ShenronMyBeardie
New member
Hello all you amazing pet owners here at BeardedDragon.org!
Thank you for clicking on my topic to try and help out my Dubia roach colony problems :shock:
I have a bearded dragon that I am tired of spending money on for feed to gutload at the local pet shop here, so I took it upon myself to start my very own Dubia roach colony. This is the first colony I've ever started so please bare with me to briefly explain how my enclosure is setup...
I bought 15 females and 5 males from the pet store 2 days ago and they are decently big so they must be at least a few months old.
I bought a pretty big tub (I think it's 20-30 gallons or something, can't tell already ripped off the tags lol) with a light layer of organic coconut substrate on the bottom. Under the tank is a heating pad half the size of the bottom, and a heat lamp (which I used tinfoil to deter the light so it wasn't shining on them) so they can get enough heat to breed. I have the egg cartons stacked in there on one side and originally I had the food and water crystals in small styrofoam bowls on the other side (I cut a small part of it out so it should be easy for them to climb in and get into it).
Yesterday I tried feeding them Collard Greens, Oranges, and a little bit of dry cricket feeder. I can't even see a single roach in the whole enclosure, maybe like 1 or 2 for like a millisecond but they are all completely hidden! They didn't touch their food PERIOD yesterday. Today I gave them Butternut Squash, Bok Choy, and the dry cricket mix and decided to move the water and the styrofoam bowls to ontop of their egg cartons and today I haven't seen a single one PERIOD. No head, no attennaes, absolutely no sign of them even being in there.... and again Ive waited about 3 hours now with no luck of seeing them get attracted to their food. This is really concerning me because I spent quite a bit of money to setup this enclosure and to prepare their food... it's been 2 days and these are COCKROACHES how in the hell do they ignore their food? I don't have a temp gun right now because Im short on cash but Im pretty sure its warm enough in there! Either way, not too warm or too hot they should be eating their food. What am I doing wrong? How do I get these suckers to eat?
HELP!
If they live off of eating the egg cartons im gonna get screwed because they won't be nutritious for my beardie Shenron at all I can order stuff online when I get paid next, I mean I really dont want to blow money just for my enclosure to not work maybe drop some links to new supplies if Im doing this wrong? Thanks so much for reading again you guys, Im a beginner and desperately need help asap...
Thank you for clicking on my topic to try and help out my Dubia roach colony problems :shock:
I have a bearded dragon that I am tired of spending money on for feed to gutload at the local pet shop here, so I took it upon myself to start my very own Dubia roach colony. This is the first colony I've ever started so please bare with me to briefly explain how my enclosure is setup...
I bought 15 females and 5 males from the pet store 2 days ago and they are decently big so they must be at least a few months old.
I bought a pretty big tub (I think it's 20-30 gallons or something, can't tell already ripped off the tags lol) with a light layer of organic coconut substrate on the bottom. Under the tank is a heating pad half the size of the bottom, and a heat lamp (which I used tinfoil to deter the light so it wasn't shining on them) so they can get enough heat to breed. I have the egg cartons stacked in there on one side and originally I had the food and water crystals in small styrofoam bowls on the other side (I cut a small part of it out so it should be easy for them to climb in and get into it).
Yesterday I tried feeding them Collard Greens, Oranges, and a little bit of dry cricket feeder. I can't even see a single roach in the whole enclosure, maybe like 1 or 2 for like a millisecond but they are all completely hidden! They didn't touch their food PERIOD yesterday. Today I gave them Butternut Squash, Bok Choy, and the dry cricket mix and decided to move the water and the styrofoam bowls to ontop of their egg cartons and today I haven't seen a single one PERIOD. No head, no attennaes, absolutely no sign of them even being in there.... and again Ive waited about 3 hours now with no luck of seeing them get attracted to their food. This is really concerning me because I spent quite a bit of money to setup this enclosure and to prepare their food... it's been 2 days and these are COCKROACHES how in the hell do they ignore their food? I don't have a temp gun right now because Im short on cash but Im pretty sure its warm enough in there! Either way, not too warm or too hot they should be eating their food. What am I doing wrong? How do I get these suckers to eat?
HELP!
If they live off of eating the egg cartons im gonna get screwed because they won't be nutritious for my beardie Shenron at all I can order stuff online when I get paid next, I mean I really dont want to blow money just for my enclosure to not work maybe drop some links to new supplies if Im doing this wrong? Thanks so much for reading again you guys, Im a beginner and desperately need help asap...