Saturday, November 18, 2017

Cariblatta Crashes & Pystalla Problems...

Well, I've been having a stroke of bad luck with my Cariblatta cultures lately. Luckily it doesn't seem like I'll be losing either species from my collection any time soon, but their numbers have been diminished a bit...

I forgot to feed my Cariblatta lutea a few weeks ago, just one missed feeding, but in the three days they were without food, I lost about half of my adult population, and quite a few nymphs too. 😢 It was quite a stupid mistake, I simply took their moldy food out of their enclosure when it came time to do maintenance, but forgot to put some new food in. Luckily the remaining individuals seem to be doing well, and I still have a couple dozen or so individuals, but it really sucks, because my culture was undergoing it's first big population boom...

Meanwhile, my Cariblatta minima culture has become infected with some sort of small, round, dark red mites, and they seem to be affecting their overall health quite a bit. Most of the remaining Cariblatta are too small to pick out individually without also collecting some of the mites, so I was only able to pick out a few adult females and two adult males, along with one subadult female, and I have moved them to their own, mite free enclosure, in the hopes of establishing a new colony in case the old one dies off completely.

I also added lots of Sinella curviseta springtails to the mite infested culture, in the hopes of them out-competing the mites and saving the Cariblatta minima, and I added more hides for the Cariblatta and springtails as well. Maybe the mites will die off and the roaches will bounce back, we'll see, for now though I am keeping them in my bathroom, far from my other enclosures, so the mites don't spread to the rest of my collection.

My Pystalla horrida subadults are being SO picky when it comes to feeding, they are refusing to go after prey in the standard enclosures I have them housed in, so I've been trying different enclosures, hide types, hide placements, and food types in an attempt to get them to feed. So far I've had no luck, and it's driving me up the walls with frustration... I got these to help relieve me of stress by getting rid of excess roaches, not to create more stress! 😩

I really don't know why they won't eat anymore, they fed just fine for me on a wide variety of prey items up until now. I suspect they want a specific type of hide to perch from and swoop down on their prey, but nothing I've done seems to be adequate for them... Hopefully I can get them to start eating normally again soon, I really want to be successful in breeding these beasties!

Oh well, I think that's gonna do it for this rant of a post, hopefully the next one will be a little more upbeat! Thank you all for reading, will see you next time!

4 comments:

  1. my adult horrid king spends 99% of his time on a roughly 3" wide 6" long half round log looking over the ends and edges for prey. he did this as a sub adult also, which is what he was when i got him. good luck.

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    1. Does he ever eat anything lol? I actually do have a half log I once used for my tarantula years ago, maybe I should try giving one of them that to perch on!

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  2. i've only seen him eat a few times but he likes to hunt and is always on the lookout for prey. he knows i am the food bringer and pays attention to me when i come near. he also knows that things like to hide under his log. i suspect he does most of his eating at night.

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    1. Your adult sounds a lot smarter than my nymphs lol! I tried tong feeding my nymphs a few times, they attacked but never actually grabbed the prey I was holding...
      Oh well, hopefully my nymphs will either eat or molt soon!

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