Bought five hundred superworms for my beardie and I have lost maybe a third of them in ten days. They go dark and then they are dead, one after another.
I have been keeping the tub in the fridge because that is what I always did with mealworms, and the bedding is a good few inches deep so they have something to burrow into. Carrot goes in twice a week. Where am I going wrong?
Moisture is the other axis and it goes wrong in both directions. Too much, from wet pieces left in, condensation and poor airflow, grows mould and bacteria and kills them fast. Too little and they dehydrate, because the veg is where they get their water.
So small pieces of carrot or potato, replaced often rather than left to go soft, anything mushy or mouldy out immediately, and a tub with real ventilation.
Do not feed the dark ones to your dragon. Dead or dying worms come out and go in the bin.
Two causes that are not your fault, for completeness. They eventually try to pupate, and an isolated superworm will go to beetle; pupae change colour naturally as they develop, but a dead pupa goes dark and shrivelled, usually because the larva went in without enough moisture reserves.
And contamination: pesticides, cleaning products, treated veg. Clean tub, clean food, kept away from any sprays. But in your case it is the fridge, and the fix is free.
@shallow_bedding · 2w ago · 3 replies
The fridge. That is the whole answer and it is the single most common mistake with these. Mealworms tolerate being chilled to slow them down; superworms do not, and cold kills them. A superworm that dies darkens quickly, which is why your tub looks like a colour problem rather than a temperature one.
Get them out of there and onto a shelf at room temperature, somewhere in the low twenties, and stop refrigerating them entirely.
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@fridge_killed_them · 2w ago
Fifteen years of keeping mealworms in the fridge and I just assumed. Anything else I am importing from that habit?
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@shallow_bedding · 2w ago
The deep bedding. Superworms packed into deep substrate generate their own heat, so the middle of the tub ends up much warmer than the room. Keep it shallow and spread them across more containers rather than one deep one. Cold killed these; crowding would have been next.
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