# Cricket storage



## dramen (May 29, 2012)

Okay so finally got my backside in gear (which is kinda hard when waiting for knee surgery) and set up the old 30x30x30 vivarium for cricket storage.
I have a couple of pictures but it is temporary with sellotape closing the holes (Waiting for my dad to drop off silicon sealant to make sure it is 100% sealed.) 

I put bug grub in the bottom with the bug gel at the back. I also included the standard calci dusted potato that i have been gutloading them with.
They have a small egg carton that did come with the crickets in there and i plan to get a bigger one when i buy more crickets to warrant having it.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. Anyway heres the pictures.










Closer picture










Seeing as i had the camera out i took a picture of Garys actual vivarium too but please excuse the reflections.










Any suggestions would be most welcome and critisism will be taken to make improvements  Many thanks

Marc


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## Dan-lincs (Nov 15, 2010)

looks good to me. but kinda seems a little bit pointless as u have all that space and all they are using is the ground. (why not get a reptile in there n put it in that viv instead )

have u thought about getting a small glass tank instead u can pick them up for 20-30quid.

this is ours and its opening at the top so less chance of escapees and mesh at the back at the top for ventilation.


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

It does seem a tad bit of a waste of the exo terra when a cheap plastic storage bin with ventilation would surfice. You can make use of your used loo and kitchen roll tined rather than going out and buying more egg crate for such a low number. If you are planning to start a colony or just for prolonged life of the crickets you will need a heat source for them. A heatmat is cheaper than a bulb which is why I like the plastic boxes better and you could always hook it up to Garys stat 

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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

With everything i did buy money is getting short so i thought of this as a temporary solution.
I think i can find someone with an old fish tank but what sort of reptile can be housed a 30x30x30cm vivarium?

I did think in the future as using it for newborn geckos as i intend to get a second 24inch vivarium sometime next year for a female.

Obviously i will be getting a 3rd vivarium for the newborns when they are bigger and wont get lost trying to find food in a 24incher.

I dont plan on being a breeder i just feel every animal deserves the right to get laid at least once in his/her life and without reptile contraception (Sorry laughing as i type that) baby's could be a future.

I say a 3rd vivarium as i do plan to keep one of the baby's if i get one that hatches but i suppose if i do manage to get a 2nd blazing blizzard then the baby's would not have a shortage of people on the forums that would give them homes.

(I am aware of needing an incubator and other equipment to successfully hatch eggs but i can buy/build one of these nearer the time before i put the male and female together  )


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

dramen said:


> With everything i did buy money is getting short so i thought of this as a temporary solution.
> I think i can find someone with an old fish tank but what sort of reptile can be housed a 30x30x30cm vivarium?
> 
> I did think in the future as using it for newborn geckos as i intend to get a second 24inch vivarium sometime next year for a female.
> ...


The 30x30x30 exo isn't really any good for housing reptiles, they make great tarantula display tanks though say maybe for the beautiful Greenbottle blues(don't know if you like spideys?) A flat rock scorpians could live in there quite happily and they make quite good houses for baby horned frogs and that kind of thing but as a lifetime tank your basically looking at inverts 

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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

LovLight said:


> It does seem a tad bit of a waste of the exo terra when a cheap plastic storage bin with ventilation would surfice. You can make use of your used loo and kitchen roll tined rather than going out and buying more egg crate for such a low number. If you are planning to start a colony or just for prolonged life of the crickets you will need a heat source for them. A heatmat is cheaper than a bulb which is why I like the plastic boxes better and you could always hook it up to Garys stat
> 
> Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


Two things i didnt think of there is the toilet rolls and boy do i have lots of those with two kids! The reason i thought of the vivarium is a heatmat can be placed under it as the bottom is raised and gives about 1cm gap between the heatmat and the glass. 
For the time being its just so they arent cooped up in the cricket keeper or the boxes they came in (Yes i know its bad to have them like that hence the change as soon as my knee allowed it)

The second was the heatmat being plugged into the garys stat on a splitter plug. I was thinking on those lines for the dubias' but what surprises me more is i didnt think to do that for this instance!

