Aquatic Insects

Wade

Arachnoking
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Aug 16, 2002
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I love aquatic insects! Here's a few I keep. All were collected locally by me, photos by my sister Lindsey:

Predacious Diving beetle, Dytiscus sp.
Water scorpion, Ranatra sp.
Giant water bug (feeding on a cricket), Belostoma sp.
Ghost shrimp, not an insect but cool all the same!

Wade
 

David_F

Arachnoprince
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Feb 9, 2004
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Nice pics. Since I saw the article in the ATS forum on aquatic inverts and one in Reptiles magazine I've wanted to try keeping some. How long have you been keeping yours? How do you keep the predacious insects from feeding on the other? Just feed them really frequently? What kind of filter are you using? Thanks in advance for any info.
 

Wade

Arachnoking
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These are actually the pics I was going to send for the ATS article but I wasn't able to get them in time to appear in the Forum! The predacious insects do occasionally eat one annother, but wth frequent feedings, lots of structural complexity (sticks, plants etc) and careful seltion of species it's kept to a minimum. For example, most giant water bugs would kill off nearly everything else, but belostoma are small (1") and usually leave the other insects alone. The slow-moving Ranatra would be easy prey for the diving beetles, but I think their cryptic appearance keeps them from being noticed.

I've used a variety of filtration methods, but so far air-powered undergravel filtration has worked the best for me.

Wade
 

David_F

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Hey Wade,
It's been a while since I read the article. Didn't even click to me that you were the who wrote it. Great article. Thanks for the info.
 
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