Aquatic Insect Feeding!

[@Antifacio]

Swirling beetles was kind of magic creatures when I encoutered these in childhood. They are so extreme fast and shining. Throw something in water and they will spin there or here. Catched some - nothing remerkable outside of water.

[@MIsopods]

Evolution is awesome, and I think it's convergent evolution where, in essence, life will fill a niche. It may be a bird, beetle, fish, or mammal, or something else, but something will fill that niche. These guys are interesting and fun to watch. I remember watching "water beetles" growing up, and water striders. Fun times. I hope this goes well! You have some nice looking guys and gals in there!

[@dillonbaker5978]

This aquarium bug series you have is what made me subscribe to this channel I find these bugs absolutely amazing

[@biggusdickus2166]

go take a pool strainer to a local pond, its so easy to find these guys locally.

[@SiebeDeJongh]

Fr, i just found a water bug and was interested and then i found tuis channel, i am gonna make up a aquarium for it later today, and search more ofc

[@arcaninetyfour2239]

I love the drama while watching my isopods and springtails feed, and this feels very much like that

[@k2a2l2]

very satisfying to watch

[@TechNinjaSigma]

Very cool!

[@amyesworldcatherinesminime7945]

They're very entertaining

[@chello_bean56]

WOOOO!!!! I was really hoping to see this soon! Especially after we saw how great the tank looked on Wednesday this week!

[@themantisgarden]

Great video mate, I think I will leave them in my pond for now but I do watch them in summer and find them fascinating in their natural setting just as much.

[@Aquarimax]

Hard to beat that!

[@PlecsExotics3]

Such cool insects! They're so cute

[@IsopodArtist]

I wonder, what if you made an aquarium using vernal pool creatures like fairy shrimp, triops and clam shrimps

[@Aquarimax]

I have done that many times, but it has been a few years. Maybe I need to do it again!

[@siyg]

Fairy shrimp and triops are among the top of my list of low maintenance pete I’ve been considering. Along with BDFB and these guys

[@mellewedin8221]

At 8:20 in the video of feeding the top dwelling Beetle's one of them took down like 3 of them fruit flys. Man they are funny to watch.

[@playdead1892]

This is very cool stuff 😊

[@dhgodzilla1]

I always wanted to convert an Old Zenith TV into an Aquarium, something like this would be fun.

[@Aquarimax]

I’d love to see that!

[@Crystalspets]

I enjoyed watching the feeding video 😊😊

[@mountainhobbit1971]

WOW! this is so fun to watch...thanks Rus! I think one of these kinds of aquariums is in my future. How often do you feed and how do you know they have had enough? Do you know if those 'water striders' would be aquarium appropriate?

[@Aquarimax]

I usually feed every other day or so. I am still tweaking the quantity of pellets I offer…I try to make sure they drag them all off within 10 minutes or so. I don’t know if those whirligigs ever get enough fruit flies ! Water striders will work well in an aquarium like this…they just don’t mix well with the larger whirligig beetles (they will do well with the smaller whirligig beetles though).

[@drewwhitaker315]

Very cool... my divers are do well also!

[@Aquarimax]

Great to hear!!

[@amazingaquaticsandexotics3030]

cool tank. for me i have a few caddisfly larva, an alderfly larva, a duck leech and a pond snail. in a 3 gallon tank

[@LawStudentsNightmare]

That’s very interesting

[@300_live_rats]

i love your profile picture ghkjsdh

[@mantisgod237]

So dope! 🤩

[@Aquarimax]

😁👍

[@nawowl125]

any updates on them like a tutorial video please

[@arpadungvari7160]

My comment is in the voedo... YEEEEAAAHHH!!!!! xD xD xD It was an intresting feeding video (I mean water bugs are really unic creatures, unfoutinatly I have fishtanks, so I can't keep these little buggers with them, cause water bugs eat fishes too), one little info was missing, you don't said how often should feed them?

[@Aquarimax]

Thanks! I feed about every other day.

[@siyg]

Hold up, how are aquatic insects supposed to escape? Do their flippers act as wings? Maybe I should stick with the BDFBs

[@Aquarimax]

Many/most of them are able fliers.

[@bengaltiger1667]

What do you feed the backswimmers and water boatmen?

[@Aquarimax]

They will eat some algae and detritus, but I’ll be offering some daphnia as well

[@curvingfyre6810]

How often do they want to come to the surface? Do they benefit from a perch to get out of the water occasionally?

[@Aquarimax]

Frequency varies (probably depends partly on temperature), but they do benefit from haul-out areas, I provide emergent driftwood, floating cork, and flaring plants…they use all of them.

[@fishmansf4]

I've decided to turn my 5.5 gallon into an aquatic insect aquarium. I just put in some whirligig beetles and was wondering if you had any advice for caring for them.

