New hobbyist with a 2 week old batch of flake soil starting to smell funky...

[Fredgnathus Aurelius]

Hey all!

I'm a new with beetle breeding, but was always fascinated by arthropods in general (raised many things over the years). I even had a colony of Eudicella aethiopica back around 2010 that I maintained for 3 generations, but I had never used any flake soil, just pasteurized rotted wood and decayed maple leaves.

Now I started my first batch of flake soil 2 weeks ago and when I went to mix it, I noticed at the bottom these light/yellowish ''patches'' of sawdust and a fecal smell.

I tended to mix every 3 days and so far everything went fine.

Could I ''save'' the batch by mixing it very often, like once or twice a day for the next weeks? or adding more yeast+sugar?

or is it too late, according to your experiences?

I have it in a bin, on a heat mat set to 30 celsius on a thermostat.

I need to start other batches NOW as I got carried away and bought many, many beetles lol

My starting collection:

9x eggs D. grantii

20x L2 Dicronorhina derbyana layardi

10x L1/L2 Cyclomatus metallifer Purple

12x L1 Phalacrognathus muelleri 'Green Taiwanese lineage'

6x L2 Phalacrognathus muelleri Purple

9x egg/L1 Mecynorhina torquata ugandensis 'Deep Red'

15x L2/L3 Xylotrupes beckeri

5x L1 Homoderus mellyi

12x L2 Prosopocoilus blanchardi

I have access to rotting maple wood and leaves from a forest behind my house, and i harvested a small beech to make small logs colonized with minshi fungus, bot Trametes versicolor and Pleurotus species, as I am also an amateur mushroom grower. Already got about 3 large trash bags of forest soil+decayed leaves and white rotted wood.

Do you guys think I should harvest more for their need? i went all in on this one haha

I want things to go well, food wise!

Thanks for any help

 

[Fredgnathus Aurelius]

Also, I have logs of birch wood colonized by Fomes fomentarius (Tinder fungus) and Stereum sp..

Are these logs of any use for the species I listed?

Info on these are scarcer.