Up until this point, I have found that there may be 2 causes for the death of BSF newborns, especially for beginners:
#1. The 'Human Touch'
Turns out not every human touch is a Midas touch. Although BSF are resilient when they grow up, the tiny newborn larvae are very tender. The human touch, especially the finger nail part, may accidentally kill them.
But why do we touch them?
For beginners, this may relate to the issue of larvae escaping. When my larvae were escaping and.. getting.. everywhere, I honestly (and understandably) looked around and found and picked them back to their position. As you can guess, it was a lot of work and 'accidents' like sharp finger nail damaging could and did happen.
So the underlying problem here I guess is to treat the escaping issue. With this, without larvae escaping, we may not need to catch them and put them back to where they are.
If you'd like to learn more about why the bsf larvae are escaping, here's a good post to read about it later:
Secondly:
#2. Exposure to Sun
BSF are photo-sensitive animals, meaning they don't like a lot of light. Although they can survive some light, a long exposure may dry them and cause them to die. I have found this exposure may be 15 or 20 minutes.
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