Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a pair of pedes, I currently feed them timothy grass complete rabbit food, soaked with 1/10 repti cal and some grated cucumber or fruit mixed in. I also supply a banana or berry (depending on what they had last) flavored mineral block. They are currently makin' babies, she layed her eggs last night. should I up the calcium?to replenish what she has spent on the eggs? I have some calcium fortified cricket quencher that I feed to my superworms, can I give this to my pedies?
Thanks for your input,
Tomi

I give my 3 pedes Nature Zone's Total Cricket Bites (also given to my superworms ). They love the taste and all the ingredients are safe for them. I'm expecting my female to lay her eggs anytime, so i've already increased her calcium a little bit. I don't know if she really needs it, but it certainly won't hurt. Good luck with raising all those little ones.

I'm curious about this too. I think quenchers are mostly gelatin with some vitamins or something. Now, I don't think millipedes would normally eat any gelatin.

The thing that concerns me is that cricket diets aren't created for the long term survival of the cricket, because they are mostly kept as prey species.

>>I'm curious about this too. I think quenchers are mostly gelatin with some vitamins or something. Now, I don't think millipedes would normally eat any gelatin.
>>

The cricket waters are not geletin in the manner people are accustomed to knowing as geletin. They are a highly absorbent anionic polyacrylamide co-polymer. These tiny hard crystals are capable of aborbing many many times their weight in water. When fully hydrated the crystal is essentially nothing but pure water in a solid type form.

A piece of crystal measuring 3 millimeters will expand to about 1/2 - 3 inches across and about 1/2 - 1 inch thick when filled to 100% capacity of water.

Buying the 'calcium fortified' versions of cricket water is a waste...just a marketing gimmick to bring in extra cash. The calcium only serves to cause the cricket/insect exoskeleton to become hard and brittle and that certainly isn't very good for when the insect tries to molt nor good for a reptile / amphibian to try to digest that extra hard chitin after eating the insect.
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Wyvern

The Invert Collection:
* (1) Aphonopelma anax - Texas Tan
* (4) Avicularia geroldi - Brazilian Blue Pink-toe
* (1) Brachypelma auratum - Mexican Flameknee
* (1) Brachypelma emilia - Mexican Red-leg
* (1) Brachypelma smithi - Mexican Red-knee
* (1) Cyclosternum fasciatum - Costa Rican Tiger Rump
* (3) Grammostola pulchra - Brazilian Black

Is that polymer approved for human consumption?

>>Is that polymer approved for human consumption?

While the product is not considered toxic/hazardous based on laboratory animal tests it is NOT intended or meant for human consumption at all. Or for reptiles, mammals, birds, etc. The polymer swells up A LOT when it comes in contact with water. Can you imagine how much room just a couple of crystals can ultimately take up in a stomach when those crystals can swell up to 3 inches in size? The polymer should only be given to feeder insects and only when full hydration capacity has been reached.

I've been doing an absorption experiments with some crystals. I took 5 grams of dry crystals (equal to the weight of a nickel). I filled a large bowl with water and added the crystals.

After 4 hours, I drained the excess water off and weighed the crystal gel. The crystals had absorbed enough water to weigh in at 693 grams. I refilled the bowl with water and at the 18 hour mark the gel had continued to absorb water and weighed in at 976 grams. After 24 hours (i.e. today at 4:30pm) I was still seeing some tiny bit of absorption going on. The gel now weighed in 978 grams. Now imgagine seeing that little 5 gram sample now weighing in at over 2 lbs. Talk about super absorbancy. dunno if my math is right but that is like a 19,500% increase.

I am going to let the gel continue to hydrate for another 6 hours to see if it is capable of taking in anything more though I think I finally hit the plateu.

The original use for the crystals was as a soil additive to help maintain moisture levels in the soil so that one did not need to water as frequently and the swelling/shrinkage action of the crystals also helped to aerate soils.
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Wyvern

The Invert Collection:
* (1) Aphonopelma anax - Texas Tan
* (4) Avicularia geroldi - Brazilian Blue Pink-toe
* (1) Brachypelma auratum - Mexican Flameknee
* (1) Brachypelma emilia - Mexican Red-leg
* (1) Brachypelma smithi - Mexican Red-knee
* (1) Cyclosternum fasciatum - Costa Rican Tiger Rump
* (3) Grammostola pulchra - Brazilian Black

Scary and yet extremely cool.