Frustrating Florida locality Strategus antaeus

[JunkaiWangisme]

Some cb antaeus from a 2020 WC adults (light trapped in Ocala, FL). I can manage to breed this species but production isn’t that great (I hear they are easier from none sand scrub areas, especially further north), and they seem to require sand with breeding. They also seem to have a disproportional amount of females, comparative to males. Have everyone’s experience with antaeus from sandy areas been like this? I use 40 percent flake soil, 30 percent raised bed soil (I use this soil to breed and raise tityus with great success, as the only substrate I use for them), and 30 percent lake sand. 
antaeus from this locality seem to have no issue with being raised just on flake soil though, which is rather nice. Larvae seem to have high cannibalistic tendencies, in contrast to their tame cousins aloeus, which tolerates quite a bit of crowding.  

 

[JunkaiWangisme]

Male raised on just flake soil. The horn is a lot wider than the WC specimens of the parent generation that had equal length horns, which is rather weird. 

 

[JunkaiWangisme]

Adults of the parent generation. 

 

[JKim]

I collected all my Strategus antaeus in Kisatchie National Forest (here and there of Louisiana) also in more of sandy locations, and I tried different methods of setting them up like having different ratios of sand, peatmoss soil, substrate, as well as some clay. However, the utmost result came from just using a substrate alone. lol And yes, I agree they are very highly cannibalistic. Even freshly hatched L1s love to predate each other...

 

[Beetle-Experience]

I used to collect and work with them in central FL and did okay with a sandy substrate but never collected anywhere near as many ova as from S. aloeus. Different periods of the season should result in more of one or the other sex. Here in Louisiana I find male S. aloeus first then many more females. I seem to remember something similar with collecting S. antaeus but this would have been over 20 years ago.