Dubia Roaches
- Thread starter Adriana0918
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Wow, while researching some stuff on roach diet, I found an amazing link on general roach information. Some may think it odd to have such a website, but some of the information is really interesting. For instance, did you know that an injured roach will delay a molting cycle to regenerate a missing leg or two? Or the maximum breeding rate for most "pest" species is 30 degrees Celsius/86 degrees Fahrenheit? If you drop the temps down to 25 degrees Celsius/77 degrees Fahrenheit, the rate or time between reproduction doubles, and doubles again at 20 degrees Celsius/68 degrees Fahrenheit?
Here is the link...it is a gentleman named Joe Kunkel from the University of Massachusetts Amherst website.
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html
A few questions I found interesting:
6.Why do cockroaches die on their backs?
7.Do cockroaches bite? (actually, they do...they eat about anything that doesn't fight back)
12.Are cockroaches really clean? (yes...and no. They keep themselves very clean, but still walk through poop and such)
39.How do Cockroaches Digest and what organs do they use to do so?
56.How fast are cockroaches? (roaches run away from air movement near them as a built in defensive reaction, no brain involved!)
68.Color cockroaches most attracted to?
79.Can female-only set of hissing cockroaches give birth 7 months after purchase?
Here is the link...it is a gentleman named Joe Kunkel from the University of Massachusetts Amherst website.
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html
A few questions I found interesting:
6.Why do cockroaches die on their backs?
7.Do cockroaches bite? (actually, they do...they eat about anything that doesn't fight back)
12.Are cockroaches really clean? (yes...and no. They keep themselves very clean, but still walk through poop and such)
39.How do Cockroaches Digest and what organs do they use to do so?
56.How fast are cockroaches? (roaches run away from air movement near them as a built in defensive reaction, no brain involved!)
68.Color cockroaches most attracted to?
79.Can female-only set of hissing cockroaches give birth 7 months after purchase?
BrightStar, breeding orange heads is about the same as Dubia's. You have to keep them at 85°F-90°F for best production. They also eat a lot more than Dubia's, they also reproduce faster. They do have a mild stink when your colony gets larger. They only stink when they are disturbed, and it's not very bad at all. My colony is huge and I barely notice it. They also chew on each others wings if they don't have adequate moisture or protien in their diet. It's only cosmetic and doesn't hurt them. Mine rarely chew wings because I feed them food damp with orange juice, I feed them twice a day because I probably have over 50 lbs of them and they eat a bunch.
But I think you'll like them more than Dubia's. They are pretty roaches...my ivory heads are also pretty and they don't chew wings or have a defensive odor, but they also are kind of expensive.
Both the orange heads and ivory heads are a lot stockier than Dubia's so it takes less to fill up your dragon.
But I think you'll like them more than Dubia's. They are pretty roaches...my ivory heads are also pretty and they don't chew wings or have a defensive odor, but they also are kind of expensive.
Both the orange heads and ivory heads are a lot stockier than Dubia's so it takes less to fill up your dragon.
BrightStar
Hatchling Member
Rankins":1ttzqm7r said:
I'm kinda lucky when it comes to the defensive stink --- I don't have a sense of smell! My husband, however, is the opposite - he has a very sensitive sense of smell. When I was putting the orange heads in their feeder bin, my husband complained of a strong, nasty smell. I'm assuming it was the orange heads. Fortunately, he said the smell didn't linger once I closed the lid(plus he was standing right next to it at the time) so I don't think he'll mind.
He did say no red runners though, those things are escape artists!
I started s breeding colony of dubias a few weeks back. I think I got them set up fairly well in a large storage bin, and a CHE on a thermostat to control temps. I got my orange heads yesterday, and put the 50 adults I'd brought into a breeding bin. I don't have a heat source set up for them yet --- wanted to ask which is better; CHE or heat mat?
Also, how impoortant is it to keep humidity high? Our humidity is very low at the moment, and I can't get it much past 30% if I'm lucky. Most of the time it's not much higher than 15%.
Your husband must have a really good sense of smell. I don't notice it much even though I probably have 10,000+ (probably much, much more than that) of them 
As for heating the bin I use stubby ceramic heat emitters. They way I have it set up is slightly dangerous but I havnt had any problems with it. Just gotta make sure the heat element is on a thermostat and dimmer switch. Also gotta make sure nothing touches the element. Humidity isn't really much of an issue, as your colony grows you might even have a hard time reducing it. I put a fan in mine, it's on a timer set to come on every 15 min.
