Switching Wood From Tank To Tank

Ratmosphere

Ratmosphere

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Hey guys.

I am wondering if I would be able to switch some rotting log pieces from one of my terrariums to an other without heat treating.The other terrarium is brand new awaiting an arrival of Stag Beetles coming in. Would any fungus or bacteria spread ? It has been heat treated before. I ask only because the wood is so dry that i feel it will catch an ember and spark into flames(this happened before.) I am not able to search in the woods because I have no time. Any ideas?

 
You should be alright as long as you haven't seen anything unpleasant roaming around on the log, like a centipede, or something. Be sure to soak the log before using it so that it will soften up.

Cheers

 
It should be fine to use without treatment as long as there's nothing detrimental to your beetles living in or on the piece of wood. If nothing has crawled out of it and you've been using the wood for a while, it should be free of most types of unwanted critters, but drying out the wood is not the best method of ensuring that you've killed unwanted invertebrates as many can go dormant.

It's also fine to use if you haven't had a breakout of any fungi that can harm your beetles. Mycelium has been shown to be able to dry out and come back to life with moisture, but it's usually not an issue since a good piece of wood will have mushroom mycelium and not mold mycelium--mushroom mycelium will continue to break down the wood and will make it more suitable for use with stag beetles.

 
UPDATE:

I switched some wood to other designated terrariums. However, these tanks require a humidity level of 56-70%. I have noticed that there is green mold on some to them, and even some white mold that resembles a chunk of toothpaste. Would this pose a threat to my adult beetles?

 
The mold is normal. The green mold indicates that there's free nutrients available in the piece of wood. If the white mold is rubbery or solid, it'll be mushroom growth, if it's cottony, it's just another mold. Mushroom mycelium would revive and begin to grow with the addition of moisture if the wood wasn't sterilized.

 
Any tips on keeping humidity high without sufficient green mold growing in the soil as well? I don't want to introduce a lot into it. I have some moss in there as well as a hermit crab drinking sponge. To add to that, I also equipped it with a small water dish. I also most every day but I can never keep the humidity to a high reading on the hygrometer.

 
When I need high humidity environments, I use a small heating pad bought from the local pet shop.

First, partition out a section of the terrarium and put sand in it, then put moss on top of the sand. Dampen the sand/moss partition with distilled water. You don't need to flood it, just get it damp. Then, place your heating pad under the terrarium where the sand/moss partition is.

The heating pad will heat up the water and create a high humidity environment. You can regulate the humidity by placing the heating pad on a timer AND/OR using a piece of plexiglass for a damper on top of the terrarium that you can slide around to reduce ventilation and positioning it for the proper humidity level.

The advantage of the plexiglass damper is that you don't have to re-moisten the sand/moss partition as often as you would if you just had a screen on top of the terrarium.

When, or if, you see green mold forming, move the plexiglass damper to allow better ventilation. It should only take a couple of weeks to figure out the proper humidity levels.

Cheers

 
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Hate to bump this thread but there is some exciting news that needs sharing. I use to have a problem with heat treating wood, as sometimes the wood would catch an ember causing smoke and a horrible smell throughout my house. The smell could be describes as the stench that lingers on you once you get back from a friends bonfire. Anyway, instead of just switching the wood from tank to tank, heat treating it would be best for health reasons. I then thought, how would I be able to cool the wood to protect it from overheating? The answer would be water. It first started off by putting chunks of wood on a ceramic plate and heated it in the microwave for 3 minutes. It got really hot so it was time to put it inside a tub of water beside me. After they soaked, they were put back into the microwave. This is when I noticed that they can be placed in there for a longer period of time. I did a few cycles of heat treatment along with cooling until I noticed that the spongy wood was bubbling and almost boiling. This made me feel trusted that I was killing a lot of things inside the wood. The wood remains heat treated and moist enough that hopefully a female beetle can lay eggs inside. (Hopefully no green mold either.)
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I soak mine in boiling water if it's a small piece and I boil it for a few minutes and let it slowly soak until it cools if it's a large piece. It's not a good idea to heat treat items with dry heat in the oven.

The process of boiling and soaking also removes free nutrients such as simple carbohydrates and helps prevents the growth of mold. Boiling to leach out simple carbohydrates is a common method used in preparing medium for cellulose-feeding mushrooms because it helps prevent aggressive and detrimental mold. Simple carbohydrates will not be available to your larvae even if they are present due to the fact that they are very quickly taken up by either microbial action, mold, or pests such as fungus gnats and mites. Most wood-feeding larvae feed on cellulose and use gut fauna to break it down for them--those that also feed on simple carbohydrates in the undried wood tend to feed on living tissues like some beetles in the family Cerambycidae do.

 
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