Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Heylas all-
So, I was cleaning Kleio's cage today and happened to lift one of the water bowls. Suddenly there's a scattering of little bugs. I was scared at first that they were mites or something, but upon closer inspection, they seem to be tiny baby crickets!? Not sure what to do about them...are they going to be harmful to my beardie?
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0.2 cats (Pandora & Journey)
0.1 bearded dragon (Kleio)
0.0.1 green tree frog (Squishy)
0.0.1 goldfish (Namoli)

From what I have been told, baby crickets will eat your beardie. I could be wrong, but my friend that used to own a reptile shop has had it happen that the baby crickets that you can barely see will do bad things to the dragon.

i mean there are other people much more experienced than I am about this stuff, but i hear its bad business for those to be there.

Baby crickets at the very least will annoy your BD at night if left in the tank as he/she's trying to sleep. I would remove them and start a small cricket colony (if you know your BD is healthy and not going to transmit anything to the crickets therefore creating an infectious loop). The baby crickets will not "eat" the BD but they will bite the BD as I said which annoys him. That being said without food and water the baby crickets will not live long.

Make the best of your situation and start yourself a colony.

The baby crickets are a bad thing. They are active at night when your dragon is not. They will be searching for food most likely when none is available but your dragon. Crickets have been known to damage dragon's eyes or eyelids they also are small enough to enter his ears.

You can't use insectacide in his tank so probably the best thing now is to replace his substrate and clean the tank.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your responses!!! I'll take care of them asap
-holly-
(who's off to the Feeders forum to see about managing a cricket colony...)

>>The baby crickets are a bad thing. They are active at night when your dragon is not. They will be searching for food most likely when none is available but your dragon. Crickets have been known to damage dragon's eyes or eyelids they also are small enough to enter his ears.
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>>You can't use insectacide in his tank so probably the best thing now is to replace his substrate and clean the tank.
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0.2 cats (Pandora & Journey)
0.1 bearded dragon (Kleio)
0.0.1 green tree frog (Squishy)
0.0.1 goldfish (Namoli)