Dubia colony not reproducing very fast...

[alyel]

We started our colony about 4 months ago. I'm not sure how many females and males we have, but we have A TON of adults. They don't seem to be reproducing very fast. We were hoping by this time we could stop buying crickets...we hate crickets :x
Our temps are usually 88-90 degrees. We keep them hydrated. Every day their water crystals are refilled. We give them ground up dog food from "theroachguy". Any ideas?

 

[Claudiusx]

Whats the humidity? Can light get into the colony?

-Brandon

 

[PuffMagic]

the temps should be a little higher like 95 or more. You want it pretty moist in the enclosure. are measuring the humidity with anything? try not to bother them too often and leave them in the complete dark. Oranges help with reproducing it is like viagra for dubia.

good luck

 

[TheWolfmanTom]

I dont sweat the humidity part much, but my temps run about 95 degrees.

 

[ksl0588]

Sorry for butting in, I myself have the same problem. Ive had my colony for around 2 months now and there are no signs of babies.

Regarding the light and disturbance, how will you be able to not bother them when you have to open the enclosure to put water or to add/change the food? I replace my food every 3-4 days and add new water crystals every day. Is this the reason why my colony is not growing? Ive heard people in the forums saying that they leave the colony alone for months, but wouldnt that cause molds or something because leaving food for months isnt good? Need some info on this. Thank you.

 

[alyel]

the temps should be a little higher like 95 or more. You want it pretty moist in the enclosure. are measuring the humidity with anything? try not to bother them too often and leave them in the complete dark. Oranges help with reproducing it is like viagra for dubia.

good luck

Thanks for the tips. We put oranges in last night, a bigger dish for water crystals and food (so we don't disturb them as often as we have been, they tear through their water crystals pretty fast!), also, we put them in our closet. The only thing is, being in the closet now, it's not as warm as it was next to the baseboard heater. Even with the heating pad. Last night before moving it, the temps was up to 93. But closets are much colder. We need an additional heat source (one that's safe, since it is in the closet). Any ideas? We can't use our red heat lamp we were using before because there are clothes hanging too close. Too much of a fire hazard.

 

[Claudiusx]

A human heating pad, one that doesn't turn off after a couple hours.

-Brandon

 

[alyel]

A human heating pad, one that doesn't turn off after a couple hours.

-Brandon

Yeah, we have that.
Temps are only 77.5 degrees right now with the heating pad and being in the closet. When they were next to the baseboards, it was up to 99 degrees. But I think they got too much light by being by the baseboards..

 

[wes]

Heat is far more important than light. I can tell you from first hand experience that dubia will breed just fine in transparent containers in an occupied room. I even have one colony heated by a dimmed light bulb. Mid 80's are fine, but 77.5 F is too low. At temps that low, they can breed; it just takes a longer time.

You mentioned that you have a ton of adults. How many adults did you have two months ago? If your temps have been as high as you wrote (upper 80's), you should start seeing their babies now. If you didn't have many adults two months ago, you won't have many babies now.

 

[alyel]

Well, after reading other posts last night, I think we found one of the problems. My boyfriend has been noticing a lot of males with broken wings. And we have a LOT of adults.. So we're thinking that the males are fighting and stressing the females out. Tonight we're going to take them out and see how many we have. We had no idea about the 1 male to every 4 or 5 females. So we're going to see if that helps by thinning the herd. Or buying more females to add..

 

[h0ndap0w3r]

Well, after reading other posts last night, I think we found one of the problems. My boyfriend has been noticing a lot of males with broken wings. And we have a LOT of adults.. So we're thinking that the males are fighting and stressing the females out. Tonight we're going to take them out and see how many we have. We had no idea about the 1 male to every 4 or 5 females. So we're going to see if that helps by thinning the herd. Or buying more females to add..

thats what i was just going to get at, if you have to many males the colony will become stressed and not produce as well... lower the ratio down to around 5-1 (F-M) and all should be well... also chewed up wings can be the result of over crowding and not necessarily diet. Temps are fine around 85 ish, any higher and the babies begin to die off because of contact with a hot surface (the bottom of the bin). I run my heat tape set at 95* which puts the bottom of the bin around 90 ish, and temps inside the bin anywhere from high 70's to mid to upper 80's. Smaller dubia cannot handle such high heats as described early in the trend, remember they are tropical and not desert insects. warm ( not Hot) dark and moist is what the natural environment is.

 

[JenFid]

After having my colony about 1.5 months and seeing some babies but not very many, I took out all of the roaches and counted out the adult males and females (ones I could tell for sure at least) and we had almost even #'s of each. I ordered 20 females plus a couple hundred mixed from a member here and have noticed a huge increase in babies. So I would definitely recommend you count them out