Low temperature species + mixing species?

[Barney_M]

Hi all.
I have a huge flexarium, about 4 feet tall 2.5 feet wide ad 16 inches deep.
I am looking for create a natural 'bug environment' with a good number of insects living in a natural set up inside it.
my room temp is 18-20C and i expect night time temperatures to be 18-20C, however there is a heat bulb within the flexarium able to heat a spot up to 28-30C and have the ambient temperature in the top half of the flexarium in the low-mid 20s.
I am wondering what inverts, if any, can live at the above temperatures.
I am also wondering what, if any, species of invertebrates I can mix together for a living/natural feel to the enclosure?
I know its not illegal to have live inverts being eaten, but if i ca get animals breeding too in theory the populations could contain themselves?

Any help is thanked

[jack_rep]

Roaches, millipedes, stick insects, african land snails, beetles, basically anything non predatory.

If you start adding things like Ts or scorps in an effort to control population growth i think ur simply going to end up with a really over fed specimen. Most inverts or opportunistic and week eat whenever food is on offer.

[jakakadave]

Well you could try a colony of tailess whip scorpions up top and millipedes and various fruit beetles on the bottom. You could throw in various species of stick insect too. If you get the right species, phasmids can spread like wildfire, so perhaps the phasmids could give you the constant supply of food you're after.

The only other thing I can think of that wont eat if it's not hungry are mantids, but i'd be worried about the tailless whips and the mantids going after one another. Perhaps though, if you were clever about it, you could create the enclosure in such a way as it would be unlikely they would come into contact with one another. You should have enough space to keep a few mantids together, if you choose the right species but I don't know enough about their communal habits to recommend anything off the top of my head. I know Gongys are generally OK together, but they'll need rather hotter than you can provide i think and in any case they can only eat flies. Maybe Ghost mantids?

Can't think of any suitable ground level predators as everything I can think of will just eat everything they can see.

If you choose your species well, all the above should be pretty hardy and ok at the temps you've mentioned with the possible exception of the TWS, but i'm sure if they want to be warmer they'll get nearer the heat source.

[jakakadave]

Ooooh actually, sorry, didn't read your temps properly. That looks a bit low actually fella... sorry! Maybe some others can advise on species that can handle those temps.