If you haven't seen my Colman cooler roach bins or my budget tote bin I can repost them if you would like.
As for heating the bin I use stubby ceramic heat emitters. They way I have it set up is slightly dangerous but I havnt had any problems with it. Just gotta make sure the heat element is on a thermostat and dimmer switch. Also gotta make sure nothing touches the element. Humidity isn't really much of an issue, as your colony grows you might even have a hard time reducing it. I put a fan in mine, it's on a timer set to come on every 15 min.
If you haven't seen my Colman cooler roach bins or my budget tote bin I can repost them if you would like.
BrightStar
Hatchling Member
Wow! I'm not sure I'm up to being able to make something as nice as that.
It looks like your CHE is inside the bin? Isn't there a risk of roaches climbing on it and burning themselves?
I cut a hole in the lid of my dubia roach bin with a knife, then hot glued some aluminum window screen over the hole. Unfortunately, the edges of the screen were super sharp and dangerous, and I couldn't seem to find a way to get everything smooth. So I brought a small screen lid like you'd use for a reptile cage, and just kinda balanced that over the hole. I have the roach bin inside a larger bin, so if any escape, they'll get stuck in the outer bin. I don't know if this is really the best setup though. The CHE is hung from a stand, so nothing touches the lid.
I kinda don't want to get my orange head setup finished until I'm done testing the dubia setup to see if it works. At the moment, I'm finding it not very efficient because it's tricky to get into the bin with the CHE above and wires hanging out. Plus my one bin is taking up a fair bit of space, and I'm not sure if I can even fit an orange head setup next to it.
It looks like your CHE is inside the bin? Isn't there a risk of roaches climbing on it and burning themselves?
I cut a hole in the lid of my dubia roach bin with a knife, then hot glued some aluminum window screen over the hole. Unfortunately, the edges of the screen were super sharp and dangerous, and I couldn't seem to find a way to get everything smooth. So I brought a small screen lid like you'd use for a reptile cage, and just kinda balanced that over the hole. I have the roach bin inside a larger bin, so if any escape, they'll get stuck in the outer bin. I don't know if this is really the best setup though. The CHE is hung from a stand, so nothing touches the lid.
I kinda don't want to get my orange head setup finished until I'm done testing the dubia setup to see if it works. At the moment, I'm finding it not very efficient because it's tricky to get into the bin with the CHE above and wires hanging out. Plus my one bin is taking up a fair bit of space, and I'm not sure if I can even fit an orange head setup next to it.
I never had much luck with hot gluing screen on a lid. Here is another option. This is how I had my Dubia bin set up for awhile. I made a frame and stapled screen to it and than screwed it to the lid. I had a hard time heating it so switched over to my current setup. The Colman cooler bin wasnt too difficult to build...but I'm fairly good with using tools.
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[ximg]85426 4672670681[/ximg]
Rankins,
Yes, I've really enjoyed this thread a lot myself, plus I've learned quite a bit too! Lots of good information here for people starting roach colonies.
Brightstar,
I was the one that called the normal Under Tank Heaters (UTH) wimpy. I tried heating a bin using an 8 watt UTH and it brought the temp up at the point of contact about 18 degrees, about 89 degrees, so it wasn't going to do enough to actually heat the entire bin, so I decided to "Go big or go home", and stepped up to a Cozy foot warmer. It is a 90 watt foot warmer, and mine has as high/low toggle switch which I keep on low, which I assume is 45 watts. My bin is not insulated, and my foot warmer is on about 15 minutes and off for about an hour. I set my thermostat up on a power cord with a light to make it easy to time (I'm just OCD like that). The foot warmer is a lot thicker than an UTH and it retains heat well, and once the thermostat turns off, the bin actually gets warmer by about 1.5-2 degrees, then holds there for a while and slowly decreases because the foot warmer holds heat so well. If you decide to follow this path using the foot warmer, Cozy also makes a toggle switch (high/low) if yours does not come with that option (I think I got lucky as most don't). And if all else fails, you have a good foot warmer for the winter months. If you read the reviews the foot warmer can get pretty hot if you leave it on for hours on end and people recommend putting some cardboard down so you don't change the color of the wood or carpet floor, but if you are on a thermostat, your warmer shouldn't be on more than 10-20 minutes, depending on the number of holes in the bin, ambient temperature of the room, number of holes in the bin, amount of air flow around the bin, etc. With a new colony, you'll probably want to cover most of your holes to you cut for ventilation to retain heat and humidity until the colony grows, and then you can start to open the holes more. I had to put tape over about 85% of my holes to keep temps and humidity up where I wanted them anyway. If the foot warm or UTH are more than you want to do, you could use a generic heating pad as well on a thermostat for the time being.
