Cricket & polymer crystal

[Mantidae]

I've used Fluker's bottled formula for a long while but the cost adds up on these little bottles if you're feeding thousands and thousands of little critters. Has anyone used the packaged mixes that require you to add water and make your own crystals?

I had found a web site or two that offered the polymers last year and just found the following 2 sites. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1283

http://www.wormman.com/pd_cricket_crystals.cfm

I recall finding a site (one of the forum members sites?) that also offered crystals in different sized pkgs. Any info on where to buy is appreciated!

 

[padkison]

Best deal I found is here http://www.water-keep.com/products/why-buy...CFRNQgAodpDzsFg

Get the coarse crystals. I've been using them for my roaches for months.

This is only water and crickets would need to be fed something else in addition to the crystals. I feed my roaches dog food. Don't know about crickets.

 

[Rick]

Or do what I do. I have a small shallow dish filled with gravel. Add water daily and clean the dish out weekly. Cost: $0. For food they get ground up tortoise and cat food with the occasional leafy green.

 

[infinity]

YEah, can't say I'm a huge fan of the crystals (usually just silica gel) - they get mouldy really quickly. I agree with Rick although an alternative is a wick of absorbant synthetic material hung over the edge (if the lid is tight...) - this allows water to be put in there and as it's hanging vertically doesn't accumulate frass as much as that just falls vertically down onto the floor...

Best method in overall is fresh veg though - cabbage, cucumber- the very moist ones

 

[sk8erkho]

Hey Guys,

I'm really new to the whole cricket care thing. First, housing them,any suggestions. Second,substrate, any suggestions? Third, well food I got. Fourth, handleing them getting them out of the box from Flukerfarms and into what ever enclosure all 250 of them. (packing them all just in the box like that makes NO sense to me, Open the box and Zoooom they fly right the heck out of there all over the living room)

I really need help on this like yesterday. I don't want them to die in the box like that.

 

[sean]

i keep my crickets in plastic tanks with a substrate of sawdust. i feed them a staple diet of tropical fish food with occasional pieces of cat food and fruit or vegetable(no insecticide use). however i do not keep massively large numbers of crickets as i have a number of shops that sell them locally (so i dont have to stock up), i only keep 50 maximum at any one time (my mantid collection is small). This method would work with larger numbers, only tanks may need to be larger. as for handling them... just dump them in. when getting them out i just let them crawl onto kitchen roll tubes and flick them in to the mantis enclosure(or you could just pick them up with your hands(never been bitten..... yet).