I am expecting a refund/store credit from returning the old thermostat so i think that will be used to get the dubias and maybe switch gary over to Dubias and mealworms permenantly as i really dont like the idea of crickets being carniverous. Gary may like them but i just dont like the idea of not finding dead crickets and giving him parasites.

I could always remove the heat lamp i have in Gary's vivarium as tbh he doesnt use it and i can always get another fitting to get a red glass bulb for viewing gary.

I knew the stuff i didnt need would come in useful at some point, Now i just need to find a use for the canopy UVB light that goes with the exo terra vivarum which i bought and is also useless.


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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

LovLight said:


> The 30x30x30 exo isn't really any good for housing reptiles, they make great tarantula display tanks though say maybe for the beautiful Greenbottle blues(don't know if you like spideys?) A flat rock scorpians could live in there quite happily and they make quite good houses for baby horned frogs and that kind of thing but as a lifetime tank your basically looking at inverts
> 
> Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


Yeah thats what i thought lol nope i cant stand spiders. The wife has to come remove the big ones. In fact there was a bloody huge one on the ceiling above the stairs and i actually had to get my dad to remove that one.
Although a friend was talking about scorpions so i may just end up passing it on to him as he actually gave me the lift to get Gary. For now though at least the crickets arent jammed into a tiny cricket feeder or the box the came in


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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

Scratch the last reusing the light fitting as it will be a pain in the butt to modify, I'll just get heatmats as the dubias will need one anyway


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

That's true, should reduce the death count and risk of cannabalism to, although crickets are horrible and will eat anything lol. 

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## benton1576 (Nov 7, 2009)

Ill take a pic of mine later, Cost me about a tenner to make each one!

Simply a Rub, with locking lid. I cut a square out of the top which was bit of a bugger as the plastic can snap, I ended up looking for rubs with a softer plastic lid that isnt so brittle. Then I used a staple gun to secure some aluminium mesh over the square hole and bent the staples over with a pair of pliers. I would have used a glue gun instead of staples but I havnt got one. :whistling2:

Pics will probably make more sense.

Im uploading them now to photobucket for you.


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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

LovLight said:


> That's true, should reduce the death count and risk of cannabalism to, although crickets are horrible and will eat anything lol.
> 
> Sent from my U8180 using Tapatalk 2


And they dont smell to great either lol, I've put another egg carton in and two loo rolls and they seem to be loving it in there now. 
They seem to like Garfields dried cat food (named because first day i got him he leapt off my shoulder and faceplanted into my pasta) so i throw a bit of that in there with the potato,bug grub on the floor and the bug gel at the back.

Although they are probably getting the water from the potato i put the bug gel in the little feeder cap that i got with it and they are going nuts for that too.


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## Dakotalondon (May 14, 2012)

a tip to getting like a few 1000 crickets for a few quid is to get a tank and buy a box of 1000 mirco crickets there like £2 online and grow them : victory: doesnt take long and works out cheaper when you can use them


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## benton1576 (Nov 7, 2009)

Damn my upload speed is so slow!!!

Heres the pics as promised, hope it makes more sense now, picture paints a thousand words n all that. lol


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## Dakotalondon (May 14, 2012)

benton1576 said:


> Damn my upload speed is so slow!!!
> 
> Heres the pics as promised, hope it makes more sense now, picture paints a thousand words n all that. lol
> 
> ...



:2thumb: awesome idea , but argh arnt crickets ugly lol and smelly iv had to move mine into the shed lol


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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

benton1576 said:


> Damn my upload speed is so slow!!!
> 
> Heres the pics as promised, hope it makes more sense now, picture paints a thousand words n all that. lol
> 
> ...


