Hello all,
As requested I have started this thread to share with you some of my bugs and how I culture them. There are some very informative threads on other forums and there might be some info here too somewhere but why have our own thread here about this stuff.
Anyone with any kind of experience with any beneficial animals or plants please feel free to add on. I am all about the biological control
First I will discuss springtails or Collembola of which I culture the temperate variety. They are tiny white insects with an amazing ability to jump or "spring". They live in very high humidity and feed on detritus, mold, and fungi. I keep mine in a variety of media such as lava rock, coco fiber, and charcoal. I am even experimenting with bio balls, and LECA. The most common and probably cheapest is charcoal. Just normal charcoal not the bricks , break it up so you have all sizes of chunks just avoid the fine stuff. RINSE IT LOTS !!. For orchid people who have the horticultural charcoal already, go ahead spoil the little guys
OK now put some charcoal in a watertight container so that you have at least an inch or so. The charcoal serves as real estate as they live in the gaps formed from the natural layering of the chunks. Now add some water until you have a thin layer BELOW the charcoal. They springtails float on water but they don't really live on it. The water layer is to keep the humidity up and the charcoal moist. For food you can feed them many organic items ranging from fish flakes to bakers yeast. I mostly use ground up dried mushrooms as I have had great results with that.
The pictures again are with my cell phone but you can still see the little guys
Next I will discuss Isopods or Porcellio scaber. These guys are also really easy to take care of. I keep them in a mix of leftover potting media so basically everything. They will also eat anything so when you don't feed them in your enclosure they eat detritus which is why I keep them. While I"m culturing them though I mostly feed them good quality dog food and fish flakes. They ake longer to reproduce than springtails but they also live longer and are much easier to see. Again the pics are with the phone but you can see the little guys and how I keep them.
I also wanted to briefly discuss some forms of biological control I use in the aquatic sections of my tanks. My favorite of all are assassin snails or Clea helena. These snails will hunt and eat smaller aqautic snails which have a habit of infesting my water sections. I think they are really pretty and cool to watch and they are also good at what they do Another form I use in the water is Aquatic Carnivorous plants like Utricularia gibba which I find very usefull at trapping all kinds of larvae and other bugs that infest my water in the summer.
It's really cool to watch all these little guys and I sooooooooooooo wish I had a better camera to show you guys this stuff in HD or something. Anyways I hope this is a good start to what will become a very informative thread.
Cheers
Beneficial Bugs
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