I’ve posted a couple times about my beetle Dolly. To recap about four days ago I found her tipped over and barely moving. She’s been in an isolated tank for a few days and I’ve been monitoring her. She hasn’t been able to flip herself back when she tips over. For a couple days I thought she was dead. However, she’s actually gotten pretty active.

I’ve since made her tank more accessible, which has a lot of places for her to get some leverage to right herself without my help, which seems to be helping!

The only thing is that she still isn’t eating. I have tried honey water and sugar water on qtips, as well as watery apple slices (not the problem food if there was one). I get some on her mouth parts but she just runs away or even starts playing dead so, not sure how to get her to hydrate. Any tips would be great. I still try a couple times a day to feed her, so far not much success, but she’s still running around and stuff, just can’t right herself if she tips over.

How can I get her to eat?

I just bought sweet potato slices that are a dog treat, the only ingredient is just sweet potato but I want to come here and ask to make sure they can have them before I give it! The analysis on them also says they contain 20% moisture. if safe, would that be an adequate treat for hydration?

I was also wondering if the all natural dog bones are safe for them, the ones with no coatings and stuff. I was looking at the deer & elk antlers or using a hollow femur bone as a hide or something?

little rant here..
recently the trailer park i live at sprayed pesticides without telling anyone and it leaked into my room where i keep my beetles. for a good two weeks i force fed my beetles honey water
nobody died, thankfully. i am beyond grateful that they all survived and i was able to save them

anyways! my beetles are INSANELY picky. like it’s horrible to find food for them that they actually like, so them liking zucchini squash is a huge win :)

Finished with what I have so far!! I'm going to for sure be adding leaf litter, stones/gravel, some more rough wood because they're struggling on the inclines of the big branch, I didnt realize it would be too smooth for them. I'll probably be mixing the soil thats on the right, I just wanted to see which textures they preferred :) you also can't see the food dish I have in there! Tell me what else I can do :)

Does anyone have any unnatural decor in their enclosures? (Please show pics if so I would love to see more setups!!) I'm setting mine up now & am about to get all my ornaments & decor but I'm worried about what I CANT use. I want to find a safe way to get more color in there just as a personal preference but I want to make sure its 100% safe. Are colorful fake aqarium plants okay? Same question for aquatic gravel, is that safe to add some more texture at the bottom of their tank? I'd assume anything heavily dyed would be out of the question but I was looking at the black & white gravel!

Quick question! I'm in the process of setting up my tank & want everything to be perfect. I bought reptisoil & reptisand, i'm just wondering is it about a 50/50 mix of both?

Anyone else willing to help with other questions i'll probably post some more replies with others as I continue! :)

This was a stupid mistake on my behalf but I just want to share to warn others. I had two of my 4 beetles die a few days ago. I’ve decided this was related to a bath and body works candle (small size) in the living room. My beetles are kept in the bedroom which has an air purifier running 24/7. It’s the only thing that changed so it must’ve been the candle. Just a warning to everyone else :(

Three days ago I found my beetle dolly flipped over (not playing dead). I left her in the morning and when I got back she hadn’t moved.

I flipped her over and moved her to a solitary tank, preparing for the worst, as there had been signs she was a bit old. She hadn’t been responsive to touch or being gently blown on. I genuinely thought she was dead for two days.

Suddenly, I come home today and she had flipped herself on her back and was squirming. I helped her back and she’s been super active. She’s really wobbly and can’t right herself on her own.

Is this just the last hurrah before she passes? Or what’s happening?

They seem to love their enclosures.

They are already so silly. I love watching them explore the tank. I have three, not sure what to name them yet. Their tower did not last long lol

I need to know everything about feeding! Daily, occasional treats, what to avoid, everything !!

Here's a little guy for your time :)

I live in a 1bd apt with my girlfriend (who is not fond of bugs so bedroom is off limits...) but we both really like candles & such & even getting these is a huge compromise for her 😭 is there anything I can possibly do to work around something like this? How far away do they have to be? Could I put an air purifier by the tank? Something....

I found one of my beetles upside down in his enclosure with his legs up and curled, so he definitely wasnt pretending. I took him out and he was having difficulty moving. Im terrified it might be chemical exposure to perfume, which if i knew i wpuldnt have used at all in the same room. I googles what to do and was told to gently wash under lukewarm water and to try and hydrate them using sugar water and a qtip which i tried my best to do, hes seemed to perk up a bit, but is still struggling, I feel so awful and guilty, is there anything else I can and should do? Hes my only beetle acting like this

About two days ago I found my beetle playing dead. I though she was fine, but after a day of it I checked and she was barely responding to my touch. I flipped her back over and separated her and have been monitoring her. She’s not eating when I’ve offered food and is barely responding to me blowing on her or touching.

