Supplement question - couple of others too.

[amber]

I haven't even finished building my Palu yet, but am obviously researching everything first.

My question is: do they need a specific supplement, or would a reptile vitamin/calcium dust for the crickets do the trick?

I know the 72 hour rule for restoring cricket value, and the use of oranges to replace lost liquids - but I was curious about vitamin/calcium gutloading.
(I do realise you have a high mortality rate with calcium gutloading- I'll coat them instead, and just add the vits to the food)

But yes - is a reptile supplement going to do the trick?

Ooh, while I think about it - what sort of plants would be good?

As you probably saw in my other thread, I'm building a land area using UGF plates over the water in the tank - I just wondered what plants would best enjoy.
I intend on using orchid bark or coco substrate.

Thanks.

 

[amber]

Well, thanks for the help.
Fortunately, I asked a friend of mine who breeds them about feeding, so that's sorted.

I'm still stuck on the substrate however, if someone would like to help me out on this one?

Settled on two choices.

Xaxim panels.
Good: retains moisture. Can grow on it's own. Can have plants planted in it. Won't fall off "island". Hopefully plants will help keep it cleaner.
Bad: Expensive. Will have problems spraying it down every day, as often is away for a day or two a week.

Orchid bark.
Good: Cheap.
Bad: Hard to clean, will slip off platform. Will it still need spraying? Won't hold moisture as well, can't really put plants directly into it.

Is xaxim the better option?
Will it work out the best ECONOMICALLY as well as health wise?
(I'm only a student)

Some feedback would be useful

 

[amber]

*sighs*

Never mind. I spent hours doing intensive research and didn't sleep, and came up with my plan.

I've decided to go for a mixture of a few things.
I'm going for the hydra terracotta ball things - they're going under, in and on my unique plate design, so they're in the water and under my substrate.
I'm then going for a layer of peat on the plate, captured by mosquito netting, and then covering with sphagnum moss and a nice pothos at the back, which I'll train up more netting to cover the back.

So once again, thank you for allowing me to air my ideas and all your help, it was greatly appreciated.

I'm going to go back over to axolotls I think.
I might drop by to see if nobody else looks at this post

 

[edward]

If you check the literature on this you will see that with respect to crickets it is hard to get a positive calcium to phosphorus ratio in any cricket other than a pinhead. In addition unless there is a source of D3 for the animal, they typically cannot absorb and metabolize the calcium..
Dusting supplements are a better source for offering vitamins as they insects may/will selectively feed on the other food items (like mainly eating only the oranges instead of the other supplements).

Use a complete supplement or a good two part supplement.


Ed

 

[samuel]

hey amber-im sorry for the poor reception of/answers to your posts. Welcome to the firebelly world! I have just started with these myself...so have been figuring it all out for a while now. Check out www.freewebs.com/samphibivet for how i keep mine!
As far as your substrate problem goes- beware of leca in the water-it floats! I used gravel as the base for my tank-as you will see on my site.

As far as supplementation is concerned, make sure you know whats in the supplement. Beware of "complete supplements", sometimes it is as bad to overdose on supplementary vitamins and minerals (especially fat soluable ones) I like to use Readybrek as a cheap and easy food stuff for livefood-its full of calcium and quite nutritious. (For our cousins across the seas, ready brek is similar to your cream of wheat, only it uses oats. Its basically a type of porridge for children)
hope this helps, and any questions PM me or leave a post on my site.
Sam

 

[edward]

snip "As far as supplementation is concerned, make sure you know whats in the supplement. Beware of "complete supplements", sometimes it is as bad to overdose on supplementary vitamins and minerals (especially fat soluable ones) I like to use Readybrek as a cheap and easy food stuff for livefood-its full of calcium and quite nutritious. (For our cousins across the seas, ready brek is similar to your cream of wheat, only it uses oats. Its basically a type of porridge for children) "endsnip

I am not sure what is in the supplements found in Europe but the supplements available over here in the USA do not typically contain vitamin A as retinol but instead use beta carotene. Oversupplementation of fat soluable vitamins (as water soluable ones are excreted in the feces) can be readily avoided by supplementing according to the following regimen, if feeding three times a week or less, supplement at each feeding, if feeding more frequently, supplement with the complete supplement at alternate feedings....

As mentioned above attempting to enhance the calcium content of feeder insects is not that easy and in any case the calcium content in Redy Brek falls short of the minimal recommended amounts of calcium for calcium loading diets for insects (see Finke, Mark D.; 2003; Gut loading to enhance the nutritional content of insects as food for reptiles: a mathematical approach; Zoo Biology; 22:147-162).

