CrawlinChaos
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2014
- Messages
- 100
Hey folks! So, I thought I would just share something I just recently discovered. Now, I've been feeding both my millipedes and roaches dry reptile food for quite some time. I noticed almost immediately when I introduced it into their diet that it would inevitably succumb to fungus or mold, usually in a few days, but sometimes with 24 hours if the enclosure was particularly humid. Initially, this didn't strike me as much of a problem, since you should change out the food every few days anyway, right? However, after many months of dealing with this, I started to have some suspicions. I have had very little problem with fungus or mold in the enclosures themselves, so I began to wonder if the dry reptile food itself might contain spores that were germinating once exposed to humidity. Having some background knowledge on microbiology and what not, I decided to conduct a little test: I microwaved the dry food for 60 seconds to see if I could reduce or kill any potential hitckhikers. I left the food in the enclosures for over a week and checked it today. Lo and behold, no fungus or mold grew at all! And the millipedes still seem to eat it just fine. Looks like my suspicions were right and the dry food was contaminated with fungus spores.
So, in summary, if you microwave dry food before putting it into an enclosure, it shouldn't succumb to mold or fungus as quickly. I microwaved my reptile food for 60 seconds, but if you use something larger, like dog food, it might take longer.
So, in summary, if you microwave dry food before putting it into an enclosure, it shouldn't succumb to mold or fungus as quickly. I microwaved my reptile food for 60 seconds, but if you use something larger, like dog food, it might take longer.