Cricket issues - Crashed fruit fly cultures - variety for tiny frogs?

[LilyPad]

I typed this all up yesterday and for some reason, I couldn't get it posted!

Firstly, the annoying chirping cricket has apparently died or been eaten. Not before breeding though. I have a bunch of pinheads running around my gray tree frog tank now. I figured they would be fine in there, growing until the catch the interest of my tree frogs. I'm not about to attempt to catch them and feed them to the other froglets.

I have 3 different size crickets in the house, small, med, and large. They are all housed in separate critter keepers to make catching and feeding easier. I usually buy 50 at a time of each. The toads are eating the small crickets, and the bigger ones get a couple of medium crickets. They are chowing them down, so I go through the small ones really fast. My medium and large crickets have been dying off at incredible rates. The gray tree frogs get fed every other night (medium and large crickets) and between the 4 of them, they usually eat 15-20 crickets, at least, that's how many I put in there, some hide out and get eaten the next day (or 2 weeks later in the case of the large chirper we had!) So I go through them a bit slower. But about HALF of them die off before I get them fed. I do not know what I am doing wrong, I've been doing it the same way all along, and have just recently had problems. I put them in a critter keeper, with toilet paper rolls stacked for them to hide in and make feeding easier. They get a gutload of fish food, cheerios, carrots, and spinach, sometimes other fruits and veggies depending what I have. I give them "water" by putting orange slices in with them. This is how I've done it from the very start, yet they are dying like crazy. I went to feed the frogs last night and had maybe 20 dead crickets, and one to feed them with! Any ideas?? Temps in the house are good, so that shouldn't be effecting them.

And then the fruit flies. I've been buying D. Melanogaster for the spring peepers. They've grown a lot and I'm having to feed them so many fruit flies, I have 4 cultures right now to be sure that I always have enough. I recently bought 2 D. Hydei cultures, and the flies are all dead stuck to the sides and it totally stopped producing. I've heard that those are harder to keep going, but does anyone have some tips on that? I'd really like to give them something more substantial but they arent big enough for crickets, and I'm not sure that they ever will be. The biggest of them is already matured (the male) and would not be able to handle crickets at this point unless they were still tiny, like just above pinhead size. Could I give them some of the isopods that have been breeding in my gray tree frog tank? I know there is a risk of impaction there, but I know there is a stick in there with a ton of babies on it that I could scrape off in there, or I could start my own breeding with them and then it isn't as big of a hazard.

Thanks everyone

[SludgeMunkey]

It is summer is Wisconsin. Do like I do and collect the moths that show up at your porch lights. I have yet to find an amphibian that doesn't like moths.

Just skip out on any that are stark black and white, have lots of bright orange anywhere on them, or orange/yellow underwings. They may not get eaten as most are distasteful. If you are near water, your pets will really dig the beetles and mayflies that show up at the lights too.

A black light aimed at a white bedsheet outdoors at night is an almost instant amphibian live food buffet!

[Jennski]

How do you catch the moths?