15 replies to this topic

[evanmancini2011]

I am very into keeping Ants and was wondering what other insects do people keep? I would love to learn what other insects ant keepers keep!

 

 

[Stubyvast]

These are the ones I've kept/currently keeping! Mostly caught from my backyard, or discovered:

Ear-wigs

Isopods (so cute)

Mealworms (don't know if they count)

Beetles

Centipedes

Millipedes

Common flies (didn't go so well)

Some type of underground dwelling snail (found in my terrarium)

Aphids (suddenly appeared in my terrarium)

A Tarantula (Unsure of species, my good friend IdioticMouse26 lent it to me while he's on vacation)

Mites (introduced into one of my terrariums to get rid of mold, actually works!)

 

I've also heard you can keep:

Stick bugs

Praying mantises

Butterflies/caterpillars

Fruit flies (for food)

Crickets (also for food)

Cockroaches (also for food)

Termites (really fun to keep, I've heard)

Paper Wasps (a very interesting experiment, IdioticMouse26 currently has them)

Bees (duh)

 

And lots more I've probably forgotten! I've also noted that a lot of other ant keepers besides me keep fish. Connection? No idea. Probably just because they're so easy to keep. 

Edited by Stubyvast, July 30 2024 - 2:28 PM.

[mbullock42086]

I'm mostly into jumping spiders, particularly the rarer species like phidippus tux which I've now been culturing for 2 years.

[evanmancini2011]

Wow that is impressive how many you keep! Do you have any tips on how to keep Arthropods, Beetles, mealworms, and centipedes?

 

And for mbullock do you have any tips on how to find jumping spiders and how to raise them?

 

Thank you so much for all your help!

[ANTdrew]

Besides ants, I culture mealworms and fruit flies as feeders. I also have two species of isopods (I think that’s what the above posters meant by arthropods), and two Phidippus regius jumping spiders. I raised several mantis species last year as well.

[mbullock42086]

Wow that is impressive how many you keep! Do you have any tips on how to keep Arthropods, Beetles, mealworms, and centipedes?

 

And for mbullock do you have any tips on how to find jumping spiders and how to raise them?

 

Thank you so much for all your help!

it depends truly on what you seek.  as for raising them, youll need flightless fruitflies for the spiderlings.  they're easy to keep and generally  require no substrate, though terrestrial species are happier on sand or rocks.

 look up "phidippus" in inaturalist, then click on "about" then click on the photos, then you'll see a location search- type in your county or wherever you wish to hunt and the photo gallery will show everything from your target area if it's been obderved by the site.

[michiganantsinmyyard]

Other than ants I have mealworms and termites for feeders.
I have an Ariadna bicolor tube dwelling spider, and am in the process of setting up equipment for a Scolopendra heros.

[cooIboyJ]

I know some people keep wasps.

[Ernteameise]

No other insects (although I kept African beetles in the past, the nice shiny colorful ones)-

but right now I have several tanks with cherry shrimp and I just set up a small tank with Thai micro crabs- the smallest crabs in the world!

[cooIboyJ]

I do keep some guppies and cherry shrimp and some cory catfish with a yellow mystery snail.

Edited by cooIboyJ, July 29 2024 - 10:14 AM.

[Stubyvast]

Wow that is impressive how many you keep! Do you have any tips on how to keep Arthropods, Beetles, mealworms, and centipedes?

 

And for mbullock do you have any tips on how to find jumping spiders and how to raise them?

 

Thank you so much for all your help!

Yup I can give you some tips! I actually don't have much professional experience with Isopods, specifically roly-polies, but here's what I got:

I keep them in a forest-type terrarium, and always ensure they have rotten wood available to shelter under and forage in, as well as become a host for beneficial bacteria and mites. I feed them leaf litter, mosses, and also lichen from tree branches, which surprisingly they love! Also apple slices. They love those too. They seem to give birth in clutches of ten or so, and the babies grow decently fast, but are hard to spot at first!

As for mealworms, super easy feeder insects to keep:

Give them an open container with high walls to keep them from escaping, and fill about two or three inches with wheat bran, or oats, as I use. They can eat pretty much any vegetable and fruit, and also weeds, as I discovered. Don't bother watering them, they rely on the veggies for water. They like it dry! I like to separate adult beetles from the rest of the mealworms just so they don't eat each other, especially if it gets crowded.

Beetles, centipedes, and millipedes I actually don't know much about! I assume for the most part they are omnivores, and scavengers, relying on dead insects and plant matter. I actually don't interact much with these guys, but they love it in my terrarium! So something in there is providing them adequate shelter and sustenance. 

Hope this helped!

Edited by Stubyvast, July 30 2024 - 2:28 PM.

[ANTdrew]

Wow that is impressive how many you keep! Do you have any tips on how to keep Arthropods, Beetles, mealworms, and centipedes?

And for mbullock do you have any tips on how to find jumping spiders and how to raise them?

Thank you so much for all your help!

