Endereye
L2
I have 6 xylorectes larva that I was able to have bred and hatch recently, but I’m wondering if I can get some insight.
I bred them by complete accident, I had a few females in some normal garden soil, and when I changed the substrate I noticed a bunch of larvas. One thing I noticed about the soil however, was that it was completely dry and had almost no moisture. I put them all in flake soil. Most of them were rejecting it and kept surfacing, so I decided to run an experiment: I put them in different amounts of flake-garden soil ratio containers and looked at how well they did. At first they seemed to reject the containers with higher flake concentrations, but after a couple days they all settled. This happened on July 4th. About a month later, on August 12th, I changed at their substrate and recorded their growth. They all seemed to grow at similar rates, but the ones in the lower concentrations of flake soil were surfacing right before I went to change it, leading me to determine that they indeed needed the actual flake soil. I then decided to this time, change the moisture of the flake soil and keep the high concentration of flake soil.
I had three levels of moisture:
Dry
Lightly moist
Moist
The ones in the dry soil instantly buried themselves and didn’t seem to have any problems. The ones in the lightly moist soil did the same, but I saw them surface once, only to bury themselves again soon after. The ones in the moist soil (moist enough to clump, but not drip) seemed to actively reject the soil at first, and it took them a very long time to actually bury themselves.
This leads me to my next point: the actual egg laying process.
The thestalus that laid the first time had VERY dry soil, like I’m taking pretty much sand level dry. Zero moisture in the soil. After that, I decided to put them in a tank with more soil that was kept more moist. I checked on it a little over a month later, and not a single egg or larva was found. This is leading me to believe that the female X. Thestalus larva require extremely dry soil to lay, doesn’t even have to be flake soil. I put them now in dry soil, and will have to see if they lay there, so It could just have been a complete coincidence that they like very dry soil. What do yall think? This was a very tacky experiment, but maybe I’m onto something? If anyone has any experience with breeding thestalus let me know!!
I bred them by complete accident, I had a few females in some normal garden soil, and when I changed the substrate I noticed a bunch of larvas. One thing I noticed about the soil however, was that it was completely dry and had almost no moisture. I put them all in flake soil. Most of them were rejecting it and kept surfacing, so I decided to run an experiment: I put them in different amounts of flake-garden soil ratio containers and looked at how well they did. At first they seemed to reject the containers with higher flake concentrations, but after a couple days they all settled. This happened on July 4th. About a month later, on August 12th, I changed at their substrate and recorded their growth. They all seemed to grow at similar rates, but the ones in the lower concentrations of flake soil were surfacing right before I went to change it, leading me to determine that they indeed needed the actual flake soil. I then decided to this time, change the moisture of the flake soil and keep the high concentration of flake soil.
I had three levels of moisture:
Dry
Lightly moist
Moist
The ones in the dry soil instantly buried themselves and didn’t seem to have any problems. The ones in the lightly moist soil did the same, but I saw them surface once, only to bury themselves again soon after. The ones in the moist soil (moist enough to clump, but not drip) seemed to actively reject the soil at first, and it took them a very long time to actually bury themselves.
This leads me to my next point: the actual egg laying process.
The thestalus that laid the first time had VERY dry soil, like I’m taking pretty much sand level dry. Zero moisture in the soil. After that, I decided to put them in a tank with more soil that was kept more moist. I checked on it a little over a month later, and not a single egg or larva was found. This is leading me to believe that the female X. Thestalus larva require extremely dry soil to lay, doesn’t even have to be flake soil. I put them now in dry soil, and will have to see if they lay there, so It could just have been a complete coincidence that they like very dry soil. What do yall think? This was a very tacky experiment, but maybe I’m onto something? If anyone has any experience with breeding thestalus let me know!!
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