Ideas thread

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AlexW

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Use this for sharing interesting ideas, even if they are wishful thinking. Perhaps some smart hobbyist can turn them into reality.

Mine:

- Sanitize dung scarabs, burying beetles, carrion rove beetles, dronefly larvae, etc. by raising them in clean places. This has been done with maggots used for maggot therapy already. Orin says that Necrophila can be raised on dogfood but needs meat to oviposit. Maybe artificially synthesized compounds would also encourage them. Dung scarabs are trickier, because Orin says substitute foods are unlikely to work due to extreme specialization. Perhaps some devoted hobbyist could analyze dung nutritional profiles to create fake dung suited to each species' specializations?

- Keep flying insects in big cages or the house:



- Freerange non-flying insects in the house? I know Peter has done this w mantises, but mantises can sit in one spot for weeks

- Or at least raise them in the built-in bathtub of the house, with drain plugged? I tried this once with a cricket, but I stopped halfway due to its inactivity

- Roachcrossing says that permanent (breeding) multispecies roach aquariums are possible but still new, since fishkeeping is an older hobby; see the careguide

- The ability to see non-burrow-forming diggers and borers nearly 100% of the time. I noticed that layered paper towel shreds allow me to see my Coniontis darkling beetle because they have gaps, but this may be slightly stressful for the insect.

- I've heard of certain live-root-feeding longhorns being raised on potted plants. This would not work for big species that need big roots to chew. Some sort of root life support?

- Get roachcrossing to resume updates (I'm joking, but who doesn't want roachcrossing up and working again?)

 
Some collecting-related and more practical ideas:

Stuff a container full of leaves/grass/rotten wood/inedibles/bait, poke a few holes, stick it on/in ground. Roaches, wood-feeding beetles, isopods, and other things will enter for shelter/food, depending on what you put. I imagine this would be a good way of collecting many at once. 

"Butterfly gardening" for beetles/roaches: dunk old logs, decorate with leaflitter....

Set up nightvision cam near bait and sleep.

Plant dwarf-variety trees so you can see arboreal insects without ladders

 
Roach crossing has really gone down hill I emailed him twice a month ago and haven't heard anything back and I don't expect to. I don't mean to be rude to him but his site is a absalute joke, there's lots of good info on there it's just super hard to order.

on topic I would absalutly love to set up a 40 gallon tank with growlights and cacti and try to breed some cactus long horn beetles or try my hand at breeding pepsis wasps, the main challenge Is collecting the wasps or having someone collect them. And as far as I know only one person has tryed breeding them and they made it half way through, so it is a posability they could be bred. 

 
Also, tarantula wasps would probably need a big flight cage to guard territories and such, so wait until the "flight cages" thread gets finished before attempting permanent captivity. Try catching one and temporarily experiment on it to see if it will voluntarily give up flight when life is easy.

 
Redmont said:
Roach crossing has really gone down hill I emailed him twice a month ago and haven't heard anything back and I don't expect to. I don't mean to be rude to him but his site is a absalute joke, there's lots of good info on there it's just super hard to order.

on topic I would absalutly love to set up a 40 gallon tank with growlights and cacti and try to breed some cactus long horn beetles or try my hand at breeding pepsis wasps, the main challenge Is collecting the wasps or having someone collect them. And as far as I know only one person has tryed breeding them and they made it half way through, so it is a posability they could be bred. 
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Trust me man, he's a great guy, I've bought and traded from him before and he's really got great customer service, it's just that lately he's been so busy with non-bug related things that he hasn't had time to accept any new orders, and honestly, how can you blame him? Not only has he moved several times this year, which can be a very long and stressful process, but he has also just become a homeowner, and is engaged, so his life is already full of stress without having to worry about his website and the hundreds of emails he probably gets.  -_-

Orin McMonigle has bred the cactus longhorns before, it's not too hard, considering their host plant is pretty dang easy to rear in captivity!

 
I just get frustrated with him because I'd love to order some lubbers from him but I can't get ahold of him.

I don't think tarantula wasps need large cages maybe if you breed them I found a site that sells them for $15 each but shipping is like $55 personly I feal insects can't feel pain (there are papers on it) and also the fact that if you feed roaches to a reptile some people have said they've seen the roaches cleaning them selves while they are being eaten, if they could feel pain I don't think they would be cleaning themselves, tarantulas could feel pain I don't know. But my reasoning is it happens in the wild so it's just part of life for these guys. I probably would put the tarantula in the fridge to slow it down before putting it in the cage with the wasp. Anyone want to donate any tarantulas? :)  if I got a few tarantulas a could order a few wasps and try to breed them, I do have a 40 gallon siting empty.

thats cool that long horns have been bred in captivity before, it would be nice to have them bred more to establish these in captivity. 

 
Yes, I know insects often act unaware that half their body is missing, but that's a topic for later.

I would still recommend euthanized spiders because people are often reluctant to donate living tarantulas. 

 
The wasps paralyze the spiders the the spider is still alive when the grub is eating it that's so the spider doesn't rot, so spiders would have to be provided live

 
Jumping in here because I've sent a few emails to Kyle and am waiting for a reply.  I know he is traveling this month, August 2022  I hope he will reply eventually.  Many people have mentioned that he disappears but when he does reply the customer service is wonderful.

 
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