The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

---- On Sun, 06 Jan 2019 06:12:35 +0800 Connor Cavin <InfiniteTech@live.com> wrote ----

Hello, i'm a long time fan and i have commented back and forth with you a couple times. my friend is planning on eventually getting a lizard as a pet (a bearded lizard in particular, possibly a gecko or similar too) and was hoping to make an insect nest/terrarium to grow their own food supply. they had so far found that Dubia roaches; meal worms, silkworm, or super worms; and termites were all good sources as well as ant varieties (though they had bad experiences with ants before and have no plans to try and make a stable colony at this time) they currently plan to save up 1000$ for their entire project give or take (though i don't know how much they plan to drop all at once, this may partially be saving for the vet) i can plan out and/or build almost anything if i know the rough plan, so my questions for you would be these:
what is the best insect to learn with for cultivation
what insect that you know can be grown is best over all food wise
how would you build a tank (or tanks) for the answers above or for the previously mentions bugs, lights, water, heat, size/shape...
is there a way you would recommend building a tank so that the insect portion would be attached to the main tank, and possibly even including a natural feed mechanism that would allow the insects to wander at a limited rate into the feed zone
are any of those bug choices dangerous to a creature like a lizard
would any part of the lizard's waste be good to give the bugs
are there any symbiotic bugs that would be able to survive with the lizards yet not be wiped out while cleaning and such
i have watched most of your videos, but finding a starting point, a single rhyme and reason, or ways to make the easy ones look nice are not as easy as it would seem.

thank you in advance for your reply, your fan
Connor Cavin

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i sent this to the main email a bit back and they advised i post it here instead, thank you to anyone whoom wishes to help.

Meal worms are pretty easy all you have to do is check on them and move some pupae around every couple days. I don't know how much lizards like them though, I wonder if your local pet store has any information on what lizards like and how to breed feeder insects.

Here is a useful instructable on that: https://www.instructables.com/id/Mealworm-Farm/, but I haven't tested it yet. I have also heard that bearded dragons enjoy waxworms.

Great advice about all kinds of feeder insects here:
http://forum.formiculture.com/index.php/topic/747-how-to-culture-various-insects-and-feeders/