How To: Breed Superworms

Nixy

Published on 07-30-2011 11:58 AM

180 Comments

The colony is Off and running!
After weeks of pupating worms into beetles, and weeks of waiting. The cerial level of the colonies subtrate started to vanish at an alarming rate.
We spoted a nearly inch long baby super worm and started turning the substrate and found THOUSANDS of babies ranging form an inch, to magifying glass needed sizes!
We tranfered the adult beetles into a new shoebox colony setup with fresh everything and tossed all the new beetles from the pupating cells in with them. We added fresh worms to the empty cells and checked the pupeas for changes.
The original ten beetles we had forced to pupate died, but it looks like they did their job first!
We have been pupating worms in groups of ten, transfering new beetles into the colony every few days. Lots of generations.
I think a few more trips for fresh adult worms to pupate and then the colony should be indipendant.

The slings Love the little worms!

The twins are Super proud of their colony and have completly infected me with their excitement.

Time to start another worm colony!

One day we will get around to crickets. And maybe a few roaches to boot!

Well. took pictures to bore you all with. LOL.....
The pupation box. We have several of these now. Work great.
Toss a little substrate in each cell. Drop an adult worm in each and close the lid. Shelve it and wait.

Once your worms pupate, and morph into beetles. Move them to a breeding box. For us. This set up seems to work best. Out of the others I have tried. no mold, less loss and Lots more beetles breeding.

Once you notice the ediable portions of the substrat are deminishing and it's all starting to look basicly like this......
You know you have eggs hatched nd busy worms. the beetles don't do this kind of mess. LOL.
It seemed to happen in a matter of days after the beetles had pretty much left it all intact for weeks save for the burrowing intothe peat section.
No mold, it just grays out as the worms feed and defecate.

A few weeks later.....

This is the results. Thousands of these little beasties, growing at the speed of light....

This is a one and a quarter inch wide bottle cap and a few of the masses of little worms I pulled out.

And today we found a few one and a half inch worms. So transfered them to a deli cup for adults. T food and future breeders.

The blue cap is two inches wide. Just to keep the cucumber off the outmeal which is mixed with gutload as is all the ediable substrate in the beetle and worm boxes.

Hope this is any help to anyone trying to raise their own superworms.

Categories:

How To's

181 Comments

Vermis - 12-17-2005, 05:57 AM

I think the real question is... why did you try?

Interesting topic. It's persuaded me to go out and buy a tub of superworms and a compartment box. Now I just need to wait for the compost to dry out.
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garysumpter - 12-17-2005, 06:04 AM

DROWN the worms?

Indeed WHY ??
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Cheshire - 12-17-2005, 02:26 PM

I just doused mine with kryptonite and that took care of them fairly quickly
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garysumpter - 12-17-2005, 03:31 PM

hmmm, I found that krypotnite gave my worms superpowers,

Some would say, they became....... SUPER MORIO WORMS!!

(Beep, beep, beep, ba, dee, beep, dooooooo)

Annnnnnyway....
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Bok - 12-19-2005, 01:33 AM

Originally Posted by Vermis

I think the real question is... why did you try?

Interesting topic. It's persuaded me to go out and buy a tub of superworms and a compartment box. Now I just need to wait for the compost to dry out.

I was feeding my arowana with SW N it reject,after sometimes about 3 hour plus i siphon it and put in a container for next feeding. nNext day it alive.
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Vermis - 12-19-2005, 07:29 AM

*googles arowana*

Ahh... Nice!
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garysumpter - 12-22-2005, 04:40 AM

Surely its a real pain separating the mealworms you want to use from the peat? Or do you just use the cardboard tube method? Does that bring enough out?

Thanks

Gary
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Vermis - 01-21-2006, 06:40 AM

Got my first adult beetle this morning. There are a few other pupae that seem like they're about to pop, too.
Judging from my post at the top of the page... that took about a month, from isolation to completed metamorphosis. Is that fast or slow, or just average? I'll have to re-read the topic.