With respect to oversupplementation, calcium is the most commonly oversupplemented mineral in the diets of reptiles and amphibians and has one of the narrowest tolerances..

Ed

(Message edited by Ed on November 10, 2006)

 

[samuel]

sorry ed, but "complete supplement" just sounded like one of these "bombard it with 300% RDA of everything" ideas, like multivitamin tablets for people. That, combined with the apparent american predisposition for over supplementation made me a tad worried i must say!
as far as the Brek is concerned, many people over here swear by it. It is particularly good for springtail cultures and drosophila food. Personally, i just use it as a basic food to keep my livefood going-and also supplement with calcium sparingly. Also i like to provide quite a wide spectrum of food stuffs to cover the lacking of any one species.
Any assistance here defending ready brek alan?

(Message edited by sam on November 10, 2006)

 

[amber]

*laughs* I'm quite aware of the overdose issue - both my mother and I have various deficiencies and have to take supplements.

Thanks for the pointers, and I'll look at that link when I have a few mins spare Sam.

The floating Lyca problem will be solved easy enough - it's going under and in the modified plates. Whilst these are raised from the floor, they will be contained with a net skirt.

Again, thank you Ed

I was reading up on the absorbtion the other day, and realise this may well be a problem. However, I will take your advice as to dustings, but I will provide the livefoods with some lowcalc, higher vit pellets as well as fresh fruit/veg - see if they eat it or not.

Redybrek is easily available here, my local store stocks it - very good for basing waxworm cultures on I gather.
Good to hear the springtails like it - that will be worth remembering, as I'm going to try to work a self sufficient biotope. (is that the right word? You know what I mean.)

I'll get back to you when I have more updates available.

I'm recieving a potted Devils Ivy shortly to grow a little. That'll go in there too.

 

[edward]

Hi Sam,

snip "just sounded like one of these "bombard it with 300% RDA of everything" ideas, like multivitamin tablets for people. That, combined with the apparent american predisposition for over supplementation made me a tad worried i must say!"endsnip

At this time we do not have any of the RDA's for reptiles and amphibians worked out but in general they respond to the ones worked out years ago for domestic animals (and this not just for herps but pretty much all exotic species) with some exceptions (like some Bufonids appear to have issues converting beta carotene to retinol).
At this time, there is little in the way of overdosing being documented in the literature (although I suspect in anurans (particuarly dendrobatid frogs) some of the spontaneous non-septic "bloat" maybe due to oversupplementing D3 (like by only using Rep-Cal on a daily basis). Most of the problems are still undersupplementing....


snip "as far as the Brek is concerned, many people over here swear by it. It is particularly good for springtail cultures and drosophila food. Personally, i just use it as a basic food to keep my livefood going-and also supplement with calcium sparingly. Also i like to provide quite a wide spectrum of food stuffs to cover the lacking of any one species. "endsnip

If it had the recommended level of calcium your feeders would be a lot harder to culture as the levels of calcium would then cause significant mortality in the insects (I suspect springtails maybe an exception). It has been shown that you can modify the fatty acid content of springtails. (I would have to dig the article out of my filing cabinet).

I would not count on it to significantly modify the calcium content of the feeder insects and would instead dust with the above recommended regimen.. (And for a complete supplement we use the one formulated by Walkabout Farms and manufactured and distributed by Rock Solid Herpetoculture (see http://www.rocksolidherpetoculture.com/).

Ed


Ed

 

[samuel]

thanks ed-i know that there is a fine line when it comes to gut loading and calcium related death in insects. I have a question for you however on a slightly different subject...

As far as d3 is concerned, i am well aware of its production pathway in the domestic mammal and its dependancy on UV light. However, what is the case with nocturnal mammals, who are not exposed to sunlight? Is their D3 purely dietry?

And why is it that animals in the wild are able to cope without suplementation? the calcium phoshate ratio can't be positive or the insects would not survive themselves...so how do they do it?
Regards, sam

 

[amber]

That IS a good question - I was wondering that too.
I like to feed my animals a more natural diet anyway, and have "starve days" for my fish to replicate the wild (and make them ferret out food they've missed) - so it'd be interesting to know why the calcium thing is so with captive animals.

 

[samuel]

my understanding is that it is because the wild insects are of better nutritional value-having a good diet unlike farmed livefood which is frequently run to produce as much as possible regardless of quality. That still doesnt settle the calcium question though! i know my housemates sugar glider uses gum from a tree to boost Ca levels, but cant think where the phibians get theirs from!