[@Aquarimax]

Whirligig beetles are great! Do you have the small ones or the large ones? Either way, small insects that float on the surface and move around seem to be the best food. I use a lot of flightless fruit flies, some small crickets, and moths. Make sure they have a haul-out area (a piece of cork bark works well)

[@fishmansf4]

@@Aquarimax mine seem to love crickets. One of them ended up laying eggs and I'm trying to get them to hatch. What would you recommend I feed to the larva after they hatch?

[@Aquarimax]

@@fishmansf4 congrats on the eggs! I haven’t had larvae yet, but I hope to!

[@WingedAtheris]

What about backswimmers and water boatman? I did not see any in this video,did they all died off, or you moved them elsewhere?

[@Aquarimax]

There were only two water boatman, so they are likely still in there. As explained in the previous video about this tank, the backswimmers were unfortunately sucked up by the filter, 😢 so I replaced it with a gentler one.

[@WingedAtheris]

@@Aquarimax I see. I thought backswimmers survived being in a filter short term,but I guess I was wrong about that. I'm mostly interested in this topic, because when I tried to keep aquatic true bugs, they were only interested in live active prey.

[@Aquarimax]

When I get some more backswimmers, I am going to be trying some live daphnia in addition to the other foods, and see how they react.

[@WingedAtheris]

@@Aquarimax Yeah, I'm very interested in any insights on feeding those little guys,because when I tried it, it was huge pain to get them to eat anything other than live cyclops and mosquito larvae. Getting them in my area is a huge pain (I've only seen like a dozen in my many years of digging about in local ponds) and I don't want to lose ones I get.

[@smorc65]

Question--will these bugs breed and propigate themselves in the aquarium, or do they need some sort of land area / terresrial period to reproduce?

[@Aquarimax]

Some will reproduce quite readily in an aquarium, others will need a land area.

[@smorc65]

@@Aquarimax Could be good candidates for a paludarium--someone better get SerpaDesign on the case!

[@ranielcyrusechon1159]

Do you know how to breed any diving beetle or water bug?

[@Aquarimax]

Check out the livestream with Shapes in Nature, we talked about that quite a bit

[@ranielcyrusechon1159]

@@Aquarimax will do, thanks

[@seizedcarcass8440]

What size tank did you use for this setup? 20 gallon?

[@Aquarimax]

Yep! 20 gallon high

[@Monke28281]

Hey Rus, I am planning on breeding garter snakes, I want to make a bio active enclosure with three garter snakes, is a 4x2x2 foot enclosure good? I have been trying to find wooden vivariums as the glass ones are quite pricey, I went to a local pet shop and they were telling me about this wood vivarium which is supposedly waterproof; however, when I searched up the brand online it doesn’t mention anything about it being waterproof, it does come readily built and says it’s sealed though. I’m a beginner and am not sure whether I should trust them, does sealed mean waterproof, I wouldn’t want to spend money on a vivarium for it to get ruined. Also do you think dairy cow Isopods would go well with the garter snakes, I just ordered some and am going to breed those aswell and was planning on putting them in once I had the bioactive vivarium set up. What are your thoughts?

[@tristan2224]

What size fish pellets are you using for them?

[@Aquarimax]

These are medium sinking pellets. 👍🏼

[@Cacti_Of_Mexico]

Does the usda regulate these? Do I need a permit to own them?

[@frankdughtank8327]

Yummy yummy

[@mountainhobbit1971]

FRANK! ;-)

[@frankdughtank8327]

@@mountainhobbit1971 SEAN ;-)

[@SiebeDeJongh]

Do they also eat algea?

[@Aquarimax]

Some of them do…my giant water scavenger beetle munches on duckweed and water lettuce

[@SiebeDeJongh]

​@@Aquarimax bc, i just found one like these, and i eanted to know if i can just give them some algea, bc i have groen my iwn algea in a plastic bottle so i fed them that, also some mosquito larva bc they where in one of my glasses where i grom my advocado seed, so those are there to, can i grow my own duckweed and/or water lettuce? And if yes how? And is there a way to grow them without having to buy or find some to start with, like the algea i grew? Bc i grew them just from nothing but water in a plastic bottle and it turned green and got some pieces in the water, so is something like that possible with duckweed and water lettuce? And if no, how do i get them then?

[@ArunKumar-pg2zb]

What is the food name?.

[@Aquarimax]

I am using omega one sinking fish food pellets in this video, IIRC.

[@ArunKumar-pg2zb]

@@Aquarimax thank you so much sir

[@ArunKumar-pg2zb]

@@Aquarimax i am a pet owner of diving bettle sir, Those bettles are identified as " Acilius mediatus " sir

[@ArunKumar-pg2zb]

@@Aquarimax sir rather than this food what I can feed....to my diving bettle sir?.