dubia smell?

[stangbanger]

great! theyre doing well and seem to be multiplying already lol must have gotten a pregnant female or two

gonna give them 2-3 months before i start feeding them off and using them as fishing bait

still learning the ropes with the supers....they smelled awful the first day, until i realized i need to leave the lid off of their tote or else the moisture builds up and causes an awful smell


so as of now, both the roaches and the supers are doing great, and im already saving money on crickets (only buying crickets for my gecko now, instead of 3 herps)

thanks for all the help guys

 

[stangbanger]

http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i82/SaleenSS90/?action=view&current=VID_20120407_115259.mp4

 

[shanepotter]

You can buy a small plastic container from a dollar store.. I use 8oz plastic containers that appear to be throw away. Its 1 1/2"-2" deep. Take sand paper and ruff up the edges real good inside and out. Then put a bunch of water crystals in there. Your roaches will walk up the side of the container and roam around on and in the water crystals. Make sure you ruff up the inside or they might not be able to climb back out. I keep a dish this size filled with a vent hole your size and it keeps my humidity around 50. Nobody dies shedding from lack of humidity and I have a few thousand.

As for super worms I keep them without a lid. If I drop a potato cut up in a bin they pull them under the wheat bran in a matter of hours. If you have 1000 superworms in a 30qt container they will probably eat a whole potato every 2-3 days. They tend to congregate in areas so make sure you mix up their bedding every 2-3 weeks or you may run into mold issues.

 

[stangbanger]

You can buy a small plastic container from a dollar store.. I use 8oz plastic containers that appear to be throw away. Its 1 1/2"-2" deep. Take sand paper and ruff up the edges real good inside and out. Then put a bunch of water crystals in there. Your roaches will walk up the side of the container and roam around on and in the water crystals. Make sure you ruff up the inside or they might not be able to climb back out. I keep a dish this size filled with a vent hole your size and it keeps my humidity around 50. Nobody dies shedding from lack of humidity and I have a few thousand.

As for super worms I keep them without a lid. If I drop a potato cut up in a bin they pull them under the wheat bran in a matter of hours. If you have 1000 superworms in a 30qt container they will probably eat a whole potato every 2-3 days. They tend to congregate in areas so make sure you mix up their bedding every 2-3 weeks or you may run into mold issues.

thanks for the insight! ill get a better container for crystals....i have them on a dish, and they are eating a dish per day lol so theres hardly ever any in there....they dont eat the chow very much, but they slam the water crystals

how many do you think i can keep in a 30g tote? not sure if they get "cramped"

as for the supers, im not sure what size container theyre in, but its not very big....they eat a small red potato in about a day and a half, so i put a new one....i mix up their bedding daily when fishing some out for my beardies.....the smell from them went away completely once i started storing them without a lid

 

[shanepotter]

One dish of chow and one dish of crystals will be enough. They will go through the crystals much quicker than the chow. Once they start taking the crystals down you can put more on top. If you continue this for a week or so you will see the crystals on the bottom start shrinking and turning yellow. They carry food over too the crystals and it will change the color. You can re-hydrate the crystals that are drying out. The water will eventually evaporate from them. I've been dumping a little bit of water on the dehydrated crystals and putting new crystals on top. Haven't had much time to check the success of this technique yet though. I have taken dehydrated crystals an placed them in water and they did re-hydrate. In a 30 gallon tote you could keep 1000 roaches pretty easy I think. Just remember that the more roaches you have in a tote the more they eat and drink. You can't forget them for a weekend or they will be starving to death. I left for a weekend when I had 1500ish in a 40 gallon tote and I put a food dish and some chow on the bottom of the tote. They came running out while I was still playing around in the tote with total disreguard to me being there. This is a sign they are starving. They will blow through crystals and chow with a quickness. You could always opt to put 2 dishes of chow and 2 dishes of crystals in. Just remember the more roaches and crystals you have in the bin the more it raises humidity. If your colony grows this big you may want to cut more ventilation in your lid. I would recommend buying a cheap temp/humidity thermometer to try and perfect your humidity at this point.

 

[SteveBrown]

I set up a roach colony last Friday. It's going in a sliding wardrobe upstairs eventually, but I'm a little curious, and can't help being nosey at the moment. I've put water crystals in, which are about dried up and need replacing. I've put dried powdered(in a liquidiser) cat food, and I've put oranges in in segment which dried, and now in 2 halfs. I've seen adults on the oranges eating, but not the nymphs. Not seen them on water crystals neigher - in fact I'm not sure they could get up there. The nymphs don't seem to come out at all, so I don't know if I'm doing something wrong - apart from disturbing them.

 

[shanepotter]

If you sand papered the containers real good even the babies will get up on the crystals. They sometimes walk down in the crystals. I've had 2 baby roach deaths from this. They walk around in and under the crystals. I guess the crystals shift and squish them / pin them in place and they drowned. Very rare though. I usually put half and orange cut up in 3 pieces in both my adult bins. Ones got 200 adults the other has 300 and both bins will eat half an orange in a day. Make sure you remove the oranges after 2 days or there will be mold. Nymphs like oranges too.. It may have to do with the adults being a little less afraid than the little guys. My roaches know the drill.. at 5am they come pooring out. I can hear them falling from the egg flats one after the other. They come out during the day too just not as frequent. If I move and my shadow goes across the vent hole in their tote I can hear a scurring madness going on inside where they are all duckin for cover. But really I was worried the roaches wouldn't be able to climb the food and crystal dishes but I got over that. Nobody is dying. PS be careful when removing the food dishes.. there will be a bunch of roaches buried in the roach chow.

 

[SteveBrown]

Cheers for that. I've got crystals in a medium reptile water dish, and did have the cat food in a medium reptile food dish, but after a while spread some about the tub when I didn't catch any eating it. I've only about 20 adult females, and about 12 males + about 150 nymphs of varying sizes at the moment. After 4 days not seeing a very small one in the crystal dish - I just did, and it had no problem escaping when it saw movement. I guess they're just not eating like I expected. If I lift lid, I rarely find one out, but when I leave lid open a few will come out to feed on cat food and orange - they're still mostly adults though. I'm finding them quite facsinating to be honest - watched 4 moulting up to now . It's a big tub, and got 2 heat mats totaling 62W to keep it up to temp, one on the bottom, one on the side. Puting stuff on the bottom heat mat dries it up quick, but I'm trying to put stuff near to where the majority have seen to make home.