So the past month or so i have had this issue with my roach bin. I feed them squash (grinded all together of course) fish food and a orange everyday. The problem is that all of a sudden the bottom of the container is all wet and smells horrible. Parts of the egg flats are soggy at the bottom of them. I have cleaned this container twice in the past month but it still stinks and all. Today i found 3 dead adults and a bunch (like 10) baby roaches dead laying in this gross stuff. I'm guessing the smell and all the watery stuff is from either the oranges or squash. I never had this problem until i switched them over to this bigger bin so I'm a bit confused as to why its doing this.
How is your heat and ventilation set up? How do you offer food and water?
How long was the squash left in?
Realistically you want your crates to always stay dry. When my bin gots soggy (the roaches do some stupid stuff) I clean everything out and out in fresh crates.
How is your heat and ventilation set up? How do you offer food and water?
How long was the squash left in?
Realistically you want your crates to always stay dry. When my bin gots soggy (the roaches do some stupid stuff) I clean everything out and out in fresh crates.
Heat is at 83.8 as of right now. There are holes poked in the top of the bin for ventilation. squash, oranges and water are all on a small plate. The plates are thrown away every day and replaced with new when i feed them. Fish food is just thrown in around the food. I do use new egg flats each time i clean it.
Yeah it sound alike they need more airflow. I use a full screen lid - I've found that anything less gets too much moisture. The bugs themselves put out quite a surprising amount, and all that wet food won't be helping.
If you have a plastic tote - just cut out most of the material leaving the outer edge of the lid intact and add some window screen (aluminum if possible). It can be taped (duct or aluminum works for me) or hot glued.
Cut a hole and glue some screen in there. I ran into this same issue with crickets when I first started keeping them in bulk and it was horrid with just holes. Once I added a screen, it worked a ton better!