Cozy Foot Warmer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000079896/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Cozy toggle switch
https://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Product...rd_wg=GgzGk&psc=1&refRID=GRCAPEZE6N8Y8HTN2ZBX
You'll want to have some kind of feet on the bottom of your bin to allow a little air flow between the bin and foot warmer. That is how mine is set up, with maybe 1/4 inch gap. I didn't have feet on hand so I just put a couple blobs of glue from a hot glue gun on the bottom of the bin and it worked out perfectly.
Rankins makes his own roach chow, but he has a lot more roaches and they go through his stuff a lot faster than a small colony will. If/when my colony ever grows near the size of Rankins, I'll likely be making my own chow, but for the time being I don't have the room to hold onto bags of various types of grains and such for as long as it would take my tiny colony to eat it. I bought this on Amazon and it arrived today. It has lower protein content than cricket chow or dog food, cat food, fish food, which are all too high in protein, 20% or higher, and shouldn't be used for roach chow (in case you didn't read all of this thread). The nymphs can probably tolerate the higher protein because they can metabolize it as their bodies grow, but the amount of protein in these items can become lethal to adult roaches as they metabolize excess protein into uric acid, and too much can kill the adults, and the excess uric acid is also bad for any animals you feed your bugs to. If you have the space and ability to mix your own chow as Rankins does, it is a lot cheaper in the long run, and probably similar in nutritional values, but for me, this will probably last me many months as I toss in other goodies like fruits and veggies, and as Rankins has stated (and others), roaches seem to love oranges to the point it is like an aphrodisiac that helps increase the breeding rate!
Lugarti Premium Dubia Diet (no corn and no meat products, and the calcium to phosphorous ratio is 3:1)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQJ1J44/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I sent an e-mail to the roach guy at the University of Massachusetts yesterday. I read somewhere that he said >20% protein can be lethal to roaches, and 4% protein for the roaches he primarily studied was sufficient. He also said that if your roaches have too much protein in their diet, their scat or frass (roach poop) will look white, so I think my roaches are getting too much protein. I'll double check later today in a little more detail.
Yes, I've really enjoyed this thread a lot myself, plus I've learned quite a bit too! Lots of good information here for people starting roach colonies.
Brightstar,
I was the one that called the normal Under Tank Heaters (UTH) wimpy. I tried heating a bin using an 8 watt UTH and it brought the temp up at the point of contact about 18 degrees, about 89 degrees, so it wasn't going to do enough to actually heat the entire bin, so I decided to "Go big or go home", and stepped up to a Cozy foot warmer. It is a 90 watt foot warmer, and mine has as high/low toggle switch which I keep on low, which I assume is 45 watts. My bin is not insulated, and my foot warmer is on about 15 minutes and off for about an hour. I set my thermostat up on a power cord with a light to make it easy to time (I'm just OCD like that). The foot warmer is a lot thicker than an UTH and it retains heat well, and once the thermostat turns off, the bin actually gets warmer by about 1.5-2 degrees, then holds there for a while and slowly decreases because the foot warmer holds heat so well. If you decide to follow this path using the foot warmer, Cozy also makes a toggle switch (high/low) if yours does not come with that option (I think I got lucky as most don't). And if all else fails, you have a good foot warmer for the winter months. If you read the reviews the foot warmer can get pretty hot if you leave it on for hours on end and people recommend putting some cardboard down so you don't change the color of the wood or carpet floor, but if you are on a thermostat, your warmer shouldn't be on more than 10-20 minutes, depending on the number of holes in the bin, ambient temperature of the room, number of holes in the bin, amount of air flow around the bin, etc. With a new colony, you'll probably want to cover most of your holes to you cut for ventilation to retain heat and humidity until the colony grows, and then you can start to open the holes more. I had to put tape over about 85% of my holes to keep temps and humidity up where I wanted them anyway. If the foot warm or UTH are more than you want to do, you could use a generic heating pad as well on a thermostat for the time being.
