Lost my colony

[Buckmaster299]

I was cleaning my fairly large colony of roached one day and apparently they all drowned in liquid waste. is there a way to prevent this? I mean i do nto want to lose my colony again. I have buckets with holes in them but I stilll lost quite a few of my roaches(like 90%) i'm at a loss of what to do really as when i pour the roaches in the buckets it seems as though they deficated all over one another... Help????

 

[RuselBro]

What specie were they? Dubia, Discoid, Lobster, ect? I've never heard about anything like that. Lol.

 

[Buckmaster299]

Dubia. I have never heard of it either that is why i'm at a loss...

 

[randommonks]

What exactly do you mean by liquid waste? The roaches should not be producing any liquids and you should not be having any in their container either. Where did the liquid come from?

 

[Buckmaster299]

That's what I cannot figure out. I didn't think they should have any liquid waste either.

 

[randommonks]

What are you using for moisture in your colony? Does it have ventillation and if so, how large? Where are you keeping the colony? Was the area around the colony wet when you found it?

 

[Buckmaster299]

i use oranges and water crystals. the only thing i can think of is maybe there was some oranges juce that i did not see when i began my clean up... i'm at a loss... there was no moisture on sides of tub either...

 

[unkempt1]

i use oranges and water crystals. the only thing i can think of is maybe there was some oranges juce that i did not see when i began my clean up... i'm at a loss... there was no moisture on sides of tub either...

First off, sorry to hear you lost most of your colony.

That's still pretty strange that it happened from just separating them with buckets! Even if there was "some" juice in there I don't understand how it would have ruined most of your colony. :?

I've heard that mold can kill quick, though I have never experienced that personally. Do you think that it could have been from (no disrespect here, we are trying to help) neglect i.e. poor husbandry? Maybe explain your cleaning process?

A picture speaks a thousand words, as they say. Maybe you could describe or post a pic of your setup. Either would speak volumes and definitely help.

 

[Buckmaster299]

No disrespect taken. I looked for mold when i was cleaning the tote out. I did not see any. I clean the tote out once a week and I try to sort out every 2-3 months. I do not clean 100% of the waste because i read that the babies do something with it... I typically feed them twice a week once the colony can consume that much food. Now that I am rebuilding, I only have to feed once a week. I check twice a week on the fruit and vegatable that I have placed in there. For fear of mold, I check twice a week to make sure that the vegies have not gone bad. They usually do not make it this long but if they do i change the vegies out on sunday and wed every week. I do not have a pic. I am currently rebuilding. I think i'm going to start sorting more often and see how that works for me.

 

[unkempt1]

The only thing I can think is that if there was enough liquid in there, you experienced some drowning. But then I would think the adults would be ok. Very strange indeed! Keep us posted on how it goes!

 

[Buckmaster299]

will do. live and learn right?

 

[unkempt1]

will do. live and learn right?

Oh trust me, I know what that means. I bought my first colony at a reptile convention here in San Antonio. Pretty small, like 5 females, 2 males, and maybe 50 mixed. Well I already had their bin set up, but I thought I was smart using some cartons out of a flat screen TV we had just bought. BIG mistake!

Within an hour or two all the adults were either twitching or already dead. :x It turns out the cartons had either pesticides or formaldehyde. I have since salvaged the rest of the colony, and bought a new one (I keep them separated because I have no plans to feed from my first colony for the foreseeable future). I use my original colony to test different temps and food on, so there's a silver lining to something that initially had me really upset!

 

[Buckmaster299]

Yea that is one thing that worries me about my cartons
I'm very selective about them. I actually smell them b4 I use them.

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Hey Buck sorry to hear that. Thing that comes to mind is the heat is to warm and the water crystals melted. Or if a bin gets to warm moisture will set in and the humidity will kill a colony quick. It only takes an hour or so. Good luck and anything I can do for you just give me a shout.

 

[Buckmaster299]

Thanks. I'm gonna start watching humidity more