Idea for Roach Colony

[tdude294]

I am going to start a roach colony and I want to try to make a self-sorting one. My idea is basically this:

-Start with a garbage can (like one of the big round gray ones)
-Put a piece of the plastic eggcrate (white plastic grating) about in the middle of it so it is divided into a top and bottom half
-Cut a piece out and reattach with hinges and a lock to make a door to the bottom half (to access feeders)
-Set up the main breeder colony on top with just a slot to open up and drop food/water crystals down a pipe into their respective bowls.
-And obviously have a supply of food/water crystals to the feeders on the bottom as well.

My theory in this is that most of the nymphs will fall through to the bottom, along with the adults' frass which is supposedly a food source for baby nymphs?
Not all nymphs will fall through and those that dont can go on to replace any die-offs.

I will be able to access the small nymphs on the bottom for feeding without disturbing the breeding adults up top except for cleaning every so often.

Any comments/concerns are greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,
Tyler

 

[tdude294]

Oops, forgot heating.. put the food/water in the middle in a "teepee" of egg crate and put 2 heating pads oppostie eachother on the outsides of the can.

 

[jducky18]

Wow. What an ingenious idea, I'm not sure about the practicality, I don't have a colony yet, but that's a really ingenious/creative idea. Please let me know if that works!!!

 

[Soulwind]

Rather Rube Goldberg'ish...but it might work.

Although I think you may have issues with pouring food and/or water crystals down a tube to them...

I've heard that it's better to leave the nymphs in with the colony, and I've also heard that the colony actually breeds faster
if you seperate most of the nymphs out...so I don't know which is true...heck could actually be both I guess.

If you do try this, and it does work, please come back and tell us about it

PS: you might want to set up a more traditional colony as a backup at first so you aren't wasting months of colony-building time.

 

[tdude294]

rube goldberg'ish is my specialty lol

my thought for the food, was to make a column out of screen to fit the end of the tube (which will also prevent the roaches from possibly climbing up the tube) which would drop the food right into a low dish and maybe fill up the column?

with the water, I would do the same with the column, but maybe a bit wider and ONLY fill the column with crystals which would make it safer for the roaches because they cant fall into them or get stuck and drown.

Before i take the plunge and build this thing i want to make sure first that the smaller nymphs will fall through the plastic eggcrate