Well, I was considering paying the high price for phoenix worms, cause.. well, I want my gecko healthy <3 My question is this; If I buy the "400 Medium phoenix worms for 27.98$" from phoenixworms.com how long will those last me? Will the worms live long enough, or will I need to pull our 20 dead ones every day? ._. That'd be such a waste of money.
I bought them 3 times . Once from wormman , from phoenixworms.com and last time made the mistake of buying them prepacked in pet store. My geckos loved them . If you buy alot , they will not die but they will turn into black soldier flies. They last longer in cool temps but not refig temps or they die and that is the problem . The wormman and phoenixworms.com batch lasted awhile but the preepacked pet store batch turned into black soldier flies within 2 days. They look like wasp type flies but harmless and arboreal lizards, frogs will devour them but ofcourse non arboreals can't catch them. People are breeding them at home just look up black soldier fly breeding on youtube but it looks like a pain. BTW phoenixworms.com has nice one's that did last me couple weeks . I used all mine up in course of 2 weeks as did not buy as much as you did but I know others who have had them turn to soldier flies if held longer. You can feed your gecko calcium gut loaded crickets, mealworms and dusted so no real need for phoenixworms but they are ideal as is but I found them a pain as far as you can't stock up on them or you will get flies and look like pain to culture.
You could always try culturing feeder roaches as well - they are far superior nutritionally to crickets, mealworms, and zophobas. If you are looking for optimal staple feeders from a nutrional standpoint, silkworms, roaches, soldier grubs and crickets are the best bets. Though variety is ideal in any diet. I'll PM you a couple of private sources where you may find the solider grubs cheaper. They make good feeders; I've bought them from time to time at shows when convenient to mix up the palate. Louie's covered quite a bit, here's a little more reading: http://www.reptileboards.com/threads/repti-worms.64683/#post-5107697
I've always heard they're good and have been meaning to try them, just haven't gotten around to it. I posted a similar thread about the same kinds of worms-just a differen't marketing name(Reptiworms)and they're cheaper there I'm pretty sure. Here's the thread: http://www.reptileboards.com/threads/repti-worms.64683/#post-510767 and the website: http://www.reptiworms.com/index.php?index&sid=cro3pl0eb7f9tjg7uhjk1v4ku6 On the website I mentioned, I looked and they have 500ct medium for 22.99-shipping is also always 4.99 with them