Yup I can give you some tips! I actually don't have much professional experience with Arthropods, specifically roly-polies, but here's what I got:
I keep them in a forest-type terrarium, and always ensure they have rotten wood available to shelter under and forage in, as well as become a host for beneficial bacteria and mites. I feed them leaf litter, mosses, and also lichen from tree branches, which surprisingly they love! Also apple slices. They love those too. They seem to give birth in clutches of ten or so, and the babies grow decently fast, but are hard to spot at first!
As for mealworms, super easy feeder insects to keep:
Give them an open container with high walls to keep them from escaping, and fill about two or three inches with wheat bran, or oats, as I use. They can eat pretty much any vegetable and fruit, and also weeds, as I discovered. Don't bother watering them, they rely on the veggies for water. They like it dry! I like to separate adult beetles from the rest of the mealworms just so they don't eat each other, especially if it gets crowded.
Beetles, centipedes, and millipedes I actually don't know much about! I assume for the most part they are omnivores, and scavengers, relying on dead insects and plant matter. I actually don't interact much with these guys, but they love it in my terrarium! So something in there is providing them adequate shelter and sustenance.
Hope this helped!

Rolly pollies are isopods. Arthropods refers to any organism with segmented legs.

[Izzy]

I have a terrarium I built that I keep some Porcellio scaber (lava morph) isopods in. They're super cool and low maintenance! Although they've basically eaten everything dead and green I had in the terrarium so its just a bowl of dirt, rocks, and cork bark now.

[Entomologyants]

When I was 3 years old, I kept a cricket farm in a bug hunting cage.

[Stubyvast]

 

 

Wow that is impressive how many you keep! Do you have any tips on how to keep Arthropods, Beetles, mealworms, and centipedes?

And for mbullock do you have any tips on how to find jumping spiders and how to raise them?

Thank you so much for all your help!

Yup I can give you some tips! I actually don't have much professional experience with Arthropods, specifically roly-polies, but here's what I got:
I keep them in a forest-type terrarium, and always ensure they have rotten wood available to shelter under and forage in, as well as become a host for beneficial bacteria and mites. I feed them leaf litter, mosses, and also lichen from tree branches, which surprisingly they love! Also apple slices. They love those too. They seem to give birth in clutches of ten or so, and the babies grow decently fast, but are hard to spot at first!
As for mealworms, super easy feeder insects to keep:
Give them an open container with high walls to keep them from escaping, and fill about two or three inches with wheat bran, or oats, as I use. They can eat pretty much any vegetable and fruit, and also weeds, as I discovered. Don't bother watering them, they rely on the veggies for water. They like it dry! I like to separate adult beetles from the rest of the mealworms just so they don't eat each other, especially if it gets crowded.
Beetles, centipedes, and millipedes I actually don't know much about! I assume for the most part they are omnivores, and scavengers, relying on dead insects and plant matter. I actually don't interact much with these guys, but they love it in my terrarium! So something in there is providing them adequate shelter and sustenance.
Hope this helped!

Rolly pollies are isopods. Arthropods refers to any organism with segmented legs.

 

Oh yah good catch. Editing now

[OhNoNotAgain]

Keeping this to inverts:

 

When I was a kid, I kept ants. Among athropods, just ants.

 

Isopods: Restarting in 2019 was due to isopods, but I'm now down to only a couple species (my favorites being Hoffs). Some are invasive, meaning one or two get loose in a bin and ... suddenly it's a powdered orange bin. I also never ordered dwarf whites but seem to have some in an otherwise dead bin....

 

Feeders: I have some roaches as feeders: dubia and Kenyan, plus some failing mealworm colonies.

 

Jumping spiders: Ugh, I don't have the best luck with them. I can raise babies to adulthood okay, but.... Let's just say the last group met an untimely end through possible contamination of their water supply. I also was experimentally leaving them with wet substrate to drink from because I was away a few days, and that - maybe because of the water mistake - did not go well. The other problem is that local jumping spiders are small. They are too small for Kenyan roaches. They can do hydei, but my hydei crashed. My mealworms weren't producing tons of very small babies. So just a very awkward size. When I raised the East Coast Phids (regius?) they were easy to keep - I just kept a supply of fly spikes in the fridge.

 

Other crustacea: I have a nano tank with theoretically a few Neocardina shrimp, but I haven't seen them lately. It's an over-planted over-algaed jungle. There are a bunch of Mollusca but I'm not really excited by snails.

 

Termites: I have a Termitat that reached full reproductive capability, so I have baby Zoots. I also am trying (again) to get a colony of drywoods.

 

Ants: The ants really are the most engaging. But then, I'm most familiar with them because they are the most fun to watch.

 

Oh speaking of keeping insects, in Japan of the 1970's they used to sell pet crickets and staghorn beetles etc. for kids. The only reason I didn't get such things is I couldn't bring them back to Stateside. In Japan, they still sell all sorts of beetles at high collectors' prices. In either the 70's or 80's I also got a plastic dirt-based formicarium from a Japanese kids' magazine (it was the included "free toy" if I recall correctly). What a lot of fun that toy was. I could use it freely with the good old backyard ants, probably Lasius.

Edited by OhNoNotAgain, August 11 2024 - 10:31 PM.