Megasoma Sleeperi - First time owner

H

Hoolia

L2
Owned various insects before, but this will be my first time raising beetles from their Larval state. Just wanted to see if there's anything I'm missing in my care. Right now they are in these small cups, which I will be upgrading soon so I can better maintain humidity (the small cups seem to need to be misted every week or two). Currently are eating the flake soil they were shipped in, but I purchased some edible compost from BugsinCyberspace to add some rotted oak and magnolia leaf litter I have to to it. The oak is definitely rotting (my millis love it!) but should I break it down smaller? Or are large chunks fine?

I'm also curious to how often you all check on your larvae, mine are in their 2nd instar I believe and definitely don't want to disturb them in the future when molting or pupating. How do you know when to be hands off if you don't know how far along they are in their instar stage?

Finally, any disadvantage to keeping them all in the same container? They are all separate for now, but need to decide how to house them as they get bigger.

Pics for those who are interested. I took them out once to ensure they were all alive and have since only checked on them through the plastic.

Larvae.jpg

 
Alright, I'll do that this evening, thanks for the heads up! I had a supsicion it was but still was not 100% sure. 

 
I’m not sure about adding magnolia, but break down the oak as much as possible, larvae have an easier time chewing smaller particles and thus tend to grow larger/faster when there are finer particles. Not much care is really needed, as long as you make sure they have enough edible substrate. Larvae can be housed in the same container if it’s large enough, I don’t know of any disadvantages, except for maybe smaller adult size. When kept together the adult emergence time tends to be much less staggered, which is very important in species with a short adult life span.

 
I agree with @Pewrune on changing that sub; there appears to be a lot of frass. When you start seeing that many pellets in the sub it's usually time to freshen it up. In case you aren't aware, when you change sub you want to make sure you put in some of their current sub, and place the larvae in that so that they can move into the new sub at their own pace and better acclimate. It will also help you to tell if the larvae have an issue with the new sub. 

Someone else will probably have better advise, but you really don't want to disturb them any more than necessary, regardless of how close they are to molting. I only check on my larvae once per month (my wife calls it Beetle Day; it's on the calendar), and I know some others with more experience than myself only check up every two months.

You're already moving them to a larger container, which is good (that larva looks pretty sizable if that's an 8oz container). Around that size I normally put my larvae into 32oz containers with a few holes in the lid, and about 6 holes along the sides of the container. I have the containers filled pretty much all the way to the lid, with the bottom 80% being hand-compressed and the top 20% or so being loose. This is nice because as the larva consumes sub you can see easily see the level drop, and it's clear if you need to add more before your next normal checkup. The other big bonus with this for me has been that since I've eliminated the air gap between the top of the sub and the lid I haven't had to spray the sub at all between monthly checks, and I've seen much greater larval growth among all species I keep. I live in the driest city in the country, so I've definitely struggled with substrate humidity in the past.

As for the sub, @Bugboy3092 is on point with everything I understand from my (admittedly limited) experience, the knowledge gained here from the board, and Orin's "Ultimate Guide." Finer particles are better. You'll notice if you buy any of Peter's oak flake that it is very fine indeed, with few (if any) "chunks." All of my Megasoma and Dynastes larvae did ok on the edible compost you got from BiC, but they definitely did better on oak flake or fermented oak sawdust.

Not sure about keeping M sleeperi together. As you surely know, some species are cannibalistic. If you do decided to keep them communally you'd want to look at a significantly larger container.

 
@Bugboy3092 @PowerHobo

Thank you both for the very in depth information! Since I've got to replace substrate anyway tonight I'll upgrade them as well. Since this is my first time raising them I'll keep them separate this time around till I'm more experienced with this species. 

 
No problem! I have four of them (L3s now) and I’ve been keeping them together for months, the only problem I’ve had is with temperature changes (at first when I got them, my area was quite cold and slowed their development, and got cold enough to kill two of the grubs, but now I have them near a heat lamp and they seem to be doing well). Can’t wait to see some adults, and hopefully establish a culture.

 
Update for those who are interested! They have now been rehoused in a mixture of the edible compost and crumbled up rotten oak (as small as I could manage without any tools, mostly into a powdery dust just not entirely, it was pretty well rotted). I packed the majority of it down and left the top 1/5 loose. I poked holes in the substrate and put half of the larvae's previous substrate in the bottom and covered them with the rest. They all seemed very lively and healthy, handled them using gloves (I learned that tip early on). I don't have anything to make holes in the lid of the acrylic right now so I think I'm gonna channel my inner 10 year old and put a bag with holes poked into it until this weekend when I have access to the tools to drill/melt the acrylic.

IMG_20180801_194438193.jpg

 
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