Weevils as killie food?

[stormhawk]

I found some brown weevils in a bag of hamster food that my brother bought for his Syrians. They're really small and are breeding like rabbits. I'm wondering if they're worth culturing in lieu of fruit flies. They love to feed on grains so I suppose even items like bread crumbs should be handled by them real quick.

Since we can't get in fruit flies locally in SG, I was toying with the idea of culturing these critters for surface-feeders like the Epiplatys. If it works then my hatchetfishes would have their favourite insect diet.

[whuntley]

Sounds good Jianyang,

You might see if they do well in wheat or gram flour. That would let you pour through a net or fine seive to separate the bugs from their food. This works for what we call "confused flour beetles." Both the crunchy beetles and their soft, succulent maggots are left in a fine brineshrimp net.

Wright

[stormhawk]

Hmm, I might try it with fine oatmeal instead. I'll let you fellas know about the results when and if I succeed with it.

[stormhawk]

Arrgghh.. bad news. A bunch of tiny biting ants infested my culture box and killed many of the weevils. I threw the entire load into the rubbish chute.

I'll probably try again with rice weevils and hopefully the ants don't come and bother it.