Unboxing Mealworm Growing Pod from The Bug Factory!
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- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- Mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) are a great live food for reptiles, amphibians, fish, mammals, birds, as well as spiders and other invertebrates.
Get you own mealworm growing pod here:
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(This is an affiliate link, so at no extra cost to you, you can help support Aquarimax Pets with a small commission when you make your order.)
This mealworm growing pod is very sustainable: it is made of recycled materials, is recyclable, and helps you turn food scraps into nutritious mealworms for your pets. The mealworm waste even makes great plant fertilizer!
Links to isopod supplies:
Here is a link to the Kathy Auto Magic Fungus gnat trap. It also works for other pest insects, such as fruit flies and mosquitoes!
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Check out these LINKS to Isopod foods and supplies below. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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Wally at Supreme Gecko makes a great Isopod food: www.supremegeck...
superior shipping supplies.com makes the smaller isopod enclosures I show in the video.
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Isopods will munch on dried River shrimp as well!
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Isopod Substrate ingredients:
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I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. In other words, I earn a small commission when you use that affiliate link, at no cost to you.
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The pointing out of the tweezers was pretty funny, lol.
I totally missed them while I was filming 😂
I also saw this on Instagram and was very curious. Thank you for the video! I look forward to your review.
I would love something like this for superworms!!
For all feeder worms and maybe not worms
Mealworms are something that will always hold a special place in my heart.
I love how they look.
I love that the beetles almost never fly (very rare).
I love how much lizards and toads love to eat them.
I love how their food is easily purchased for cheap from stores.
I don't love sifting, sorting, removing dead stuff and the frass and the possible allergy i may have (not sure).
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Smell:
The things that smell really bad are dead beetles and dead larva.
When I once smelled a dead beetle, I was shocked at how intense and badly it smelled.
I wrongly assumed "well they are dead and probably dried out and probably have no smell".
A buildup of frass will have an ammonia-like smell.
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Allergy:
It is possible to develop an allergy to mealworms and it is best to sift the frass outside with some type of mask over your mouth/nose.
I'm not 100% sure if i did or didn't develop an allergy to mealworms, but...
I thought I developed a severe allergy to the mealworms and was using the "12 hour nasal spray" as a precaution to avoid allergy problems.
I ended up realizing that I had become severely allergic to the nasal spray, which caused a reaction within 1-2 hours after using it.
I switched to a generic Flo-Nase to get off the 12-hour nasal spray side effects and then quit both.
If someone is only raising a small amount of mealworms, it is less of a problem, but with me, I always want to push breeding insects to the limits.
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Mites:
I swear grain mites eat mealworm eggs.
I can't prove it, but I swear any time I got grain mites, I stopped getting baby mealworms, even though I saw constant beetle breeding and egg laying.
Where I live, when you get grain mites, they explode to MASSIVE numbers and go everywhere.
You can place your mealworm cup or bin on a little table with legs and put the table legs in plates/bowls of diatomaceous earth so that if mites are crawling on the floor and try to get up the table to your bin, they will have to cross the diatomaceous earth first and they will die.
Mites can cross SOME Diatomaceous Earth, so a plate with large surface area is going to be better.
Some fly farms use motor oil instead of Diatom earth.
.
Mites part 2:
Another option is to dust the surface of your table with the Diatom Earth and set your bin on it, which is what I recently did for my millipedes, but that causes a LOT of difficulties.
It makes it so you have to be really careful about doing everything.
If you want to move your bin, you have to watch what you touch.
If you point a fan towards the bin, you could blow the Diatom Earth into your bin and possibly kill your pets.
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Bug Zappers:
I love having an indoor bug zapper, it helps battle flying insects.
However, mine uses tube fluorescent bulbs and they all died, so I need to replace them.
I am hoping I can replace them with LEDs, which should last longer.
If you get one, they sell them for INDOOR USE, because the outdoor ones specifically say "NOT FOR USE INDOORS".
Cool product, I'll have to check out the website.
I'm always looking for new ways to raise mealworms, even if i never raise them again.
Thank you for this video. My mealworm farm is looking great. I do have a few questions. Do you have a Facebook page?
Can't the adult beetles climb up onto the pupa tray?
Pretty unique thing... Cool!
I just ordered one myself, and I'm excited for it to arrive. Thanks for the review!
Let me know how it goes!
Thanks for sharing
Been curious about this product.
That’s really Neat!
I have noticed that worms grow faster in wheat bran, and less growth in oatmeals. Cant put wheatbran to the beetles though, it would fall through the holes.
And another hint. If you remove the filter, you can use the lid to strain out poop from the larger mealworms.
Hmm intresting little mealworm container might have to research on one I'm just currently keeping mine in a small 3 gallon plastic fish tank
Not really related but tell me how to raise merulanella sp. tricolor Because I can't find much information about us, I hope to receive your help, thanks
Once I have successfully kept them and bred them for a while, I’d be happy to!
