Dubia Roaches

[LouP]

Where do you put the food in that beast ;-)

LouP

 

[Rankins]

Haha..it is a monster!
Under the middle egg flats. I have some cardboard glued to the bottom of the lowest egg flat to hold it above the frass and give enough room for a food dish.

 

[Taffer]

Weird, my foot warmer only has an on/off, not low and high. Yes I covered the holes and it came up a bit but not much. My bin is not in direct contact with the foot warmer. Also, remember that this is in my basement which is pretty cool (60 - 65 degrees)

Odd, my foot warmer has a 3-way toggle, low, off and high. The space I keep my Dubia is about 70-75, but it heats up quickly. I don't have the bin in direct contact with the foot warmer either. I didn't have any little rubber feet so I just put down blobs of hot glue from a glue gun, let it cool, then added more to increase the height. I think as long as you don't have direct contact you should be OK.

I double checked the Cozy foot warmer online and it does indeed show as only having a single on/off, but mine is different. I'll double check the brand when I get upstairs. Cozy does make another product that does a similar function...look up "Cozy Products HI-LO Remote Control Power Switch for Temperature Control". It's ~$10. Although if you're not getting enough heat it's a moot point. :0)

Rankins, thanks, I've lowered the temps a little, but I'm still over your suggested temps so I'll lower a bit more to match your numbers. And that bin of yours is a beast! We have a huge white cooler, but I think I'd be in trouble if I started tossing roaches inside it. I think we got it at Sam's Club on a crazy sale for ~$69. That sucker is well insulated. We first used it for my daugthers birthday party when she was 3 and put drinks and ice in it, and 6 days later after 90-95 degree heat and neighbors emptying drinks all week while working outside, I still dumped out a lot of ice.

I currently have the equivalent of one of Rankins stacks of egg crates with my powdered food (a little sugar and quality dry dog food ground into powder) and water crystals in little plastic bins (old sandwich meat containers) with the sides cut out for easy entry, and dry food on top of the horizontal egg crate. Once the colony takes off I'll have to employ more egg crates.

Thanks for the info on the upload for images. I'll make a note of it...I did find a link I e-mailed myself last night, but I don't recall where I found it.

 

[Rankins]

My giant coolers were fairly cheap...they were on sale for $59.99 from Walmart. It would have cost about $20 x 2 just for big bins stacked with insulation in between them. It looks nicer with the cooler and it was only $20 more for them. I'm OCD and when I build stuff I always have to make things really nice or it drives me crazy. Probably why everyone hits me up to build incubators, or its because I do it for free. I'm in the middle of building two right now. However, my coolers could also be used as an incubator also. They are built the same as my refrigerator incubators.
Anyhow, Im glad you lowered the temp of your bin. You don't want them to get too hot and cook your colony. That would be worse than having your roaches a bit cool, dead roaches don't breed very well.
Im sure you'll get temps dialed in, its just a bit of trial and error. Eventually you'll have roaches coming out of your ears (figure of speech, otherwise that would be gross) and you can sell extras on craigslist.
Its crazy we are spending so much money and effort just for stupid roaches. But it eventually makes it worth the expense and trouble. Since I built my budget bin my dubias are breeding much better. My cooler bins have always worked good, and my orange head colony is massive. I don't use them very often for dragon food, I'm saving them for the expo so I can sell them. They are much better than dubias, but I might have trouble of convincing others of that. But I have raised 4 species of roaches to compair them, and orange heads are my favorite. My ivory head colony isn't very big, but I can tell they will eventually be my new favorite. They are pretty rare roaches, and expensive. So starting a colony cost more than dubias and orange heads. I just wish more people would use orange heads instead of dubias. Dubias suck and I'm trying to feed off as many as I can so I can quit breeding them. Its impossible, I can't feed them off quick enough

 

[LouP]

This thing ain't gonna beat me lol. I added a 16 watt warmer to the hot side and wrapped it in foil insulation. Temps are rising quicker now. I still have two 24 watt heaters for the sides. So the question is if I make temperature like this, would it be more efficient to keep the lower wattage heaters or have it reach temperature quickly and have the thermostat cycle it on and off?

