Skipper, where do you live? If you're close enough I'd sell you my entire Dubia bin set up minus the foot warmer. I'm just north of Richmond, VA. (edit - never mind...I saw in your profile you're in Chicago).
Smart move starting your own roach colony. Personally, I really enjoy the process of breeding them (although I don't help that "process" directly LOL).
First, the glass (if clean) is too slick for the roaches to climb, but the silicon in the corners has enough traction for the younger nymphs to climb out, so make sure you put some slick tape around the top so you don't get any escapees.
If you want to start a Dubia colony, Dubia Deli out of California is a good place to start. I bought 25 females and 10 males, and they also provide a 1 time "free" roach sample package, up to 3 different sizes, that can be pretty much any size besides breeders, so you can have a few sub-adults that will grow and start breeding in a month or two. Shipping is ~$7.
I linked a good ebay seller above named Amanda (username Aman-Bent), which is linked above in one of my posts. She can sell you different amounts if you ask her. She has a sell group for 200, but if you order 400 you can still pay the single shipping price and save a little money. She includes a heat pack in her shipments, oats, carrots and shipping is ~$7. Just send her a message. She's a sweetheart to work with and has always answered pretty quickly.
If you want Orange Head roaches instead, Rankins listed a seller above. I found a guy on Ebay that sells 100 Orange Head roaches (75 female, 25 male) for $50. I'm not sure if that is any better than the ABDragons that Rankins mentioned off the top of my head.
Egg crates you buy with your eggs from the store will work fine...just save a few with the wood pulp over the next few weeks and you'll have enough to keep you going until your colony grows. Agricultural stores like The Tractor Supply Store sell them as well for <$0.40 each. These are not the big egg crates we linked above, but they work fine.
I've not used a CHE to heat a bin before so I don't know how to answer, but I'd suspect you'd still want to get some kind of thermostat to make sure you don't overheat and cook your roaches. Dead roaches don't breed very fast in my experience. :laughhard:
Were you going to put cardboard all the way around the aquarium to keep it dark? That would also provide some insulation as well as darken the aquarium.
If you order crickets, they usually come with some buffalo beetles. Just salvage those and they will multiply. If not, Dubia Deli sells 60 buffalo beetles for maybe $2.00? I don't recall the exact price, but it wasn't much. I think I'd still get the beetles with a small scale colony for the added protection from fly eggs, and they cut down on the time between cleaning by eating the frass (roach poop). Actually, I think they only eat the undigested grains and such in the frass, but it still reduces the frass and helps maintain odor control. My small colony started over the Thanksgiving weekend and I can't smell anything worth mentioning, and I have a very sensitive nose. What I smell is probably the food, the egg crates or the bin, but it's definitely not anything I'd consider offensive.
The food options you listed look good. Rankins gave a good list above of what he feeds and he has been at this for a while. I also read mango pits are loved by roaches as well as avocado, carrots, potatoes and so forth. They will eat almost anything, just make sure to remove anything before it molds. You may want to gut load them for 3 days before feeding them to your dragon. I read that their intestines take 3 days to fully flush with whatever you are gut loading somewhere. This is a good thing because they are more effective gut loaders than crickets...I think crickets intestines empty out in less than 24 hours so there is not much 'gut load' in the cricket by comparison.
You could lower temps to slow reproduction, or if you know of any other reptile owners or arachnid owners in the local area, you could sell off the excess and quickly pay for your bin and food. The local pet store may take them, or possibly trade them for pet supplies. It depends on the individual manager really. The local pet store manager was willing to take the excess crickets off my hands before when they were larger than I wanted to feed to my bearded dragon, so when I reach that point I'll go down that path again and see what I can barter. I'd probably start by giving them away for free, and after a few times see if they would be willing to trade me some goods for my efforts. :idea:
From what I've read you would like to keep your humidity about 60% or higher. When you cut the holes in your bin, save them and tape them back in place after you cover the holes with the screen. A small colony will not be able to maintain the heat and humidity as well as a larger one, so as the colony grows you can uncover more of the holes. I struggled with my humidity until I put tape over my holes, and since then I've removed a little for air flow while still keeping 60%+ humidity. The real tell-tale sign of your humidity being too low is if you see several dead roaches that die during the molting process.
Moist food will likely be enough moisture intake for the roaches if you always keep moist food in the bin, but I use water crystals for a few reasons. 1) they are cheap, 2) a small bag lasts forever 3) with or without moist food, they help raise the humidity in the bin, 4) it is a back up moisture source for when the moist food is gone, dried up, or just flat out absent from the provider being lazy. :twisted:
Smart move starting your own roach colony. Personally, I really enjoy the process of breeding them (although I don't help that "process" directly LOL).
