Dubia troubles...help!

[SlabOMeat]

My colony is doing quite well, numbers wise. But in the past month I have noticed them getting really smelly. Smells sort of like stinky feet and garbage mixed together, and it's getting worse. I've cleaned the bin a couple times now so I know it's not a cleanliness problem. The colony is doing very well otherwise, they go through roach chow like crazy. The only other thing I'm seeing is some gnats in the bin.

Any ideas? Has anyone else ever had problems with stinky roaches?

Thanks in advance

 

[Twobeardieguy]

You got to keep cleaning out the bins. They will have a faint smell but should not be to bad. Also change out the egg creates. Are you using any substrate? if so remove it. What are you feeding? Keep cleaning it out to rid of the bugs. :wink:

 

[dmglakewood]

1. Clean the tank often. I clean mine every other week but that might be an over kill.

2. What are you feeding them? Their diets affect their smells quite a bit. I found that if I feed them a lot of oranges they have a really strong tart smell.

3. Make sure you remove any dead roaches as soon as they die. Rotting roaches start to smell pretty bad.

4. Make sure you keep the food and egg crates away from the water. If the food touches it it could mold and start to smell. If the egg crates get wet they will start to smell.

5. Make sure you remove any excess vegetables / fruit from the bin after 24 hours.

 

[SlabOMeat]

Yeah, I made a new batch of roach chow to see if that's the problem. I also doubled the size of the bin I'm keeping them in. Once things got warm I had a population explosion and the overcrowding probably wasn't helping. So far the new bin is working out well, the smell seems to have subsided a lot. But it's only been a couple days. We shall see.

What do you guys feed your roaches? I need a good roach chow recipe.

 

[dmglakewood]

Yeah, I made a new batch of roach chow to see if that's the problem. I also doubled the size of the bin I'm keeping them in. Once things got warm I had a population explosion and the overcrowding probably wasn't helping. So far the new bin is working out well, the smell seems to have subsided a lot. But it's only been a couple days. We shall see.

What do you guys feed your roaches? I need a good roach chow recipe.

I've actually had quite a few experiments with feeding my roaches. I've tried the following

Crushed up high protein cat food - Roaches wouldn't touch it and were dying because they weren't eating. I didn't know roaches could be picky eaters!
Dubia feeder food from TheFeederStore.com - They seemed okay with this, but they would only pick out and eat certain items from the blend. The rest of the stuff they would not eat.
5lb Bag of Chow from TheRoachGuy - My roaches absolutely love this chow for some reason. I'm not sure what it contains or anything like that but they go to town on it. They consume more of his chow then any other food I feed them. I also like to feed them greens and fruit when ever I have left overs or anything like that.

 

[BlueDevil]

Flukers High Calcium Cricket Diet!!!!!!!

 

[SlabOMeat]

Flukers High Calcium Cricket Diet!!!!!!!

Heh, my roaches eat through one of those cans in a couple days. I did mix a can in with my latest batch of chow though.

 

[dmglakewood]

Flukers High Calcium Cricket Diet!!!!!!!

Aren't you supposed to not feed them high calcium diets as it will kill them? I've always heard high protein low calcium diets and dust them with calcium with d3 before feeding your beardie.

 

[spyder79]

If the calcium level in the food is too high it can cause them to die due to not being able to molt properly. But typically your "over the counter" feeder food will not have this effect.

 

[Sapphire]

Fluker's cricket diet doesn't have high enough calcium levels to kill off crickets. I guess what high calcium does is make them unable to shed, but I've fed my crickets that food for months and they definitely shed/molt and grow and are perfectly fine. I assume it's the same or similar for roaches.