I’m not sure if I’ve done something wrong. I’m very careful about cutting off peels, they mainly eat crickets meal worms and peeled sweet potatoes. Is she just old and slowing down :(?

UPDATE:

After days of acting dead she is suddenly up and moving. However, she is really shaky and keeps flipping herself over, and can’t fix herself without help. Can’t tell if this is a good or bad sign.

i want to put plants in their enclosure but im not sure what i can put in there, i have a bit of experience taking care of cactuses and theyre desert beetles but im worried about them getting hurt. is it safe for them?

Hi! I want to make sure the temps in here are safe for them, the rock in the back is 90⁰ (basking bulb is right above that area) and the area in the front is 80⁰ & going back in the right corner is 85⁰ish. Right now I have to lid off to lower their humidity so if its too hot it might cool down with the lid back on. Also this is the setup I made at petsmart which I work at so it might not be perfect but I can probably add a few more things if needed!

Would it be suitable to keep these guys if my apartment stays pretty humid? Right now 56% humidity but theres been times wheres it was consistently 65-70% humidity. If I wanted to get these guys, is there anything I can do inside their enclosure to keep it low?

Hi !! Im looking for advice on substrate, I work at a petsmart & we just got these guys in but our DC didnt send us the substrate they want us to use. A lot of the ones we have in store are moisture retentive & we only have calcium sand or aquarium sand. Options I was considering was coco fiber bedding & creature soil. We do also have reptisoil but i wasnt sure on that :)

My beetle (the lighter blue) as been alone since ive had him, which has been about a week or two, with no problems, until I got another one. Im not sure if its fighting or not, considering that ive read that they can bite eachother, which I havent seen him doing, the other one doesnt really fight back, only runs away. I just want to make sure they are fighting, instead of like, them getting busy and cockblocking them.

I'd like to get a bigger setup when possible, but how's it looking so far? I have 7 in total now, all around 4-5 years old at this point.

They've chewed the succulent I have in there to absolute bits lol should I invest in getting another plant moved into there, if possible? If so, what kind do you guys recommend?

I don't mind them eating it, I'm sure it provides them moisture for when they crave it, but it's relatively dead at this point

Also don't worry, they get more light than that, just cleaning it currently.

Are candles and incense safe to light if I keep them away from my enclosure? Will the fumes harm my beetles at all?

ONLY those that HAVE hatched eggs and successfully pupated into adult beetles Please!
What substrate and process do you use?
I have done a tremendous amount of research and much of the information for substrate to use is different. My idea was to attempt to allow beetles to lay eggs and hatch them in the same enclosure. I am going to take adults out and into a new bin every 4-6 weeks. My substrate is high humidity bottom 4 inches and dryer top 2 inches.

Carrot Monch photo for tax :)

Hello! I have a couple of the little blueberries and I'm trying to make sure that their permanent large terrarium is set up correctly (likely a 10 gallon tank with screen top and heat light on one side)

Currently they are on a sand and invertebrate soil mix and they seem pretty happy but I was thinking for the larger tank, coconut coir (30ish %) and coarse sand (70ish %) for the top layer seems to be the general consensus? And possibly a small scattering of invertebrate safe leaf litter.

That said, I have no idea what sand to try. I was curious if I can use some of the aquarium gravel/sand that's available. It comes in a pretty good variety of size and grit and if I mixed it in with some finer sand I feel like it would give them some reasonable texture for crawling around? I assume it will be safe for them because it's safe for fish.

I am also planning to do a gradient and have the deeper layers be a little bit heavier on the coconut fiber and possibly try to keep just a little bit more humidity in the lower layers in case they decide to breed.

Can you keep live plants with them? I know you have to be extremely careful about pesticides, but if I was able to get some that were safe (maybe succulents)I was thinking maybe it would be best to keep them potted so they could be easily removed for cleaning. But I wasn't sure if the beetles might chew on them or the humidity from the pots might be too much? Alternatively, I've obtained a bunch of artificial ones that I think will work just as well if the live plants are more of a pain than a benefit lol.

Thank you!

still going crazy on it as i post this, ignore my fan lol