# What to feed/fortify my crickets with?



## bigphish (Sep 25, 2005)

Hi everybody, I have a question about what to feed my crickets. There is a twist though... I am not feeding them to frogs, I am feeding them to some fish (Altum angelfish). The important thing I want is for the crickets to be a good source of calcium for the fish, so I am wondering what is the best thing to feed them. Dusting the crickets is out of the question because the powder would get instantly washed off the crickets. I currently am using a product called fluker's cricket quencher. It is these chunks of gel that are supposedly calcium enriched. The idea with the gel is to prevent drowning I guess. It iseems to work fairly well as I see the crickets 'feeding' on it. Is this calcium drink a good way to enrich crickets? Do the crickets need something else to actually eat? Does anybody reccomend something different?
Thanks for your help, even though I have not started with any frogs yet.

--Steve


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

You might want to look into trying some pheonix worms with them - they are suppose to contain more calcium than crickets.

I think there might be veggies that are a decent source of calcium, you might want to track them down and feed those (Or bug Ed K. lol).


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2006)

i dont know, would small butter worms would be an option?


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## bigphish (Sep 25, 2005)

I'm not too familiar with either of those two worms. I have tried small meal worms, but they need to be cut up into pieces, and that can be a lot of messy work. The fish can easily scarf down smaller sized crickets and they are actually very convienient to feed to the fish. What are butter worms? Are you thinking of veggies like broccoli or spiniach? Thanks for all the help so far. 

--Steve


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## Darks!de (Nov 16, 2004)

I would reccomend this: http://www.cricketfood.com/product_info ... cts_id/187

Luke


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Okay first things first.. 
Unless you can strictly control the enviromental conditions in which the crickets are contained then you will not be able to really adjust the calciumhosphorus ratio in the crickets. In addition high calcium diets fed to crickets need to be offered as the sole food with a water source that is not a fruit or vegetable as the crickets will preferentially feed on anything but the high calcium diet. In addition the diet has to be offered for at least 48 hours but the crickets have to be fed out before 72 hours or the high calcium diet will begin to kill off the crickets. If the crickets are deprived of water for even a few hours the diet will begin to kill the crickets... 

While a number of vegetables have a good calcium level the level in these vegetables is insufficient to adjust the calcium to phosphorus ratio into the desired range (1 to 2 to 1). Also some vegetables like spinach while having a good calcium content also contain oxalates which can interfere to some extent with the absorbtion of the calcium. 

Calcium needs to be handled with care, in the studies done so far, calcium has one of the narrowest ranges of safety and over and undersupplementation is a real risk. 

While butterworms are touted as having a good supply of calcium the reported untils (mg/liter) make this difficult to evaluate and impossible to compare. 

Typically fish are able to absorb calcium from the water to supply any needs not met via dietary supplementation. If you are concerned with the amount of calcium in thier diet, you would be better off making a gel diet to supplement the fish. 

Ed


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Ed said:


> Okay first things first..
> Unless you can strictly control the enviromental conditions in which the crickets are contained then you will not be able to really adjust the calciumhosphorus ratio in the crickets.
> Ed


So are the paramaters you mention the ones that really matter, or did you mean temps/humidity etc ideal for crickets?

I've been wanting to ask you Ed, I have a booklet you've probably seen, (food for thought, got mine from Ed's flymeat) that has a recipe for cricket gutload that is full of good stuff...broccoli (sp), yams, hard boiled egg :shock: , carrots, orange juice, yeast etc...looks like all of the bases are covered, how much calcium caronate would I add to make a good balance to elevate the crix calcium levels?
On a side note, this gutload will also give you a hatch of ff's about 3 days faster than any ff media I've seen, but smells like a cup full of crap if you use it that way!
Also, will freshly hatched pinheads (raised you'reself) be decent nutrition, or would they need to be fed to be worth anything (would like to be able to give the smallest pinhead available, for thumbs etc.)


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I'm sure Ed might smack me around a bit for this answer, but here is how I think about bugs and "gutloading".

Nature has a recipe for the organism, 1 part this, 3 parts that, etc. The bits and peices of stuff, like calcium, are used in the "body" a certain amount, so unless its stored elsewhere in the body, the body will only contain so much calcium, with extra being passed, as its not needed. The organism, in this case crickets, basically will keep this calcium level unless it is deprived of calcium, where the level would drop (malnutrition). This is the problem with the "gutloading" idea - for the most part you're not actually changing the chemical make up of the critter, you are just filling its "gut"/digestive system with extra calcium, and you feed them off while its still in their system (and in their case, before they croak because of the overdose). Its like watching a lion eat a gazelle - they get their veggies by eating the stomach (and oh, look! its half digested, they did all the work! even better!).

