Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: Getting back into the hobby, looking for some specifics!
Hello all,
I kept a pair of 13-14 inch African giant millipedes in 2004, they mated often but never produced young. After a recent trip to the San Diego wild animal park, seeing the puerto rican yellow banded millipede, i got bit by the millie keeping bug again! Before i got home i had swooped up what seemed to be the only available AGB in the county, and 2 florida ivory millies.
In order to make them available again and introduce others to these wonderful critters, i have decided to start breeding a few of these bugs. My order of 8x1"VN Rainbows(Tonkinbolus dollfusi), 6x1"bumblebee millies(Anadenobolus monilicornis), 4x1" Ivory millies(Chicobolus spinigerus) to go with the 2 i have, and finally 4x3"Albino Narceus(Narceus Americanus?).
I am planning to house rainbows, bumblebees and narcs in a 20 glass breeder devided into 3. Substrate i have available is peat moss about 3-4 inches, with actual moss on top 1-2 inches, with small piece of driftwood in each. Will keep humidity to 70-80% and temps ambient is between 82 and 69 day-night. Foods available are all regularly listed veggies and fish flake.
The ivorys will live with my single AGB in a 6 gal glass tank until i can find more AGB's at a decent size, under the same conditions.
Now onto the questions!
1-Is there anything i should be adding to substrate to increase speed of procreation?
2-Is temperature ok for all species mentioned? Will i need a heat pad on side for any/all species mentioned?
3-I am having a hard time finding oak trees in my area for leaf litter, will sycamore leaves fill in as a high chitin food source? How should i prepare dry leaves to ensure safety?
4-Is there anything that i am missing?
Thanks in advance for any information you may have and i am glad to have found this site!
Welcome xirxes.
Ftorres will be on sometime later and should be able to answer all your questions for you.. _________________ “Look down at me and you see a fool;
look up at me and you see a god;
look straight at me and you see yourself.”
Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 9:08 pm Post subject: Re: Getting back into the hobby, looking for some specifics!
xirxes wrote:
Hello all,
I kept a pair of 13-14 inch African giant millipedes in 2004, they mated often but never produced young. After a recent trip to the San Diego wild animal park, seeing the puerto rican yellow banded millipede, i got bit by the millie keeping bug again! Before i got home i had swooped up what seemed to be the only available AGB in the county, and 2 florida ivory millies.
In order to make them available again and introduce others to these wonderful critters, i have decided to start breeding a few of these bugs. My order of 8x1"VN Rainbows(Tonkinbolus dollfusi), 6x1"bumblebee millies(Anadenobolus monilicornis), 4x1" Ivory millies(Chicobolus spinigerus) to go with the 2 i have, and finally 4x3"Albino Narceus(Narceus Americanus?).
I am planning to house rainbows, bumblebees and narcs in a 20 glass breeder devided into 3. Substrate i have available is peat moss about 3-4 inches, with actual moss on top 1-2 inches, with small piece of driftwood in each. Will keep humidity to 70-80% and temps ambient is between 82 and 69 day-night. Foods available are all regularly listed veggies and fish flake.
The ivorys will live with my single AGB in a 6 gal glass tank until i can find more AGB's at a decent size, under the same conditions.
Hello Xirxes,
Welcome to the SCABIES family. I will answer your questions first and then I will make some comments.
Now onto the questions!
1-Is there anything i should be adding to substrate to increase speed of procreation?
Yes, you should add some oak leafmulch with your peatmoss, perhaps a 60/40 mixture if you can.
If you don't find oak leafmulch you can use the sycamore as you have it available, just make sure you try to composted so it can be softer and more nutricious to the millis.
2-Is temperature ok for all species mentioned? Will i need a heat pad on side for any/all species mentioned?
No heat pad please. Those temps are good.
3-I am having a hard time finding oak trees in my area for leaf litter, will sycamore leaves fill in as a high chitin food source? How should i prepare dry leaves to ensure safety?
Yes, you can use sycamore, but they need to be a little bit decayed or composted. You can collected and place it in the oven for 20-30 min at low temp around 200-240. I have never sterilized the oak leafmulch for my millis and roaches, as I use a different method to accelerate decomposition of the substrate.
4-Is there anything that i am missing?
