# Breeding Morios the easy way



## fizzifish (Nov 24, 2012)

Contrary to what many people think morios/giant mealworms are actually really easy to breed. Unlike standard mealworms, morios will not pupate when they are in a group. This is why you never see pupae in the boxes you buy them in. Professional breeders separate the worms into separate tubs to get them to pupate. This is a lot of hassle and is very time consuming, also taking up a lot of space.

I bred them first by accident in my locust breeding tank. I introduced a few into the tank to see what would happen. Several months later I had loads of huge beetles and hundreds of worms of all sizes. The morios burrowed into the polystyrene backing and pupated inside there. Unfortunately morios are omnivorous and will happily devour veg AND locust eggs. Consequently I have been trying to remove all the morio beetles and worms from my locust breeding tank ever since. The moral is DONT breed morios in with your locusts or other feeder insects.

So what you will need is a glass tank with a soil/compost substrate of about 3" depth. Buried in the compost you will need some large chunks of polystyrene. You will need a heatlamp as the morios like it hot and feed them bran, and all manner of veg. Stirring the food into the compost helps the worms get the food easier. Make sure that the compost away from the heatlamp is kept fairly moist. Then toss in a tub of morio worms. The morios will burrow into the polystyrene, pupate into beetles, have beetle sex and then lay their eggs into the soil. Leave them a few months and you should have loads of morios of all sizes and adult beetles.

:2thumb:


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## snowgoose (May 5, 2009)

So they eat the really healthy yummy polystyrene just before becoming beetles?

On nom nom!


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## fizzifish (Nov 24, 2012)

They don't eat it, they chew through it, making a tunnel and pupate in solitary confinement. :no1:


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## Bab1084 (Dec 9, 2011)

i have about an inch of dry food on the bottom of my morio tub and a load of loo roll tubes on top and the beetles pupate fine in there, i think if they have enough room to hide they will pupate on there own.


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## fizzifish (Nov 24, 2012)

How big is your tub and do you have heat and light?


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## vukic (Apr 9, 2010)

An interesting new way.. Lol

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