@@Aquarimax oh wow I'm really looking forward to wishing you success in conveying your experience to me hahahha
Very cool!
Also I have those peanut beatles that some end up dying after changing the oatmeal or subtrate & does super worms go into a beatle form
That’s really neat!
Great minds think alike 😉
If I had more than one leopard gecko I'd totally get one of these but with just the one it's easier just to buy from the pet store. (She's extremely old and can't hunt anymore so mealies in an escape-proof dish are the easiest way to feed her.)
That makes sense! The pod would produce far more mealworms than she would need. 👍🏼
It's a neat product. I really like the pupa tray and having my beetles over a grate would make separating out the babies much easier. I'm debating if the price tag is worth the savings on time and effort and ... Overall jankiness of my current setup 😂 Watching this video after a few hours of sifting and picking though, and I'm leaning towards yes. Just gotta see if it fits in the designated Bug Zone!
How many eggs per female beetle can be laid. Im about to buy one of these to start my own breeding to try and save money on feeders for my ants
Super unrelated, but I had a question and wanted to ask on a more recent video. Have you every struggled with overpopulation with millipedes? I’m interested in breeding them but I haven’t found any clear information on if they self regulate or if there’s a chance I’ll have more than I can handle! Regardless, Love your videos.
I have a question about isopods can I keep dwarf white isopods with grey isopods
Dwarf whites can outcompete many species of isopods over time. I generally don’t recommend mici dwarf whites with others.
Would you say this product is worth the price? I will be getting 6 adult leopard geckos and I am wondering if the simple one- container method would suffice for their mealworm needs. I will have to have them in in my apartment and if they have an unpleasant smell, I guess this product could be worth it. Any thoughts?
If you start with a good number of mealworms initially, make sure to collect enough pupae and provide plenty of suitable food, you can produce more than enough mealworms for your 6 geckos with this system. You could do the same with a one-container setup, but you would likely need to dedicate more space ñ, and be very careful with moist food, as the beetles (and worms) will begin to nibble on the pupae as soon as they need a bit of water.
" The neat part" is an extra cost on top of the 150$ plastic bug storage containers lol
My current cultures are in cheap bins from a department store, and they work!
Would suggest these for superworms as well?
Great question! I am tempted to try, but with 1 crucial modification to the process. Super worms are reluctant to pupate in a substrate that doesn’t allow them to have their own pupal chamber. So, if I were to use this pod to raise super worms, I would remove large worms and either place them in individual containers for pupation, or in a large enclosure with substrate that would allow them to burrow and create their own pupal chambers. Once they had metamorphosed into beetles, I would put them into the beetle portion of the pod. Other than that, as long as this pod is able to provide for the slightly higher humidity requirements of superworms, I think it would work well!
@@Aquarimax Thanks for the feedback!
TWEEZERS
LOL 😂
it looks like a cool product. I'm unfortunately allergic to meal worms so will never use it.
Understandable!
What do you do with the beetles? Just keep letting them breed until the pass or feed them to something?
The beetles don’t taste very good to many animals, although there are some animals will eat them. In general , just leaf them until they pass, and remove the bodies.
@@Aquarimax I forgot I have chickens!! They eat whatever. Thanks for the follow up though.
@@DeformedDevices I’ll bet chickens would LOVE the beetles
Are you having success with this product?
Yes! I need to film an update/ review!
@@Aquarimax yeah, please do!
Interesting. I spend quite a bit on black soldier fly larvae and it would be nice to generate large amounts of something similar for my wild skunks. Larvae are their favorite food.
The larvae are effortless to raise.
It's best if the bottom has a way to drain liquid.
However, you can even raise them in a large bowl or anything as long as you add charcoal and sawdust to absorb the liquids.
The flies are the tricky part, because they can fly out of a non-enclosed container.
Black Soldier Flies require a VERY intense bright light to breed and they are somewhat picky on where they will lay their eggs.
If the light isn't intense enough, they will refuse to breed. I speak from experience.
A 5 to 15 watt LED isn't going to work. Sunlight is best because it is free, if you can work out a way to use it.
It is more important to have a bright enough light than anything else.
Without a bright enough light, you are wasting your time.
You may occasionally see some breeding with a dim light, but they will not lay any eggs or will lay non fertilized eggs that don't hatch.
I need to stress, a super duper bright intense light is needed for breeding and egg laying.
This is what I wish someone would have told me when I raised them.
@@FusionDeveloper oooh no wonder I never got babies! Thanks for the tip!
@@awkcelot Also, the flies will sip on water, but easily drown.
Some people do sugar or sugar water, but they make a mess with sugar and they get stuck to surfaces and die, so I don't recommend it unless you can design a way only their mouths can touch it.
If you just want water, you can twist up paper towels and have some poking out the top of your fly "cage", and then pour water on the top and the paper towel will wick the water down and they will sponge it off the surface.