Cozy Foot Warmer
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000079896/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Cozy toggle switch
https://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Product...rd_wg=GgzGk&psc=1&refRID=GRCAPEZE6N8Y8HTN2ZBX
You'll want to have some kind of feet on the bottom of your bin to allow a little air flow between the bin and foot warmer. That is how mine is set up, with maybe 1/4 inch gap. I didn't have feet on hand so I just put a couple blobs of glue from a hot glue gun on the bottom of the bin and it worked out perfectly.
Rankins makes his own roach chow, but he has a lot more roaches and they go through his stuff a lot faster than a small colony will. If/when my colony ever grows near the size of Rankins, I'll likely be making my own chow, but for the time being I don't have the room to hold onto bags of various types of grains and such for as long as it would take my tiny colony to eat it. I bought this on Amazon and it arrived today. It has lower protein content than cricket chow or dog food, cat food, fish food, which are all too high in protein, 20% or higher, and shouldn't be used for roach chow (in case you didn't read all of this thread). The nymphs can probably tolerate the higher protein because they can metabolize it as their bodies grow, but the amount of protein in these items can become lethal to adult roaches as they metabolize excess protein into uric acid, and too much can kill the adults, and the excess uric acid is also bad for any animals you feed your bugs to. If you have the space and ability to mix your own chow as Rankins does, it is a lot cheaper in the long run, and probably similar in nutritional values, but for me, this will probably last me many months as I toss in other goodies like fruits and veggies, and as Rankins has stated (and others), roaches seem to love oranges to the point it is like an aphrodisiac that helps increase the breeding rate!
Lugarti Premium Dubia Diet (no corn and no meat products, and the calcium to phosphorous ratio is 3:1)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQJ1J44/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I sent an e-mail to the roach guy at the University of Massachusetts yesterday. I read somewhere that he said >20% protein can be lethal to roaches, and 4% protein for the roaches he primarily studied was sufficient. He also said that if your roaches have too much protein in their diet, their scat or frass (roach poop) will look white, so I think my roaches are getting too much protein. I'll double check later today in a little more detail.
The 12 lbs of food seems like a decent deal. It would probably last a few months with a small colony. Dubia's don't tend to eat as much as my Orange heads. The orange heads just destroy all the food I throw in with them. I think it's impossible to overfeed them.
It is true that too much protien is bad for roaches...but I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to plant protiens. Animal protiens break down into uric acid, it's the purines that are the source. Most plants don't contain purines, some nuts and beans do have a small amount though.
I'm basing this on human diets, and I realize we are not roaches....but I just don't see how a plant that does not contain purines could ever metabolize into uric acid. I have tried to find a study on it, but I haven't been able to find one.
Alfalfa is a good source of protien, and it actually helps with preventing gout. Gout is the formation of uric acid crystals in the joints and organs...so it wouldn't make sense for it to be a bad source of protien if it helps fight uric acid issues. Problem I noticed with giving alfalfa is it makes my bin stink like ammonia. I'm pretty sure it's from the nitrogen content that processes into ammonia. If I don't feed alfalfa or only a small amount of it I don't get the ammonia stink.
I even sprinkle alfalfa meal on my rankins greens as a gout preventative and a good protien source. I bought a 50 lb bag of it at the feed store, it will last forever
It is true that too much protien is bad for roaches...but I'm pretty sure it doesn't apply to plant protiens. Animal protiens break down into uric acid, it's the purines that are the source. Most plants don't contain purines, some nuts and beans do have a small amount though.
I'm basing this on human diets, and I realize we are not roaches....but I just don't see how a plant that does not contain purines could ever metabolize into uric acid. I have tried to find a study on it, but I haven't been able to find one.
Alfalfa is a good source of protien, and it actually helps with preventing gout. Gout is the formation of uric acid crystals in the joints and organs...so it wouldn't make sense for it to be a bad source of protien if it helps fight uric acid issues. Problem I noticed with giving alfalfa is it makes my bin stink like ammonia. I'm pretty sure it's from the nitrogen content that processes into ammonia. If I don't feed alfalfa or only a small amount of it I don't get the ammonia stink.
I even sprinkle alfalfa meal on my rankins greens as a gout preventative and a good protien source. I bought a 50 lb bag of it at the feed store, it will last forever
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