Crickets are usually recomended for gutloading as they have a decent amount of gut to load, and you can force them to eat what you want - but as I mentioned before, it only goes as far as whats in the gut, not the body as a whole. Same with fruit fly larvae, we can mix up their media and turn it (and them) all sorts of colors by adding stuff, and "suppliment" our critters by varying the diet. I personally think we might influence their diet more by dusting them (if the animals eat them while still dusted) than by gutloading. Unfortunately we can't do that with the adults, which is why we dust the daylights out of them, and why its recomended to feed out larvae as well (stupid sucker mouthparts).

For the most part with my geckos and what not, I didn't bother to gutload, I just fed the crickets a nice healthy (for them) diet so they lived well, grew fast, and bred well. I made sure to suppliment via dusting and a varied diet with other critters to give my geckos and frogs the best nutrition I could. One of the main parts of the diet was sweet potato, and I do have to admit that it was gutloading without the effort of trying to gutload, lol, and it helped color up my tricolors and pumilio (not to mention turned the pinheads orange cuz you could see their gut - very cool).


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2006)

I would strongly not recomend feeding mealworms to fish anyways. Although it rarley happens, meal worms do have strong enough mouthparts to seriously damage an organism's interior. With reptiles its not a big deal becuase they chew but with amphibians and some types of fish who dont chew their food, the worm isnt killed before it is consumed.

Mealworms are also high in chitin, which is hard to digest and associated with kidney and liver problems in some herps.

Butterworms are small orange caterpillers available from pet stores. There bodies are made up of some rediculous amount of calcium (40%). The downside is that they can be expensive (here they go for an average of $1.00 each). Id imagine you coule pick them up at shows for cheaper

If you really wnat to boost calcum intake, Id try these.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2006)

I agree w/ tfraleigh. I have heard stories of mealworms eating their way out of frogs' stomachs because they didn't chew them.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

That's hitting "urban legend" territory with that one, especially since the same "urban legend" floats around the gecko world as well. Basic rule of mealworms/super worms, if your animal isn't strong enough to crunch the shell on its way down, it probibly shouldn't be eating them. Its more about their digestive juices having access to the goodies inside - if they don't crack the shell the mealie would basically go thru the system undigested, or close to it. I'd say that a good rule for the fish as well, there are plenty of soft bodied grubbies to try on them, skip the hard shelled mealies.

Some amphibians actually do live on high chitin diets... remember, our PDFs have a good percentage of their wild diet as walking bits of chitin 

The problem with the butterworms is they are kinda large, at least the ones I have seen (which were about the size of the waxies you find in stores). I couldn't see an angelfish eating one.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "So are the paramaters you mention the ones that really matter, or did you mean temps/humidity etc ideal for crickets? " endsnip

I did mean temp. If the temp varies (if I remember correctly) from 80 F then there are problems with the high calcium diets. 
(FYI technically gutloading is defined as a diet to modify the calcium phosphorus ratio in insects and the hobby has redefined it to mean any diet fed to the insects). 

As for Ed's Flymeats diet, you would need to know the calcium/phosphorus content of the diet as well as the content of the crickets. (I have not read the book as of yet). This may mean that if you buy your crickets that you feed them a good diet for at least 48 hours to replenish and balance the fats, protiens and minerals lost in shipping and while they were held at the pet store before moving them onto the gut loading diet (as defined above). 
This would require holding the crickets for several days... 

Gutloading to modify calcium levels is not the easiest way to deal with the calcium levels in the insects. It can be done, but it typically is not practical (at least with crickets, it is easier with mealworms). It has its drawbacks as does dusting. 

Part of the problems with adult ffs is that you have to deal with the length of time that items are retained in the digestive tract. As I understand it, they have a short digestive tract and this reduces the length of time that the gutload stays with the fly. I am not sure that the mouth parts are really the issue... 


snip "Mealworms are also high in chitin, which is hard to digest and associated with kidney and liver problems in some herps. 

