Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Could i use an old aquarium i have laying around to house crickets? it's either a 29 or 30 gal, it has the same LxW as a 20L, but is a few inches taller. Thanks in advance, you guys (and gals) are always very helpful.

Scott

I keep my crickets in a 20L and they do just fine. I cover the bottom with papertowels to make cleaning easier too.

That seems like a LOT of room. I have a 35 tall gal and I can't imgaine cleaning it full of crix! lol. I would just get a large rubbermaid container (depending on how many crix you need you may not need a really large one) and use that. It would be easier to clean. Also, if you are only keeping less than 1000 crix at a time it will be easier to get them for feeding and cleaning b/c they won't be as spread out. That, and cricket poop sticks to things sometimes, so it will be easier to just rinse a small tub in the bathtub than clean a big aquarium.
If you want to breed them though, the aquarium would be useful. Get several tubs that you could fit together in the aquarium and cut the lids, fit them with screen, and this could work quite well. Or, if you can find tall enough tubs, you can leave the lids off. That way you can look after them all at once, keep you sizes separate, and if you get any escapees, they are still suck in the aquarium. One idea I had was to do this, and cut the bottoms out of the tubs, and replace the bottoms with screen. In theory all the poop would fall through the screen, making it easier to clean all the tubs. Just sift and vaccuum the aquarium. Key words: "in theory" lol. I haven't gotten to try it yet.