Anybody raise mealworms?

[taraann81]

My son has to do a project in school..making an ecosystem...after some research he decided to build a habitat for mealworms.
Is it truly as easy as adding pet store bough meal worms to bran, an adding a cut up, apple, potatoe or such on top and then just let them be(replacing the bran and veg/fruit occasionaly).

Also I've read you can use, chick starter, bran or rolled oats..does one work better than the other?

Any advice?

How many should we put in a 5 gallon aquarium? How deep should we put the feed?

 

[key west chick]

Heres my set up. I bought a 3 drawer thingy from Target and keep the older beetles and pupae/just hatched beetles separate. I use either chick starter or layer crumbles, whatever I happen to have at the time.

The black things are all the beetles, the little pale things are the pupae.

 

[taraann81]

Thats a great set up and I believe I have one of those three drawer thingys laying around!

Why do you seperate the pupae and the beetles? Is that a must?

 

[key west chick]

Since I have 3 drawers, I just use them. I kinda rotate everything around. Its easier to keep the pupae/baby beetles clean without having to worry about the older beetles laying eggs in the crumbles. The older beetles lay the eggs in the crumbles, and I start having tiny mealy worms wiggling everywhere. The I cant clean it out. I need to separate the older beetles from the baby worms. I'll put the beetles in the empty drawer I have. That way, the baby worms will just be in the drawer. You could probably keep them all together but since I have 3 drawers, I use them.