Butterworms are small orange caterpillers available from pet stores. There bodies are made up of some rediculous amount of calcium (40%). The downside is that they can be expensive (here they go for an average of $1.00 each). Id imagine you coule pick them up at shows for cheaper " endsnip


Do you have a reference for chitin being associated with liver and kidney disfunction in healthy herps? I am aware of the risk in dehydrated herps due to the excess nitrogen freed during digestion. I am not sure that I would be willing to assume that herps can't digest chitin as in other animals it can vary from as low as 2% to as high as 80% and can be a major source of nonprotein nitrogen.... 
I am dubious as to the calcium claims for butterworms as the units listing the amount of calcium are not comparable to other feeders (mg/l) and what you would want to compare is Ca/kcal as well as the ratio of Ca to P...

snip "I agree w/ tfraleigh. I have heard stories of mealworms eating their way out of frogs' stomachs because they didn't chew them." endsnip 

Has anyone else noticed that this fits the classic pattern of an urban myth? This has not been actually observed. When mealworms are fed to herps there are often ones that escape and end up free in the cage. If the herp dies the mealworm can scavenge the body for moisture and/or food. This leads to the observation when the dead animal is picked up that mealworms are hanging out of the body and thus the killed the frog by burrowing out of the animal story.... 

Some comments

Ed


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## bigphish (Sep 25, 2005)

Ed- Thanks for the help this has been a very interesting read. I guess one question that I have now, are plain old crickets a good source of calcium as is? Do they have a good Ca ratio? I know frogs and fish are different, but fish feed heavily on terrestrial inscets that are washed into water during rains. Since the fish I keep come from areas that have little to no dissolved minerals in the water it is thought that these insects provide the necesary dietary mineral requirements. Forgs are found in proximity to these fish so I would speculate that they may have evolved eating the same bugs at different times of the year.

I am going to look into possibly getting some pheonix worms when it warms up this spring. I can get crickets for very cheap and the pheonix worms are more, due to shipping. Are they that much better that it justifies the extra cost?

I had heard the 'myth' of the meal worms too. Not a problem for me because I would hold the worm by its head with a pair of 12" tongs and cut the body into sections over the water so the fish could eat them. I always threw the head away anyways, figuring there probably isn't much value in it anyways.

--Steve


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "Ed- Thanks for the help this has been a very interesting read. I guess one question that I have now, are plain old crickets a good source of calcium as is? Do they have a good Ca ratio?" endsnip

No they have a lousy Ca ratio

snip "I know frogs and fish are different, but fish feed heavily on terrestrial inscets that are washed into water during rains. Since the fish I keep come from areas that have little to no dissolved minerals in the water it is thought that these insects provide the necesary dietary mineral requirements. Forgs are found in proximity to these fish so I would speculate that they may have evolved eating the same bugs at different times of the year. 'endsnip 

Fish as well as many aquatic amphibians will actively scavenge dissolved Ca from the water (partly because Ca is exported as part of the animals efforts to control thier osmotic potential). Even soft water typically has some dissolved Ca and Mg in the water... In general the only invertebrates in wild that have been shown to have a positive Ca to P ratio are soil invertebrates as they are either coated with soil or have ingested the soils. In a lot of tropical areas in Central and South America (As I understand it), there is a fair amount of Ca bound up in the soil. 

snip "I am going to look into possibly getting some pheonix worms when it warms up this spring. I can get crickets for very cheap and the pheonix worms are more, due to shipping. Are they that much better that it justifies the extra cost?" endsnip

hard to say.... 


Have you considered a gel diet to supplement the fish??? 

Ed


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## bigphish (Sep 25, 2005)

I haven't considered gel, but that might be a good way to go. Many of the frozen gel based diets may be supplemented with Ca.

I am interested in what you said about worms and such. I do feed them what are commonly called red compost worms. I didn't even think that they might be a good source of Ca. Very interesting, I need to look into this.

Even though crickets are a lousy source I think I'll continue to feed them anyways, if nothing else its fun!

Thanks for all the help.

--Steve


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Steve, 
If you up the calcium content of the culture media for the worms (probably Eisenia sp) and do not clean the worms then you have a ready calcium supplement for the fish... 

Ed


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## bigphish (Sep 25, 2005)

Thats the name of them. Any idea on what would be good to add to raise Ca in the soil? I read that the worms do best in a nuetral to slightly acidic soil, so I'm guesing that Calcium Carbonate would be out. Maybe a little bit will raise the Ca level with out raising soil pH?

--Steve


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I would suggest calcium carbonate in a granular form (for example the calci sands they sell for reptile cages) as this will increase the pH less but should be of a sufficiently small particulate size to allow for the worms to ingest it. If you are worried about the soil pH, you can test the soil and add some peat moss to offset the increase in the pH caused by the carbonate. 
Make sure that the calcium doesn't exceed 2.5% of the total diet (as dry matter) as hypercalcemia can result. Calcium appears to be one of the minerals that has the narrowest safe tolerance

Ed


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## bigphish (Sep 25, 2005)

Thank you Ed, for sharing your knowledge. It has been incredibly helpful.

--Steve


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