 

[edward]

snip "As far as d3 is concerned, i am well aware of its production pathway in the domestic mammal and its dependancy on UV light. However, what is the case with nocturnal mammals, who are not exposed to sunlight? Is their D3 purely dietry?"endsnip

In most cases the animals are not truly nocturnal and get exposure at dawn and dusk and have a more efficient conversion of provitamin D to D. In some totally nocturnal animals like some fruit bats, they apparently can either operate with lower levels of vitamin D or have a different pathway that assists with the metabolization of the minerals (see http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15061366 for a related abstract).

snip "And why is it that animals in the wild are able to cope without suplementation? the calcium phoshate ratio can't be positive or the insects would not survive themselves...so how do they do it?"endsnip

A large part of this is that animals (including herps) have been shown to selectively modify thier diets in the wild based on the nutritional content of the food item. This is not possible in captivity due to the limited diets we offer.. With respect to herps, soil dwelling arthropods tend to have a positive calcium to phosphorus ratio and the animals will selectively feed on them. We often do not keep the soil dwelling feeders (like isopods, springtails) on calcium containing substrates which restricts the ability to aquire calcium in this manner.

Assuming that wild insects have a better nutritional value is a trap that people often fall into. Its not that they are better, its the selection of the diet is wider permitting the animal to ensure appropriate nutrition. (for example termites fruit flies and ants have very different nutrient profiles but I would not say that one is better than the others (well ants are probably the worst of the three))

There are also other issues that come into play with this such frequency of reproduction and retinol and carotenoid stores in the ovulation process....

Ed

 

[amber]

That's fascinating - thanks Ed.
So as I always say - variety in diet is best. Hmm.

Okies, so I have to do:

Net skirt to stop frogs going under plate/lyca coming out from under plate and allow water movement.
Lyca and peat substrate. Cultures for IN substrate (springtails).
Plant stuff.
Work out how high to have "land". Am going to have it tipped forwards a little for ease of frog access from the front, and easier to tuck filter under the back.
Work with some net to ensure filter is easy to get to in special compartment.
Put fogger in fountain. (from Him for christmas?)
Oh, get filter. On order from the lovely Gary and Andy @ Sixhills. Thanks lads!
Figure out how to make a nice tight, but easily removable seal on tubing from filter outflow to back of fountain.
Fit said tubing.
Choose a substrate for aquatic side (but it won't be in the Lyca bit) - do I go for the playsand or for the nice 4mm polymer coated black gravel? (suggestions anyone?)
Get lighting. (ArcPod, asked Mum for christmas)
Install lighting. Easy peasy. She says.
Put some black netting down back wall for Ivy and mosses to climb. Possibly attach Epithywhatsit plants later to it.
Get some sphag moss. (I have a supplier ready, but cheaper people greatly accepted - ideas?)
Sort out some of my lovely christmas moss for on the wood. (It's very nice)
Get Hygrom/thermometer digital thing (asking Dad for christmas)
Fill with dechlor water, have fun testing filter/fountain plan, fogger and hygrom/thermometer.
February - start cycling tank properly.

Ooh it'll be fun.

Oh yea, and buy crickets (later, much later), cricketfood, a method of getting crickets OUT of the tank I have for them (ideas? Pref home made).
They'll live in tank in my cupboard.
Advantages: Dark. Reasonably warm. Not too much of a problem if one managed to escape from the tank - which has a fine grid lid on by the way. I have to buy them a sponge too, and a foodbowl.
Would it be a good idea to put a thin layer of sand on the floor for them?

Wow this is a long'un.

Oh, get some vit dust for coating bugs.
Did I forget anything?

What other mosses would look nice/be easy to keep?

(Message edited by indigobluefish on November 11, 2006)

 

[edward]

snip "And why is it that animals in the wild are able to cope without suplementation? the calcium phoshate ratio can't be positive or the insects would not survive themselves...so how do they do it?"endsnip

I answered this late last night so I missed an important point here. The calciumhosphorus ratio doesn't have anything to do with survivial unless the arthropod is being basically force fed. The buildup of the calcium in the gut content of the insects in question is what causes it as they don't have a method to deal with it while soil dwelling arthropods have soil particles containing calcium stuck to them or incorporate into their cuticle (like isopods) and/or ingest it with the soil they feed on. There is also probably some incidental consumption of soil when prey insects are captured and the substrates used in captivity tend to be very calcium poor.

Ed