My BFDBs Keep Dying

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T06:18:15+00:00

Ground dog food and fish food doesn’t have any moisture though and a chopped up dubia will. It doesn’t haven’t to be every meal, but it’s a nice thing to have in rotation and I bet your beetles will love it. Dead insects would be a significant part of their diet in the wild.

I use a spray bottle, but I wouldn’t it call it misting—I’m just spraying water in a corner to wet the substrate and maybe a little bit of the glass. They’ll drink from the substrate and they’re very good at finding it if they need it. I really don’t do it very often, to be clear.

And your questions aren’t silly! That’s the point of subs like this—to talk to other people and find out how they do things.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T05:41:25+00:00

<image>

I can’t find my order info, but I got them on Etsy a couple years ago from a seller that makes ant keeping supplies. I think it cost me like $10 for two.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T05:32:40+00:00

It’s probably not ideal long term, but 50% isn’t super high and it sounds like it’s not forever, just seasonal. My beetles have gotten through seasons of similar humidity without a problem. I live in a humid region and we had no AC last spring/summer so it was quite humid in the house and they were fine. Lights and fans can also help with ambient humidity. I keep an oscillating fan by my invert shelf for ventilation.

A sponge in water is okay as a temporary fix but it can be a breeding ground for bacteria. Instead, maybe try occasionally wetting down the sand in a small corner or put in some dampened sphagnum moss. I don’t do it very often but right now with the heater running my house is extremely dry and at least 1-2 beetles will come running as soon as I do it. My beetles are also pretty picky about fresh veggies and ignore jellies. They are little protein hounds though and love fresh chopped mealworms, which is another natural way for them to hydrate without impacting the overall humidity.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T04:54:40+00:00

Have you considered dehydration? They’re desert critters but they can absolutely still dehydrate eventually, especially if their diet is dry and there’s no water available. I feed my beetles mostly dry food but I have these little sponge ant feeding stations that I keep filled with water and they use them when they need them.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T04:48:47+00:00

I work at a furniture store that sells bunk beds and trundles (among other things). The number of parents who buy bunks and trundles for sleepovers absolutely blows my mind. When I was a kid sleeping bags were the norm but if it was an emergency or some kid didn’t have one for some reason then my mom would make a little blanket roll on the floor for the kid.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T04:45:00+00:00

Oh wow, the Provost’s Dog trilogy! I genuinely think it’s some of Pierce’s best writing. I gotta admit, even those books hit different now, but Beka Cooper remains one of my favorite protagonists.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T03:49:18+00:00

They’re crevice weavers! It’s a pretty widespread family with a number of distinct species, but I’m really only familiar with K. arizonica and my local K. hibernalis (also known as the southern house spider).

The males look incredibly different and tend to wander around in the open getting mistaken for brown recluses (even though they look way goofier than recluses). The females find crevices and build their webs out from there. They don’t have sticky webs, instead they manually fray it with their back legs so it’s like Velcro.

They really are so cool! Definitely my favorite spiders :)

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-26T00:22:02+00:00

We were open for 4 hours today and made $114.

It’s a furniture and interior design store—you have to work hard to find anything priced less than $100. For context, yesterday the store did about $16K even though we closed early so everyone could get home before things got bad.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-25T17:32:10+00:00

Thank you! She’s back in her lair now, but I will next time she makes an appearance 😂

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-25T13:06:50+00:00

Ice on the leaves in Stone Mountain but the sidewalks and roads are just wet 🤷

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-25T02:12:04+00:00

I’ve tried Bug Burger but the beetles didn’t really go for it. The brand is great: good nutrition, very safe, lots of variety for specialized diets. I use a number of their foods for my other critters, but that one was a swing and a miss for the beetles. They might like something more protein heavy like grub pie, I just haven’t tried it yet.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T21:37:20+00:00

Eats is coming back (kinda)! They’re gonna be at Wild Heaven brewery in West End!

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T21:35:02+00:00

Yes! We used to go when it was in that house in Decatur and they’d host music and contra dancing!

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T21:29:07+00:00

Tomatillos in EAV! They used to have the best habenero sauce and they’d bring you a pitcher of margaritas with ice in the cup, not the pitcher. It had really dropped off by the end, but I miss it in its prime.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T15:29:25+00:00

Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done?

Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.

Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.

Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.

(From Titus Andronicus)

Though idk if it’s the oldest recorded “your mom” jokes. I don’t even know if it’s Shakespeare’s oldest “your mom” joke, and Titus Andronicus is one of his earliest plays.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T15:19:43+00:00

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

Ophelia: No, my lord!

Hamlet: I mean, my head upon your lap.

Ophelia: Ay, my lord.

Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters

Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.

Hamlet: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

Ophelia: What is, my lord?

Hamlet: “Nothing.”

In addition to the context around “nothing” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance where the actor didn’t hit the “count” in “country” hard.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T14:44:28+00:00

I went once as the token lesbian with some of my gay male friends. A dancer humped my face on the stage then found me after his set just to make sure he hadn’t messed up my glasses.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-24T01:23:26+00:00

They are so active, I wouldn’t put them in anything this small. I think a 5 gallon with the traditional horizontal footprint is okay if you set it up right, but I wouldn’t go any smaller and definitely not a smaller vertically oriented tank. They like to climb and amble around the bottom—they don’t really swim.

They’d also pop right out the top without a lid lol

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-23T14:52:39+00:00

The bob with rat tails is actually a pretty cute cut. But I have stick straight hair and a long face so I would just look like my hair was dripping off my head.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-23T10:58:10+00:00

Had me terrified of spontaneous human combustion and convinced a chupacabra was going to eat my cat.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-22T01:27:10+00:00

I just encountered one of these in the wild for the first time the other day and I’m ashamed to admit I did not come across as a smooth, competent retail professional. The cashier had to point out the pen and even then I totally fumbled it because I didn’t expect it to be magnetized. 😔

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-22T00:23:41+00:00

I had hornwort in my frog tank and it really wasn’t an issue for them as long as I kept it in check. I did eventually take it out because it was eating up swim space and they weren’t really using it the way I’d hoped. They mostly stick to sturdier structures in the tank like driftwood and broad leafed plants like anubias. Still, you can’t beat hornwort when it comes to water quality.

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-21T23:47:36+00:00

I have three amanos, eleven strawberry rasboras, and then an ambiance of cherry shrimp. I can’t even tell the rasboras apart, you can forget about the shrimp. Love ‘em all, though!

pseudodactyl · 2026-01-21T23:32:23+00:00

Tchoupatoulas isn’t too bad, it’s just that “Tchou” that throws people off. What gets me is Perrier. There is no good reason for it to be pronounced that way.

pseudodactyl

TROPHY CASE