EDIT: After re-reading (and this is slightly off-topic): Gary - I tried looking for a bag of suitable compost recently, for most of my bugs. The problem is, most types I looked at are usually full of nitrates, lime, 'wetting agent', etc. Aquatic (pond) compost doesn't seem to have any of those, but that's probably a topic for another... topic.
In the end I went for the usual pet-trade coco-bark bricks.
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slacker04 - 02-02-2006, 08:46 AM

Hi all...can i ask the experts here if putting my superworms in individual film canisters would be ok to let them turn into beetles...thx in advance
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Cheshire - 02-02-2006, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by slacker04

Hi all...can i ask the experts here if putting my superworms in individual film canisters would be ok to let them turn into beetles...thx in advance

Yup...that will work. You do have to jostle them a bit to check on them if you use black containers, but they aren't that sensitive to that kind of thing. I got my beetles to hatch, but never got them to breed.

Springtime's coming soon and garden supplies should be getting in soon, so I might be trying this again
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Conversus - 02-19-2006, 10:30 AM

Thirst at all i would like to thank you all for the superb informations in this thread. Owing to this sides I had success in my first step of breeding mealworms..they have pupate about a week ago.

I did let the majority alone in theire "cells" to hopefully become tasty bugs. But two of this strange looking aliens where put in a pede terrarium as prey. I've noticed today a changing of theire coloration...they went darker, but are still living (yes, not beeing eaten by now ^^). To warm up an illuminate my terrarium at the same time i use a UV-Bulb...im asking myself if there is any danger of a sun-burning of my pupates or some other hazordous characteristics of this sort of heating.

Strange question, i guess. But by now, all my three "Mai Chau" pedes are ignoring the pupates, and I am hoping there is a chance they do prefer the bugs more.
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jw73 - 02-20-2006, 04:18 PM

I have hatched some beetles about three months ago. After one month I have removed the beatles and wait for new generation of larwae. I still wait and I still can't spot any larvae (even smallest one). My setup is strictly like above. Mayby I am a little impatient but larwae already should be noticeable. What do you think ?
How long does it take ?
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slacker04 - 02-24-2006, 10:41 PM

woot....this morning i dug in the substrate a little and saw numerous baby worms....woohoo i'm finally succeeding...thanks all for ur help and info....
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Conversus - 03-08-2006, 03:13 PM

Do Mealworm-Bugs burrow? Put one as prey in a scolo terra...it's lost and i am now wondering if its been eaten or just hiding.
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intrepidus6 - 04-20-2006, 04:15 AM

Yeah, they do burrow, Conversus.

I started up a mealworm colony, so I thought what the heck, I might as well breed superworms as well. I was wondering if pill boxes (like the one that have one compartment for each day of the week) with holes punched in them with a nail for air would work fine for the worms and pupa? And, I'll put the beetles in a large plastic container.
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Cheshire - 04-25-2006, 04:47 PM

OK...gonna try this again. Just acquired the peat moss today, going to get a tub in two weeks and the larvae
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Cheshire - 06-02-2006, 12:56 PM

OK...trying it again with aspen bedding
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Israel2004 - 06-02-2006, 02:48 PM

EC,

What happened with the peat moss. Just wondering why the switch to trying with aspen shavings.

The bucket of peat method works great.
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Cheshire - 06-02-2006, 03:14 PM

Turns out that it had pesticide in it

No place around here sells pesticide free peat
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Malestrom - 12-16-2011, 02:17 AM

ive got to try this!Ive been wondering what to do with all my pill trays from my herbalife days lol!Ill use them to raise beetles and larvae! woot Awesome instructional, my biggest enemy is mold.. bleh... gottta check every darn day for it, it kills them so fast, dubias and hissers too Thanks for taking the time to write this up and follow up each post with answers.This is what a good forum is
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