Any people happy they made the switch to roaches.

[augsburg1530]

It looks to me to be good for roaches, it has protein and vegitable matter. If it were me, I would grind it up and feed it to my dubia and see if they liked it.

Eric

 

[Falthazur]

It looks to me to be good for roaches, it has protein and vegitable matter. If it were me, I would grind it up and feed it to my dubia and see if they liked it.

Eric

FINALLY! A use for this crap! Fal gobbles up the nature zone wet food like a feind, but the exo terra dry kibble not so much. The crickets just used it for tug-o-war even. (pretty fun to watch but not to hear at night...)

And since Fal's UV bulb burnt out a couple hours ago, I'm heading over to the pet store first thing in the morning anyway so I can pick up my test few. Just have to make sure the sales clerk does not use the word "Roach" in conjunction with "Dubia."

 

[jbodkin]

Is it ok to heat your RoachMotel (Tote) will an Nocturnal Infrared Heat Lamp to keep the temp up to 90? I was planning on just cutting a whole and mounting it into the lid

 

[augsburg1530]

You should pm bestroach, I think he uses external heat lamps or something like that. Roaches demand darkness in order to thrive, I don't know if the infrared light will bother them or not.

BestRoach, if you're out there, what do you think?

Eric

 

[BestRoach]

In my experience, infrared does not bother roaches, this can be applied to B. Dubia and B. Discoidalis...I have had both species under under infrared bulbs in the past. I tried using black lights, or what are commonly called moon lights, and those did disturb B. Dubia. When under a moonlight, B. Dubia would not come out of hiding. I did not try those lights on my other species. I can say that a customer of mine had a differant experience when using infrared bulbs. My personaly oppinion is that is depends on the bulb, as some put out more light than others. If you are going to use a red bulb, make sure its a deep red color, and uses a deflector design. I would also try and get one that uses colored glass and not some type of coating. Coatings can outgas when burning in, and who knows what that would do to a colony of bugs.


I no longer use overhead heat, as it is impractical on a large scale. I currently house all my colonies in a shed with a space heater and a humidifier. These are controlled by a thermostat and a humidistat. This allows me to precisely dial in both variables, so I can control breeding. Anyone looking to breed roaches on a large scale should consider doing something similar. Just make sure your thermostat doesn't crap out on you, killing several thousand discoids in the process

 

[jbodkin]

How are folks on here heating there setups that use plastic totes ... I would love the input

Under tank heater under tote?

Ceramic over head?

Heating tape?

Heating blanket under tote?

Heater in the room?

Thanks in advance

 

[ninoupte7]

How to choose and purchase humidity (RH) meter? Any experiences with them?
-Nino

 

[augsburg1530]

I am in a cooler climate and use a human heating pad under my tote and when it is colder I have a zoo med under tank heater stuck to the side of the tote that I turn on.

As for humidity, I don't think the average home breeder needs a humidity gage. With a closed up tote and the water crystals, there is enough humidity to keep roaches happy. I imagine if you live in a very dry place, like Arizona or high in the mountains, you may have to worry more about humidity but most of us will do just fine with the humidity created by the water crystals.

Eric

 

[jbodkin]

Is it safe to use and under tank heater on plastic? Doesn't it get to hot?

 

[augsburg1530]

It doesn't get hot enough to melt plastic and will keep your tote around 87-90 degrees. Paper burns at 451 degrees, plastic begins to become pliable at 150 degrees and does not melt until 212 degrees. A heating pad gets no where near that.

Eric

 

[meaghancraw]

is a 29 gallon tank big enough to sustain a colony of lobsters big enough for 2 dragons?

 

[augsburg1530]

When you say "tank" do you mean an aquarium? If so, make sure it is darkened because roaches like it dark in order to thrive and breed.

And yes, a 29 gallon tank will more than suffice to raise enough lobsters to feed two dragons. My prefered feeder roaches are dubia but I have a colony of lobsters that I used while my dubia got going. The lobsters breed so fast that ,with Spike being 8 months old and slowing down how many he eats each day, I can't feed off all of them to get rid of the little suckers and mine are in a 10 gallon tote. I am so sick of them that I am getting ready to give them away for free or mail them to someone who wants them for only the cost of shipping.

Eric

 

[Falthazur]

One more feeding question for dubia.

Fluker's Orange Cubes for crickets (which I am so using as an April Fool's prank since they smell like gummies. :twisted: ) has "no less than 85% garunteed moisture) and "Calcium not less than 375 ppm." Would it be alright to use in leux of water crystals until I can get a bulk order in and/or continue using to help gutload?

Housing Question: How big of a tank/bin/tote/thing would you suggest for a dubia colony to only feed one beardie?

 

[Anglwngss]

Figured I'd post a few pics of my setup. I know it really helped when I got to look at what other folks had done..

I have a plastic tub setting on top of a shelf with a heating pad underneath. The heating pad has a dishtowel on top of it. Also, the pad covers about 1/2 to 3/4 of the bottom of the tub. It's on the egg crate side, not the food dish side.

Let me say, though that i AM an oddball. :lol: The dubias do not climb or fly and I know that, but I like my lid being semi-clear so I can verify there are no buggies on the underside before I take the lid off. So far, I have not been able to find a solid color bottom tote with a clear lid. Now, I can find a clear bottom with a solid lid, but that doesn't really help me much. :roll:

Anyway, once I picked up the tote, I took it outside and painted part of the bottom black. The paint was applied to the outside of the tote. I drilled small holes on the lid and used hot glue to attach a screen to the underside of the lid.

Inside, I have several mini-egg crates. I had a hard time getting them to NOT stick together, so I cut up some flat cardboard and placed them in between the egg crates. I use a kitty feeding dish for food and water. I also have a sponge in the dish for water. I started with a smaller sponge, but found the little ones had a hard time getting out, so now the sponge is laying against the side of the dish.

 

[augsburg1530]

Very cool set up, thanks for the pics. Your set up is very similar to my own. I like the way your egg crates are separated with thin pieces of cardboard. I set mine up like theroachguy.com shows on his site with two egg crates glued together, but your idea looks like it works well too.

As far as the question about crix cubes for water, if they have 85% moisture, I don't see why they won't work.

And for the tote, I use a large rubbermaide blue plastic tote with 6 egg crates glued together in three sets of two, like theroachguy.com shows on his site, and there are now a couple thousand roaches in there. This is my set up to feed one dragon, I am certain they will produce more roaches than Spike will ever be able to eat and will end up having to sell some off over time, locally so as not to compete with our established roach selling members

Eric