Over population of Collembola and A. diaperinus

Axolotl

Axolotl

Seventh Instar
Forum Supporter
I'm doing my semi-annual roach bin cleaning, moving & sorting extravaganza, and I've noticed that the A. diaperinus and collembola are very dense in some enclosures.

For example, a small bin with a footprint of 8" x 12" housing hisser nymphs on shaved aspen and oak leaves might have 200-300 beetles and too many larvae to count. Should I be concerned? It seems like that might be too many as I see adult G. portentosa flicking them off of their legs. Is there an easy way to cull the herd, so to speak?

The enclosures with collembola... it's hard to guesstimate how many their might be, but there are enough to look like a swarm if that makes sense. I can't get a good photo with my cell. Again, how many are too many, and how do I easily shrink the population when they get out of hand?

 
replace the substrate and just put a small amount of it back in to provide a small culture from the container to start again.

 
I figured that might be what I'd have to do. I did just that for my B. lateralis and froze the remaining substrate, but I feel bad about sending all those little ones to their doom. :(  I did skim off the bulk of the beetles and put them in my beetle bin, so at least there's that. I had hoped there might be an easy way to remove excess larvae as well, but oh well. Rather have happy roaches than lots of little worms.

 
If you really want to collect them you can take a small smooth container (think shot glass) put it into the substrate where the top of the container to is flush or slightly lower than the surface of the soil. This technique is called a pit fall trap. Just place something yummy in the container and the larvae/beetles will collect themselves.

 
Oh that's genius! I just set up a pitfall trap in the roach room to try and catch a few escapee nymphs (no luck), but that will definitely work on the beetles. And I have plenty of shot glasses. Thanks for the idea!

 
You can also put a bunch of extras into enclosures of their own and sell them. People are always looking for good clean up crews. 

 
Its true also they make good feeders I use them for my arboreal tarantula slings just toss on in the web and done lol also good for small geckos. 

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top