Now that is ingenius! Although i think lovlight was hinting at a same thing either in this or another thread.
Tenner to make and 20 times bigger than a cricket keeper :2thumb: Good thing in my book.
Also looks a lot easier to have a heatmat under than sellotaping the damn thing to the bottom of the vivarium lol.

Thanks for those pictures even if i cant get the wire mesh easily net curtains or tights (found out the net curtains were ordered to size but good old mum is donating some tights!)

Dakotalondon I did think about breeding the crickets up but as Gary is only taking the 2nd shed brown crickets at the moment they dont need to get bigger.....Yet


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## Dakotalondon (May 14, 2012)

Dakotalondon I did think about breeding the crickets up but as Gary is only taking the 2nd shed brown crickets at the moment they dont need to get bigger.....Yet [/QUOTE]

gary is such a cool name for a leo lol mines called mardy lol :2thumb:
its a good idea the cricket box above , might have to try that :2thumb:


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

benton1576 said:


> Damn my upload speed is so slow!!!
> 
> Heres the pics as promised, hope it makes more sense now, picture paints a thousand words n all that. lol
> 
> ...


Yeah that's it exactly 
How my dubias are set up except for more crate/kitchen roll tube and I have a double layer of net instead of the mesh as seeing that the dubias can't climb there is no risk of them nibbling through it.....wouldn't trust it with crickets though lol.....awful smelly things 

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## benton1576 (Nov 7, 2009)

More than welcome guys. I keep locusts, cockroaches and crix in these with no problem. Theyre tall enough for the crix not to jump out, smooth so the roaches and crix can climb and escape. Only problem is the locusts as they jump high when startled but theyre not fast so easy to catch.

The mesh is a nighmare to find. I got mine in Germany but I know of a company that does it. Ill find the email from them later and give you their address. Their prices are great.


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

dramen said:


> Two things i didnt think of there is the toilet rolls and boy do i have lots of those with two kids! The reason i thought of the vivarium is a heatmat can be placed under it as the bottom is raised and gives about 1cm gap between the heatmat and the glass.
> For the time being its just so they arent cooped up in the cricket keeper or the boxes they came in (Yes i know its bad to have them like that hence the change as soon as my knee allowed it)
> 
> The second was the heatmat being plugged into the garys stat on a splitter plug. I was thinking on those lines for the dubias' but what surprises me more is i didnt think to do that for this instance!
> ...


Why don't you put the canopy on the equipment classifieds on the forum? Maybe you could swap it for a heatmat to start a dubia colony or put any sale proceeds into something you need 

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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

I'd appreciate it as i am starting to really dislike the crickets now.
Paranoia has kicked in as i had a few escapees and i have a thermos cup for coffee (Combats the cold coffee problem when you have kids) and i swear i could hear a cricket in it!


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## LovLight (Apr 14, 2012)

Lol 

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## dramen (May 29, 2012)

So this was actually just for cricket storage not for actual breeding purposes but i've been sat here thinking about it and suddenly realised something.
If i raise some of the smaller ones now up to adult hood i have the containers already (just occured to me we just moved house and will have 10 of the plastic paint rectangle boxes with the sealy lid available (yes white spirited and disinfected))

By the time those reach adult hood i will have got the larger container ready for the breeding and i can remove the egg laying box after a week and place it into one of these containers.

I can then add them to the vivarium and have a running supply.

I'm just thinking if i have crickets already why buy adults if i can raise them before the food supply ones run out and have a new supply ready. I bought 400 when i got Gary so have WAY too many so they will outgrow him before he can eat them all.

I should have enough containers (understatement?) to have a constant supply of food and also adult raising to supply the next batch.

Thats the theory anyways now i just need to actually clean the tubs for use and then work on the bigger container and use one of the paint boxes as the egg laying box.


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## Benno (May 12, 2012)

I was considering setting up colonies for my lizard (when I get it) as I personally think the little take away boxes are a little confined, but also to potentially let them breed to cut down on costs, one thing that has stumped me with a home made box of the colonies, how do you get the crickets for example, out of the box without letting others all hop out?


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