Help with Cricket Setup

how many buffalo beetles do you think I should get. I'm currently getting 250 1/2" crickets at a time in the 80 quart tote.
 
do they need any bedding material? Or just keep them in bare tote with only the egg crates in it for the crickets?
 
The buffalo beetles reproduce quickly... eventually you'll probably need to weed some out! (I have had them for months and am not there yet). I put maybe 50 in each feeder cage and they've certainly multiplied! I think 1-200 in a cricket bin is probably plenty.

I have a 100w light bulb over mine 12 hours a day... but with winter coming I think I'm going to also use an oil heater to keep the room around 70, and the light bulb will keep them around 90+. I have a lot of other bugs in that area, as well as plants, that need the ambient temps of 70-75.
 
If I went the CHE route, would I heat 24/7 or just 12 hours a day? They would drop down to the mid 60's (64-66) overnight if I didn't keep the heater on all the time.
 
Tony_S said:
If I went the CHE route, would I heat 24/7 or just 12 hours a day? They would drop down to the mid 60's (64-66) overnight if I didn't keep the heater on all the time.
Click to expand...

My basement gets pretty chilly in the winter, so I will probably run mine 24/7, or at least often enough to keep the room within range. Right now my basement drops to probably 67 degrees overnight and I've had no ill effects. If its not emmitting light, I'd probably run it 24/7... or if you want to save energy, run it at night when temps are coolest, and then off during the day where maybe the room temp rises into the 70s?
 
What are the downsides if I move the cricket bin into my downstairs without a heating element? Does the growth rate just slow down, or do they stop eating/gut loading also?
 
Instead of making another thread hope its ok to join in here for some suggestions. I dont have any Buffalo Beetles.. How many are needed to keep 500 crickets in check. Looking at these most say for Dubia's.. Are these good for crickets as well?.
What kind of die off are you guys seeing.. My biggest issue is keeping crickets from dying. I use a 30g trash can with a 10w heater stuck to the outside, 1 60w daylight bulb on for 12hrs, CA water crystals and bug burger. At about 3 weeks I get heavy die off. Once this starts the stench is bad. I clean my bin every week. I get 500 crickets every month. I lose half to die off. If I had another options instead of crickets id use them. These are nasty ..
 
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Right now I'm not using any heat or light bulb. I'm buying banded crickets at 250 a clip and haven't had a single cricket die on me yet. My 4th order of them will arrive sometime today.

In fact I only just this past weekend cleaned out the tote after them being in there for 3 weeks and it wasn't even that dirty.
 
hammerhead said:
Instead of making another thread hope its ok to join in here for some suggestions. I dont have any Buffalo Beetles.. How many are needed to keep 500 crickets in check. Looking at these most say for Dubia's.. Are these good for crickets as well?.
What kind of die off are you guys seeing.. My biggest issue is keeping crickets from dying. I use a 30g trash can with a 10w heater stuck to the outside, 1 60w daylight bulb on for 12hrs, CA water crystals and bug burger. At about 3 weeks I get heavy die off. Once this starts the stench is bad. I clean my bin every week. I get 500 crickets every month. I lose half to die off. If I had another options instead of crickets id use them. These are nasty ..
Click to expand...
Adding the beetles can help with your problem but I honesty would switch to roaches. They don’t smell and not so noisy, I can hear them sometimes running around in the bin
 
Not sure if its just the banded crickets that I'm getting from Josh's Frogs. But I don't hear them making any noise at all.
 
Tony_S said:
Not sure if its just the banded crickets that I'm getting from Josh's Frogs. But I don't hear them making any noise at all.
Click to expand...

The bandeds are more noisy at night and when they're full grown they're noisy buggers (see what I did there) -- I had to handle crickets for a full year before Mona would take roaches. All good things must wait!
 
What some ppl do is they find all the male crickets first, because only males make the chirping noise witch can be identified from their wings, and they will feed them off right away. So then you won’t have to deal with the noise anymore
 
AnamCara said:
The bandeds are more noisy at night and when they're full grown they're noisy buggers (see what I did there) -- I had to handle crickets for a full year before Mona would take roaches. All good things must wait!
Click to expand...
I guess I'm happy that Peri is still eating juvenile crickets.
 
Tony_S said:
What are the downsides if I move the cricket bin into my downstairs without a heating element? Does the growth rate just slow down, or do they stop eating/gut loading also?
Click to expand...

Yes, at average room temps (70ish), their growth and breeding slow down. If it drops below 70 you could have some die off. My basement is probably 67ish overnight, and they do just fine until their heat kicks on in the morning. The juvenile seem more resilient than the adults.
 
Thanks, I think I'm just going to move them inside next to where Peri's enclosure is and see now they do.

Anyone use a heat pad to the side of the tote the way people do it for the roach setups?
 
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