Even added little knobs to the pieces I cot out of the top to make them easier to handle

LouP

 

[Rankins]

You'll probably have to test it both ways. My thoughts are a slow gentle warming would be better. Only because heating it fast may cause you to overshoot your values because the heater may retain heat after the thermostat shuts it off. But to be honest its hard to know without testing.
Haha...your really dedicated to resolving this. I gave up after my first try using heat tape. When it didn't work I decided my incubator design was better. I use to use it for raising 10,000 crickets a month in it, so I knew it would work. The only thing I ever am worried about is the element touching egg crates. But that's easy to do with proper orientation of the egg flats. But you definitely need to use a thermostat, and as an added safety measure I use the dimmer switch. The 50 watt heater is only probably running at 25 watts because of the dimmer. Of course anytime heat from any source is applied to anything there is a bit of a fire risk.

 

[Taffer]

Rankins - Yeah, I agree...cooked dead roaches don't breed worth a hoot!
I'm on a budget when it comes to breeding crickets or roaches. My wife would be happy if we just bought them every few weeks and avoided the extra hassle (she doesn't help with the breeding of roaches/crickets). Personally, I can see breeding at a huge money saver if I can breed them successfully because $10 of various food and some leftover scraps can sustain a colony a lot better than trying to get shipments in the winter. I have to say though I bought 200 mixed small/medium roaches that arrived early and sat in the mailbox for 36 hours, with several hours of this being below 30 degrees. There was a heat pack, but when I opened the box and dumped them into the feeder tank and sorted through, I don't think I had a single dead roach. If that had been crickets...they would probably have all died. Good idea though...selling the extra's on Craigslist. Do you do this? Do you ship them, or do people come to your house?

Lou, WOW...did you say you had the Cozy foot warmer? Looking at your picture, you have multiple items plugged into the thermostat, and if it wasn't sitting on a concrete floor, it would look like a fire hazard! I like the little handles you put on the holes...I'm guessing you're slightly OCD? I am when I'm able LOL.

When I read your post I was thinking the same thing as Rankins - try varous ways of appying your heat and settings and see which provides you with the shortest "ON" time for your heaters per hour. Or the least combined wattage per hour.

Do you have some of that insulation that is wrapped around the bin laying underneath the bin as well to reflect heat up? That is one thing I love about that cozy heater - I'm assuming it is putting out 45 watts on the low setting, but the mat heats up and holds heat well, so the temperature creeps up slightly after the heat is turned off (maybe a degree tops now), and because it holds heat so well, it takes a good while for the bin to cool down from the latent heat in the Cozy foot warmer.

I think all three of us are using the same thermostat. Where do you guys have your temperature probe at in the bin? I have mine sitting on the bottom with the suction cup at the probe so it is about 1/4 inch above the bottom of the bin. My humidity was about 80% this morning so I removed a little tape from the two holes to see how that does. I think I'm aiming for about +/-60% humidity?

Speaking of the fire risk...I need to get new fire alarms. Just in case anybody reading this doesn't know this, fire alarms are only good for about 10 years before they need to be replaced. There are products inside the alarm that degrade over time. This information is coming from a lifelong firefighter friend of mine.

 

[Rankins]

Yeah, I sell extra roaches occasionally. I don't have people come get them though. I meet them somewhere when I'm in town. I live in the middle of the woods, so it would be a long drive for people to come get them. Besides I don't like strangers at my house. They don't sell quick, but money is money.
As for the thermostats I use, I do have lots of "JumpStarts", but I can get the exact same thermostat for $18. They look a bit different, but the electronics are the same.
I tape my probe against the inner wall about halfway down.

 

[LouP]

Good Morning,

Looks like my temps topped off at 82 last night so I need the additional warmers that are arriving today. After I install them, I should be good to go. I have the thermostat set at 86 so if it over shoots a bit, it shouldn't be a big deal. LOL at OCD, ya think? My poor daughter inherited it from me, too. I'm also pretty stubborn so this set up will work! ;-) After looking at a bit more information last night, I am concerned about having too many roaches once this takes off. I only have one bearded dragon I am trying to sustain but I'm sick of running to the pet store and having half my crickets die off, and escape. I do have superworms and hornworms for him but the supers are not supposed to be that good for him and the hornworms are a pita with the amount of waste they generate while growing to a decent size. I am resisting giving him any roaches until the colony establishes itself but may try to give him one or two just to make sure he'll eat them, though he eats like a pig so it shouldn't be an issue. What do you guys give the roaches for protein. I'm seeing so many people giving them ground up dried cat food but I'm not keen on throwing cat food into a blender lol. Almost forgot, The insulation on the floor is the cardboard the cozy foot warmer came in wrapped in tin foil. The insulation around the bin is Reflectix.

