Help with feeder crickets!

[rikkitiger]

I am a new American Green Tree frog owner. I always wanted them and read up on them for a long time and saved up to get good products. I have had them for about 9 days and they are doing just fine, but i have a problem with their crickets.

So i will go through my set up:

I have a large cricket keeper from petsmart. It is the right size so it can hold a large number of crickets.I have an egg carton in their tank, torn up into different pieces. One big piece is set up diagonally across the container. There are two on the ground, providing good hiding places. In four pockets of another, i have their food and their water gel. I have cricket diet calcium gut loading food and calcium water gel. I have paper towels lining the bottom of their tank. After keeping the crickets for a couple days they seemed fine. I had about 60 of them in their container. The tank has a screen lid that they are in. I live in the middle of nowhere, not near a petsmart or co for about 3 hours, so i had to have the crickets mailed from a website. I got them, and i expected you know, a couple dead ones here and there. They are fragile after all.

My tree frogs eat them just fine and all, but after a couple days, i noticed that there were more dead ones in the corners. And it is to the point now where i only have about ten left, and i need every single one until i can get more.

So is there something going wrong? i noticed that they crawl under the paper towel and die sometimes too. There are about twenty dead ones and i know its not good to keep them in there so i scoop the new dead ones out when they are in a place that i can.

So i am hoping that there is a solution to this and that there is soon. Please help!

[dmallia]

Remove the paper towels on the bottom of the tank.

I keep mine with egg carton on one side and than on the other side I usually put the lettuce and a wet paper towel (for a water supply) and oats. It's very important to remove the dead once since they can eat the dead crickets and have a chance that they die too. It's also very important to clean the container regularly.

This is a picture of my adult crickets(the soil is for females to lay eggs)

[Lija]

welcome to the forum!
solution to living in a middle of nowhere to start dubia colony going after initial investment you will have a indefinite food supply for the cost of their food
crickets are smelly, they're fragile, you'll have escapees no matter how careful you are.
but if you wanna get them as a food, you have to get about 1/3 more then you need and from a reliable source. you need to keep them warm, dark, very clean with plenty of space and a lot of water (lettice, water cubes, etc.) above is an excellent example of how it is done.

[rikkitiger]

So can I get some more info from people on how to start a colony? what do I need that I don't have? will the food and water get that I have work for food and water? do I indeed need soil? and will it honestly save me money and be easier to start a colony? thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. So now I guess im looking for tips on how to start a successful colony. Thanks!

[kroberts009]

i keep mine in a large kritter keeper, with either egg crate or toilet paper rolls for hiding. then for food, i have a lid full of oats and a lid that is usually filled with either lettuce or carrots. i also have a separate lid, with a piece of paper towel crumbled into a ball that i soak with water often as it drys out during the day.

no substrate on the bottom.
keep it relatively clean
change veggies and water at least every 2 days. to maintain optimum freshness

and you should have a lot less die offs. i have very few

[rikkitiger]

ok. thanks again. Does anyone else have tips on starting a colony?

[rikkitiger]

the first picture is of my cricket place before i cleaned it out and took your advice. The second picture is now. I completely cleaned it out and replaced the food and water gel. My new question is should i be feeding the crickets more than just the food and water gel? like, lettuce?

[kroberts009]

how tall are those cups your using to feed them? are you sure they can get in? i would also worry about just using it in the egg crate, because it can mold easily and then cause problems.

yeah, sure they like to eat veggies. but the veggies are used primarially to gut load your crickets before you feed to your animals. i prefer to provide them with some regular oats and/or cricket feed. and veggies, such as carrots, potato, lettuce, or anything leafy

here are two pictures of what my current set up looks like. (please excuse the childrens toys) (usually there is a piece of egg crate in there, but when i cleaned out my cricket tank the other day. it was incredibly dirty, so i threw it away and went with the two toilet paper rolls (paper towel roll works fine too!)

[rikkitiger]

the first picture is what it was like before. The second picture is what it is like now. The containers are not very tall, and i have positioned them in relation to the egg carton so that they can climb from food to egg carton and back. they were also jumping into it.

[Mentat]

Agree with Lija, start a Dubia colony and your feeding problem will be solved soon .

[dmallia]

the first picture is of my cricket place before i cleaned it out and took your advice. The second picture is now. I completely cleaned it out and replaced the food and water gel. My new question is should i be feeding the crickets more than just the food and water gel? like, lettuce?

Make sure to have a good amount of egg carton in the container since they are territorial and fight between each other. Also the food containers seems to be too tall for me.