly only leave them in two weeks, or maybe just a week, and then just check the culture after the beetles were removed until they are the size you want. If your cultures are warmer, the larvae appear faster and grow faster.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Hmm house temps are around 80 and they happen hidden away on the top shelf of my fish rack...so I'll give a week a shot. 

The good part of that is that I had a lot of breeders to play with...I think I put around 20-30 beetles into this new one.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Place the sifter in a bowl or other container that the adults cannot climb out of and place a small piece of paper into the sifter and up and over the lip of sifter till it touches the bottom of the other container. The beetles will climb up and out of the sifter leaving the larva behind. 

From American Dendorbatid Society Newsletter. 

Ed


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Thanks Ed! Worth a shot. 

Now just need a way to seperate out pupae and dead ones...probably my method would do that...but theirs probably a more efficient way. Maybe putting them in a tray with one side containing some flour and darkened by placing something over it? The larvae would migrate over the the flour and leave the other things behind.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The larva will migrate to the shelter. You would just have to sift a second time. 

Not all adult frogs will refuse the adults. I had auratus at work that ate the adults very readily. Ofter its worth trying a couple to see. 

Ed


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Mites in the RFB cultures:

OK, my culture sat around too long, near the FF cx's and is infested with mites...

I sifted out all the adults...say 150~

Can I restart the rotation with these adults/ new media? (I assume they are covered in mites) 

Ideas?

Shawn


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Shawn,

I would strongly suspect you are seeing a grain mite explosion. These mites are naturally in the media and you can see blooms of them when the humidity and temperature are right. These can get into the ff cultures. 

You can use the adults to start new cultures just make sure the cultures are really well ventilated to keep the humidity down as this will help prevent the boom of the mites. 

Ed


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

You could also try the sifting them in some calcium trick to bathe the mites off before setting up the new cultures.


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