LouP

 

[Rankins]

Having OCD is good for certain things. I use to do bodywork and paint cars, everyone always got a perfect paint job! I refinish guitars also, they always turn out nice...even if I have to do it 5 times (which I seriously have done)
But anyhow, the JumpStart thermostats usually shut off at the set temp, but they drop 3°F before turning back on. So your probably safe with the 86°F setting. It sounds like your getting to the point where you don't have to monkey with it anymore
Temps don't have to be exact (that's rare for someone with OCD) so a tad bit low or high won't matter much. I have my Colman cooler bins set at 90°F, the CHE hasn't overshot the set temp, and it turns on at 86°F. Once you get it dialed in you'll have boat loads of roaches in a few months.

 

[Rankins]

Forgot a few things
You definitely will have more roaches than you can use. They will accumulate faster than you can use them. But if you have friends with reptiles you can give them away or sell them cheap.
I feed mine a mix of stuff I made, its got chicken grains, kelp, alfalfa meal, ground birdseed, flax meal, wheat bran, oats, bee pollen, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. Don't use cat or dog food. You'll be overloading the dragon that eats it with too much protein. Its really not health for the roaches either.

 

[LouP]

Success!!!! I set the thermostat to 85 degrees and it ran over at shut off as I suspected to 86.5 but that's OK as I have another humidity/temperature gauge in another part of the bin that ran up to 90 degrees so I am good to go. All I need is for some of these 100 roaches to grow into adults now. :twisted: Gave them some navel orange tonight to see how they like that. Oh and I couldn't resist and fed one to Harambe tonight and he loved it. :twisted:

LouP

 

[Rankins]

Now you got it figured out, it will take a few months to build the colony up a bit. I think my orange head colony is about 2 years old. I rarely ever feed them to the Rankins because I'm trying to ditch the dubias. My orange head colony is gigantic now. Exponentially your colony will explode and you'll never have to buy bugs again. The trick is to be patient.

 

[Rankins]

Eventually you might want to consider adding a cleaner crew to your bin. It does help keep frequency of cleaning the bin out down. I use lesser mealworms in my dubia and orange head colonies. They eat dead roaches, sheds, mites, mold, frass, and saddly egg flats. But the egg flats still last a very long time. They are cheap if you buy from the right place. I have seen 140 flats with shipping for $50. But I'm not sure if I'll add the lesser mealworms to the ivory head bin yet....the colony is too small, so really no need to do it now.
But I haven't cleaned out my dubia bin in over a year, and I still don't need to yet. I have only cleaned out the orange head bin once in 2 years. Every couple of months I thin out the lesser mealworms with traps made from plastic containers with small holes in it. I throw an orange in the container and close it. The mealworms will crawl in and can't get out. I thinned out tens of thousands in just a couple days. Sounds wasteful, but I kill and flush them. But once I get Rankins babies the lesser mealworms will be awesome food. I will gut clear them, and gut load them prior to feeding to babies.
(Edit...just for clarification lesser mealworms are not regular mealworms, they don't contain much chitin so really are not an impaction risk. I'll have to research fat content and gear feedings accordingly)

 

[Taffer]

Lou, now that you've got your bin the way you want it, I think it would be good to check in on them as little as possible, and rob the bin even less (if at all) as it will stress out the females (and the rest too, but bah, who cares about them). I have a little 2nd bin I keep my feeders in while my breeding colony grows to where it can sustain itself. I'm really tempted to switch to orange heads, but until our house is repaired and sold, I am trying to watch every penny. I may just sell the entire breeding colony and bin all together as a package deal for whatever I can get down the road. There are probably a lot of people that would rather buy an existing set up, bin and all just to avoid the work (which I find a bit fun). I have an idea for my next bin already (gazing over at Rankins Coleman...)

Rankins, what do you use for your roach bin cleaner crew? I have some buffalo beetles, but know that is an incomplete set. Do you think these are worth it?
http://www.readyreptilefeeders.com/abante/index.php?rt=product/category&path=68