First, the glass (if clean) is too slick for the roaches to climb, but the silicon in the corners has enough traction for the younger nymphs to climb out, so make sure you put some slick tape around the top so you don't get any escapees.
If you want to start a Dubia colony, Dubia Deli out of California is a good place to start. I bought 25 females and 10 males, and they also provide a 1 time "free" roach sample package, up to 3 different sizes, that can be pretty much any size besides breeders, so you can have a few sub-adults that will grow and start breeding in a month or two. Shipping is ~$7.
I linked a good ebay seller above named Amanda (username Aman-Bent), which is linked above in one of my posts. She can sell you different amounts if you ask her. She has a sell group for 200, but if you order 400 you can still pay the single shipping price and save a little money. She includes a heat pack in her shipments, oats, carrots and shipping is ~$7. Just send her a message. She's a sweetheart to work with and has always answered pretty quickly.
If you want Orange Head roaches instead, Rankins listed a seller above. I found a guy on Ebay that sells 100 Orange Head roaches (75 female, 25 male) for $50. I'm not sure if that is any better than the ABDragons that Rankins mentioned off the top of my head.
Egg crates you buy with your eggs from the store will work fine...just save a few with the wood pulp over the next few weeks and you'll have enough to keep you going until your colony grows. Agricultural stores like The Tractor Supply Store sell them as well for <$0.40 each. These are not the big egg crates we linked above, but they work fine.
I've not used a CHE to heat a bin before so I don't know how to answer, but I'd suspect you'd still want to get some kind of thermostat to make sure you don't overheat and cook your roaches. Dead roaches don't breed very fast in my experience. :laughhard:
Were you going to put cardboard all the way around the aquarium to keep it dark? That would also provide some insulation as well as darken the aquarium.
If you order crickets, they usually come with some buffalo beetles. Just salvage those and they will multiply. If not, Dubia Deli sells 60 buffalo beetles for maybe $2.00? I don't recall the exact price, but it wasn't much. I think I'd still get the beetles with a small scale colony for the added protection from fly eggs, and they cut down on the time between cleaning by eating the frass (roach poop). Actually, I think they only eat the undigested grains and such in the frass, but it still reduces the frass and helps maintain odor control. My small colony started over the Thanksgiving weekend and I can't smell anything worth mentioning, and I have a very sensitive nose. What I smell is probably the food, the egg crates or the bin, but it's definitely not anything I'd consider offensive.
The food options you listed look good. Rankins gave a good list above of what he feeds and he has been at this for a while. I also read mango pits are loved by roaches as well as avocado, carrots, potatoes and so forth. They will eat almost anything, just make sure to remove anything before it molds. You may want to gut load them for 3 days before feeding them to your dragon. I read that their intestines take 3 days to fully flush with whatever you are gut loading somewhere. This is a good thing because they are more effective gut loaders than crickets...I think crickets intestines empty out in less than 24 hours so there is not much 'gut load' in the cricket by comparison.
You could lower temps to slow reproduction, or if you know of any other reptile owners or arachnid owners in the local area, you could sell off the excess and quickly pay for your bin and food. The local pet store may take them, or possibly trade them for pet supplies. It depends on the individual manager really. The local pet store manager was willing to take the excess crickets off my hands before when they were larger than I wanted to feed to my bearded dragon, so when I reach that point I'll go down that path again and see what I can barter. I'd probably start by giving them away for free, and after a few times see if they would be willing to trade me some goods for my efforts. :idea:
From what I've read you would like to keep your humidity about 60% or higher. When you cut the holes in your bin, save them and tape them back in place after you cover the holes with the screen. A small colony will not be able to maintain the heat and humidity as well as a larger one, so as the colony grows you can uncover more of the holes. I struggled with my humidity until I put tape over my holes, and since then I've removed a little for air flow while still keeping 60%+ humidity. The real tell-tale sign of your humidity being too low is if you see several dead roaches that die during the molting process.
Moist food will likely be enough moisture intake for the roaches if you always keep moist food in the bin, but I use water crystals for a few reasons. 1) they are cheap, 2) a small bag lasts forever 3) with or without moist food, they help raise the humidity in the bin, 4) it is a back up moisture source for when the moist food is gone, dried up, or just flat out absent from the provider being lazy. :twisted:
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