[anastasisariel]

Anyone know where I can get some neat aquatic beetles. I once found one when I was out collecting native fish along with a water scorpion which made a very interesting addition to my tank. The beetle was about 3/4 an inch and had metallic green skin... he looked amazing kinda like an aquatic scarab and ate frozen brine shrimp and anything else I fed my fish.

thanks,

 

[Strick]

Don't know where you can get any, but you're right - they're cool to watch. As long as you don't want any fry to survive, that is...

 

[anastasisariel]

Yeah, I don't care about any fry at this point. I'd rather see a few big beetles with striking metallic color like the one I had. I'm not kidding; I've been looking online at picks of aquatic beetles and none were as neat looking as the one I found in Illinois.

 

[demosthenes]

yeah, actually i was out this summer collecting plants, and i found a beetle that used a tiny piece of hollowed-out driftwood as a shell, like a hermit crab would. I tried googling all sorts of descriptions of it, but i could never figure out what it was. I have some pretty big fish in there though, and i found its empty driftwood-shell in the tank, so i think someone must have eaten him. he was SO cool though! do the aquatic bugs survive and reproduce in the water? did you ever figure out what it was, or just that it was a green aquatic beetle?

 

[Rob in Puyallup]

Demos... could what you're describing be a caddisfly larva? They make little 'mobile homes' out of twigs, sand grains and other assorted things they find on the bottom of their stream/lake/pond. When I was a kid we'd find them every time we went out looking for crawdads...

 

[anastasisariel]

Yeah, I never figured out what exactly he was. I guess I would have to speak to an etymologist. I know that there are many many species of beetles though. I used to collect these little tiny ones but my fish would eventually get em. I don't know whether or not the beetles reproduce in the water, but I'm sure some species do.

 

[hydrophyte]

I don't know that you could hope to find anything like that available commerically. Probably your best bet is to just collect (legally) from the wild.

 

[anastasisariel]

I've looked all over online to see if anyone sold anything like that, none so far. I think I'll check the science suppliers.

 

[anastasisariel]

FOUND IT!!! I use to order axolotls off these guys; they are great:

http://www.carolina.com/nav/p/categ...nimals/live+insects.do?sortby=ourPicks&page=2

 

[MlDukes]

Check out this water beetle LMAO

http://nibsblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/opt-water-beetle-car.jpg

 

[anastasisariel]

Oh its you. I was wondering why someone resurrected this thread only to mock me. lol BTW, I would still like get some beetles for my tank!

 

[MlDukes]

Oh its you. I was wondering why someone resurrected this thread only to mock me. lol BTW, I would still like get some beetles for my tank!

I agree with you, I had never thought of if but that would be an interesting addition. I dont know anything about them. Except that I used to see them in our kiddie pool after it had set for a while lol. Do they adventually grow out of their water stage?