Darkling beetle breeding

a.ojala

a.ojala

Chalcosoma
I have 4 adults and 5 giant larvae in a 1.5 gallon tank. They have been in that tank for the last 5 months, and I have never seen any signs of breeding. I woke up today and look in there tank and saw about 50 really tiny larvae pressed up agents the glass. Should I move them to a bigger tank??? Or are they fine in the tank there in for now, and if so for how long.

 
Well, I don't know exactly how many can stay together. Especially in a 1.5 gallon tank. When it becomes overpopulated, they may stop laying eggs.

If you want you could try getting some out and moving them into their own tank. The easiest way with tiny larva is to just move the substrate in scoops over into a larva only container. Then give new substrate to the tank with adults in it.

What species are these?

 
Could you post a picture?

The larva re a bit different than adults, but not very difficult or anything. With Eleodes just substrate moist in one corner and some carrots works fine for me. I use coconut coir, which has not value what so ever food wise, so I submerge baby carrots in it and the larva love it
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I'll upload a pic in a few hours. Right now I'm feeding them apples, dry dog food, and a hole carrot with roots attached which is barried under organic potting soil. Is that ok? Plus how long does there larvae life cycle take, egg to pupae ???

 
The adults love apples and dry dog food
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Also you could try fish food, oats, hermit crab food, and pretty much anything else you may have
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The larva will eat the carrots until they have little tunnels in them. At least they will with baby carrots.

I think that Eleodes can take 8-10 months from egg to prepupa/pupa.

 
Sounds like you have a good crop of larvae there. If you are concerned that the larger larvae might eat smaller larvae or new laid eggs, I would suggest separating the larvae from the adults. Not sure how "permenant" you adult tank is, but if possible I would seive the substrate to extract the larvae or transfer half of the substrate and all the larvae to a separate tank. This would make management of the larvae easier and remove any worries about the new laid eggs.

 
Matt said:
Sounds like you have a good crop of larvae there. If you are concerned that the larger larvae might eat smaller larvae or new laid eggs, I would suggest separating the larvae from the adults. Not sure how "permenant" you adult tank is, but if possible I would seive the substrate to extract the larvae or transfer half of the substrate and all the larvae to a separate tank. This would make management of the larvae easier and remove any worries about the new laid eggs.
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If the larva are large then a seive works great. But with tiny larva it can be very difficult as sometimes they may fall through the seive, and they are more difficult to see when going through the substrate.

And with the seive, if you are using coconut coir or substrate that isn't very fine, then it won't go through the seive and will just become a pain.

I would do like mentioned above by Matt and I, remove the top half of the substrate and larva into their own tank. Then give the adults new substrate to make up for the half you took out. Just do this every time the larva seem to become overpopulated. It's an easy way to get the larva out, and can be called "tank maintenance" because you are cleaning/replacing the substrate
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I have found that even substrate were you couldn't see any larva, still have tiny ones or even eggs. This is why I never throw substrate from the adult tanks out, I just put it in a plastic sterilite tote with holes drilled in the top and in a while little babies are running around
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Speaking of larva I found a one inch long larva in my Eleodes acuticauda tank
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I don't know how it got so huge so quickly though, I haven't had them long and I have changed the substrate like mentioned above once already.

 
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Sorry for the delay lol I counted the larvae today too and there is about 100+ lol
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jreidsma said:
Could you post some pictures of the adults?

Nice!
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That sounds like a lot of babies!
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Counted 5 adults today, one more than yesterday
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here's a pic of a few of them, they spend most of there time underground, so it's hard to get a pic of all of them at once.

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do they smell funky??? i have good sized mealworm colony and i hate the smell of the adults make... they make the smell when i pick them up... im feeding some of my insects the adults and i hope the smell doesnt affect the health...
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Ya but only when I pick them up, I think the smell your smelling is a type of pheromone??? But I could be wrong. The reason I started to breed these guys is for reptile food too. I have tons of reptiles, so I am trying to produce my own food, because its getting really expensive,lol. I'm also breeding crickets, blue bottle flys, and flightless fruit flys. It's really cutting down my costs
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a.ojala said:
Ya but only when I pick them up, I think the smell your smelling is a type of pheromone???
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It's a defensive chemical (aka exudant) with a primary active ingredient of a quinone, many darklings and millipedes and a few roaches also make similar quinones for chemical defense.

 
Orin said:
It's a defensive chemical (aka exudant) with a primary active ingredient of a quinone, many darklings and millipedes and a few roaches also make similar quinones for chemical defense.
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Ahh, the noticeable darkling stench
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My Eleodes (all three tanks) will stink me without warning, I put in a piece of apple or a new piece of food and there is always that one jumpy Eleodes acuticauda that stinks me...

 
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