Dubia's on the Way, Bin Size?

[Thinker]

I'm weary of chasing smelly crickets around. It's Dubia time for my 3 dragons. Due to arrive in a day or 2 are; 40 adult females, 6 adult males and 145 mixed nymphs. I've searched the forums here and learned much already :study: , but a few questions remain;

1) For this size starter colony, and keeping in mind that I have 3 dragons to feed (now 2 at 4-5 month old and an 2 yr. adult), what size bin should I buy? I've seen a wide disparity of bin sizes in these forums, though I suppose that it depends on colony size.

2) I see that many of you are using the opaque Rubber Made bins, but aren't they textured?

3) Considering the size of my starter colony, how long do you think it will be before I can start feeding from it, and how long would you estimate before they can supply all the protein needs of my 3 sweetie-pies, so that I may ban nasty crickets from my home forever?

4) Will I need a larger bin as time goes on?

5) I've seen some references to "Bug Stop." What is that and how is it used?

 

[LQDragons]

1) I use 18 gal rubbermaid totes, over 1000 dubia in each
2) Dubia don't climb, so a little texture is OK
3) Your juvie's can & will eat 50-100 each, daily
4) As your colony grows you might add another tote
5) See #2, bug stop is not needed with dubia,

I hope this helps, good luck, you won't regret getting dubia

 

[Thinker]

Thanks for the response. Picked up an 18 gallon - it's pretty smooth. I'll cut a hole for screen on top. I have a people heat pad and a thermostat ready to go. My dubias are stuck enroute over the Thanksgiving holiday. Hopefully the heat pack will keep them safe. I wonder how long before the colony is sustainable as a staple diet for 3 piggies. Crickets will have to do for awhile.

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

With Dubia the more the better when starting your colony. I started mine w/ 1,500 (500 from 3 different breeders)

It took 2 months before they started popping into adults. 3 months after that I had my first breeder bin full w/ 450 females and 150 males. 1 month after that I harvested just under 2000 nymphs and it ramped up from there. That 1 bin produced at least 8000 nymphs a month for a little over a year.

It takes a little patience but with the number of dubia you have, I'd guess that in 9 months to a year you should be in business. But the real mathmatical equation is how do you keep your colony going? Remember that your breeders will only produce for a year to a year and a half. So you're going to want to hold back nymphs to create new breeding colonies. Dubias grow a little slower than other roach species. But when kept under optimum conditions I've found that they breed just as fast as many other species of roach. W/ the exception of Lobsters and Turkistans who breed ridiculously fast.

Patience is key though.

Hope this helps.

-Ian

 

[Thinker]

Thanks Ihaggerty. Patience shall prevail. Perhaps starting a new breeder tank of young adults every 8 months or so would keep it sustainable. It will be fun trying to get it right.

 

[ArchiesFamily]

We are using a 30 gallon and our 750-900-ish or so are fine there. The littlest guys can climb the slight textured totes, but don't seem to be inclined to. At times if we are in doing some kind of maintenance one or two will climb a few inches up, but I think as long as they know how good they've got it down in there they'll stay happily.

 

[patrickb]

Thanks Ihaggerty. Patience shall prevail. Perhaps starting a new breeder tank of young adults every 8 months or so would keep it sustainable. It will be fun trying to get it right.

This approach will work, but you will have slumps in production possibly. It works very well with crickets that are on a 2 month life cycle and recover from any miscalculations quickly enough, but it also requires lots of totes.

The best approach would be to first figure out exactly how many feeders you will be needing for a month. My "magic number" for Dubia is 15 nymphs/per adult female/per month. It is a very conservative number, but it allows for you to account for how much you are feeding, plus plenty of extras to replace the older breeders, allow for future growth of the colony and covers any unexplained deaths that might occur (and they do). If you know you are feeding 50 roaches a day, that's 50x30=1500 roaches per a month! Divide it by the "magic number" of 15 and we know we would need 100 adult females to sustain the feeding rate and allow for replenishment + growth of the colony, all at the same time. Just do a spot estimate of how many adult females you have in your colony and always be a little conservative. You can never end up with too many roaches.

Another tip, start up a second colony with your excess when you can. It would be a backup in case something should happen to the main colony (bad food, sudden mold growth, bacteria etc). And if you are really paranoid, you could feed each colony on different days in case the food/water source was contaminated, it would show up in one without the other being affected.

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

Another tip, start up a second colony with your excess when you can. It would be a backup in case something should happen to the main colony (bad food, sudden mold growth, bacteria etc).

Sorry about that I have a bad habit of not explaining myself well enough. What Patrick is saying is dead on. I have breeding colonies set about 3 months from each other. I have a bunch of them since I'm a supplier but if you do it on a scale that suits your needs you'll never run out of nymphs since you'll always have a colony producing it's full potential.

-Ian