How to raise Caddisfly Larave to adults

I had some experience raising lake Caddisflies in a tank with some dragonfly and damselfly larva last year. My best advice is to mimic the habitat they were in as closely as possible. I was lucky to have the lake in my back yard, and was able to collect vegetation, algae-covered rocks and water on a regular basis. Once you provide the basic building blocks of a 'mini-lake', like the algae, amphipods, aquatic/emergent vegetation, and a starter-water culture, I think it may work. Mine lasted me about 2 weeks before it needed some maintenance, like changing the filter and emptying out any build-up of debris and adding some fresh water As for filters, I used the least filtration I could. I left it up to the amphipods, water boatmen and native snails to do a lot of the filtering. I used a very basic, cheap filter for my 10 gallon aquariums, I think it was a 10-30i Tetra filter with bio bag filter inserts. It worked fairly well, though with any living water it gets dirty fairly fast. I also had a air pump with a 10 inch long bubble wand to aerate. I often would simply take the filter out of the filter pump and just let it circulate the water. I had to make a mesh guard out of hardware cloth in order to keep critters from being sucked into it. The damselfly larva actually liked to hang out on the guard!

Another thing I provided was a sun lamp and plant lamp for the vegetation and algae. I used a submersible heater to get the water temp to mimic that of the area of the lake, and made sure there was a day/night cycle for them. I provided plenty of cover for them, as well as sticks and mesh for the various larvae to climb on to emerge from the water. I built a screen hood for the emerged adults to go up into and bask in the light before I released them or preserved them.

As for adding water, I simply used our tap water. But we're lucky, and have a water well that goes into the aquifer and delivers fresh, clean water with tasty minerals. Coming directly from the lake, as well as adding to the lake, it was very safe for the critters, since we do not use a water softener. Adding it to the tank while there is still some of the 'native' water inside helped with water clarity and turbidity.

Doing a good study of the the habitat water helps you set up the tank the way you need it, and making sure you have the native vegetation and organisms helps because I doubt they would do well if you put them in a tank with unfamiliar critters and water type.

There is an artist out there that breeds casemaking caddisflies in habitats with tiny flakes of gold or metals, along with beads and gemstones and when they shed their case to emerge, she turns the cases into jewelry! I'm uncertain of the site, but maybe contacting her would help?

It was a lot of fun! I had some hatch, but most were eaten by the dragonfly, water beetle and giant water bug larvae, which was my intention. ^^; Midges, mayflies and mosquitoes also emerged.