Not really, you are pretty much on the dime with the set up, the temps and the humidity.
Here I will add my comments.
VN Rainbows (Aulacobolus rubrapunctatus) or T dollfusi, not sure when the name changed, but we will discuss that later.
I would keep them by themselves, with a little bit of substrate, mainly oak leafmold. Babies are very sencitive to changes and will not tolerate changes in substrate. I use a little bit of substrate and I just add as it needed.
The Bumble bees and the Ivories are OK to be together even the albinos can be in the same enclosure.
The VN rainbows, like squash, they don't eat much so keep only small portions of food.
The others do like a variety of food so no problem with those.
Do you know the sex of your AFrican giant???? I have a colony and a few males available at a good price if you need a male.
I am sure you know how to sex your millis but if you need help let me know.
Thanks in advance for any information you may have and i am glad to have found this site!
You are welcome and I hope my info is helpfull in your millis rearing and breeding project.
I keep a few other species, so let me know if you are looking for more, make sure you make some time to attend the Bug Fair at the Natural History Museum on May 16th-17th
So i did some hunting around these parts, and was able to find an interested (and fairly perplexed) ranger that was nice enough to lead me to the only oak we have in the area (coastal something oak) and allowed me to take a branch with live leaves, as well as a healthy handful of dead leaves. She assured me that i can get more if needed, but to come to her first.
My question is which leaves do i use? Live leaves, or dried out dead leaves? Also how do i compost, or enrich these leaves quickly for use with the millipedes?
i put one of each into the tank with the 3 i have right now to see which they eat, but it seems i need to do some more steps before serving.
One thing about my past post that you may not have cought, i made three separations in the 20 breeder, so each of these species will have their own enclosure, in order for me to tweak it to their individual needs.
Well I did not missed the part of the tank with 3 sextions.
I would really keep the VN rainbow on their own and if you want you can keep the other ones in the divided tank, it should be fine.
Remember that millipedes role is to be decomposers, so they recicle dead vegetation and converted into rich substrate for the jungle.
They prefer dead plant matter as it is softer than live one.
So take away the oak leaves and use only the ones in the ground.
Make sure these leaves are free of pesticides, in other words make sure the area where you collected the leaves is not treated with any kind of insecticide or similar chemicals.
Do you drive??? It is best if you take a trip to the local mountains and get the leafmold.
I have some gallons bags of the prepared mixture I use for my millis and roaches, if you can't find any leafmold and want to buy some of mine let me know.
fermentation is a long process and you need some leafmold already decomposed to have a good result.
you can not just use fresh leaves from live trees, you have to collect the dead ones from around the tree, preferably the leaves at the bottom which usually are the ones already rotten and soft.
Your 4" female is too small still, adult females are at least 7-8 inches and they max at 10-11 inches.
the males I have are juveniles or adults, and I am not sure if they will pay any attention to your girl.
My current tank space availability is 4 enclose areas, 3 of which are the before mentioned divided areas.
I can move the VN's to the one that is alone, but i am not understanding implicitly why they need to be alone? You mentioned that they need a different substrate, but no other mention to higher/lower humidity or temperature. If substrate alone is the issue, then one of the three sections should suffice, in that the dividers are siliconed in, forming functionally a while separate tank, in which i can have a completely different substrate without affecting the other two partitions.
The only reason i mention this is that i have other pedes in the lone tank currently, and am wondering if the benefit of housing the VN's alone is worth relocating these others. Please let me know if you think it is, and i will definitely move the pedes i have.
You have a PM about the leaf mold. I am receiving my pedes tuesday, so as soon as we can figure out logistics for shipment the better probably.
Yeah -- I've been "composting" in my African Giant Black Millipede container, and they seem to like it because I found a baby last week! (Just one, though, and the pictures I tried to take of it didn't turn out very well -- it was just crawling too fast). I alternate tossing in a handful of rotting greens with tossing in a handful of sterilized dry leaves (maple or oak) about once a week. I mist 'em once in a while, and keep the container lid closed (no ventilation) unless there is mold growing, in which case I vent it just a tiny crack until the mold dies and then close it back up again. Once in a while they get a chunk of banana, which is their absolute *favorite*!
_________________ "Tarantulas are friends, not food" (but I bet they taste pretty good with butter and lemon!)
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