Beetles and clean up crew advice

[shankly1985]

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Hi all I hope you are well.

I have a leopard gecko bioactive enclosure setup for a few months now.
At the moment I have orange and grey isopods along with spring tales but I do want to add some beetles from superworms.

I do have 8 escaped mealworm and two Morio worms already inside the enclosure.

Are the beetles good for arid setups?

[acpart]

The beetles may need some occasional misting to stay hydrated. At one time I thought this was a great idea since it meant I could save space by breeding my feeders in the gecko enclosures and the worms would be there for hunting. I had an enclosure with 2 gargoyles and quite a colony of super worms and beetles. Then I started to find wounds on my gargoyles' tails and one day noticed a beetle attached to it. That was the end of that experiment!

Aliza

[shankly1985]

The beetles may need some occasional misting to stay hydrated. At one time I thought this was a great idea since it meant I could save space by breeding my feeders in the gecko enclosures and the worms would be there for hunting. I had an enclosure with 2 gargoyles and quite a colony of super worms and beetles. Then I started to find wounds on my gargoyles' tails and one day noticed a beetle attached to it. That was the end of that experiment!

Aliza

Thanks for the reply

I am think on adding only males inside the enclosure or only females do you think two is enough for the 90cm long Exo Terra?

[acpart]

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You may want to consider dermestid beetles instead. They are much smaller and will be fine with whatever moisture is around the water dish. I googled "sexing superworm beetles" and based on what I found, I do wonder how accurate you would be. Another interesting choice is the "feigning blue death beetle" (I kid you not) which are hard to find and pretty interesting to keep.

Aliza