New Dubia Colony Die Offs

[slove829]

I'm not at home to take pics, so those will follow later...

OK, so on Monday, I got a mixed colony of 25 females, 10 males and about 130 mixed. They came to me in separate containers, and the guy lives in my city (craigslist) and delivered to me. I don't know if this has much to do with it, but he dropped it off to me after work, and he packed them the night before, so I have no idea where the roaches sat for almost 24 hours before being dropped off to me.

Upon arrival, there were I would say 2 dead, which I thought nothing of. But since then (3-4 days) I've been finding dead ones daily, about 3-4 a day. They're all different sizes too, so it's not old age. Last night, the dead were 2 adult females, 2 adult males and 2 3/4' juvy, so it is a mixture of ages. I don't know what's wrong... I'll try my best to describe my set-up without pics, but honestly, it's pretty much the typical dubia setup:

20g orange rubbermaid, ventilation/cut off screen top is about 8"x18", but I keep something on top of it to retain humidity, so the hole is really about 8"x4".
TP rolls and egg crates (small ones for now until I can obtain the bigger ones) on one side, which is above the Zoomed heat mat, temp sways from 88-93.
Other side is where the food, veggies, water gel is. So far I've fed my old cricket feed I used for my crickets which is a mixture of cat food, dried potato flakes, wheat bran, oat cereal, and fish flakes. Veggies have been carrots, iceberg lettuce, collared greens and sweet potato.

One thing though, my old hygrometer broke and I haven't gotten around to buy a new one, but seeing as I've seen many molt with no problems, I don't think it's a humidity problem. Also, I don't see many of them going to the food side at all, which I do worry about, but I've always just brushed it off thinking they're eating when I'm not looking, like at night. (I don't disturb them except to add food, but I can peek into the colony through the mesh top)

Anyway, so last night (prior to me finding even more dead) I decided to buy more from someone else to set up a smaller bin for feeders. I ended up grabbing 5 more females and I'd say close to 200 mixed sizes. I ended up separating both colonies into feeders and breeders, so both bins have a mix of each colony. Mostly it's 1"+ in breeder bin and anything smaller is in the other bin. IF the problem isn't my bin setup, and it's the roaches themselves, can it pass it onto the new batch? I'm thinking of buying a new bin tonight because the bin I'm using was from an old cricket colony, and while I doubt there's anything toxic on the bin itself (I cleaned it well) I just want to be sure... I'm out of ideas. I've never done dubias but I've bred everything from lizards, frogs, bugs, furry things... I'm very knowledgable about animal care and this has me stumped. Never in my life did I think dying roaches would be a dilemma.

Oh and btw... the new batch last night seems livelier! They seem to be near the food more, and aren't hiding as much. The first batch does nothing but hide in the egg crate. It just seems to me that first batch has from day one, been lethargic... I don't know if I'm imagining things, but it just seems to me the first set of dubias just hid and did nothing, while this second batch actually moves around...

EDIT: Been doing a lot of thinking and reading... I may have too high of humidity. I'm going to remove the bin I have on top covering the screen and see if a drop in humidity will help. Any other suggestions welcome.

 

[slove829]

I just talked to the guy who I got that first colony from and sent him pics and he thinks it might be my lack of large egg crates. I was planning to go this weekend and hit up grocery stores and restaurants to find places to get free crates... So for the time being, I was using the small ones which my eggs came in. Apparently since those don't stand up vertically and are sitting horizontally, he says it may not be giving them a heat gradient... True, BUT, can't they just move? I have some pieces of egg crate in the other side as well that's not on the heat pad...? I mean, if overheating is the problem, why don't they just move? I'm using a UTH so I highly doubt the temp I'm measuring (88-95 right on top of the pad) applies to the entire bin. I never measured the cool side but I highly doubt it's 88-95, nor is the ambient temparature in the rest of the bin... So if that is the problem, am I just overestimating these dubias..? Because I figured if they got too hot they would just move.

I've got my boyfriend running around tons of stores right now to find free egg crates... Also buying a new bin, and buying a human heat pad so I can get this thing right! Right now I'm using a Zoomed 10g one, but the sticky part isn't sticky anymore because I used it for another tank and removed it so I tried using Duct Tape... and well... let's just say Duct Tape doesn't like heat. Which I did know, but I guess I thought prayer and crossing fingers would magically defy that fact. It didn't.

 

[Sauzo]

I had the exact same problem. If you read my post from a couple days ago, you will see. It seems to have taken about 5 days for my die offs to slow down and I haven't found any dead(knock on wood). I ordered 40 females, 15 males, 100 large nymphs and 500 mixed and I lost prolly total of 5 or 6 females, 7 males and a few nymphs. Luckily the guy who sold me the roaches will replace the dead for me by giving me 15 females and 5 males. I honestly think its the weather. My set up was spot on and I already had like 50 large nymphs living in there for over a month with no issues. But mine acted the same, lethargic, loss of motor control and then would be on their back dead in the morning. The dead adults were really black too. Now they seem active, eat a lot and bolt like greased lightning the minute I open the top haha. I even caught a male and female mating last night and saw a female give birth this morning. But I ended up doing nothing other than feeding them and keeping them hydrated and throwing out the dead and it seems they have recovered. I use a Zoo Med UTH too and i tried to unplug it for a day to see if maybe they were getting cooked by it but that didn't change anything. Like i said, i think this weather has something to do with it. I read somewhere that a guy who transferred his colony from one bin to another had a high rate of die off for a week or so and then it stopped. Not sure if the transfer to a new enclosure has anything to do with it but food for thought. Oh btw to restick a UTH, use foil tape which can be bought at pretty much any hardware store.

I wouldn't use egg crates from stores personally. You have no idea if any kind of chemical was sprayed on them. I would just order egg crates from any number of companies that sell them online. At the moment since i'm out, I've been just cutting 12x12 cardboard squares from boxes i had around and then cutting strips to prop on the corners to lift them off each other. Kind of like a roach motel. been working great till i get my egg crates. And mine are sitting horizontal atm and work fine.

I kind of gave up trying to find a human pad that doesn't have auto shutoff in a local store. If i do decide to use them, prolly easier to just order online. I'll prolly just use a small ceramic heat bulb when it gets cold enough. Or maybe ill throw em on top of my boa cage under where i got the radiant heat panel mounted.

 

[slove829]

Thanks for the reply. That helps a lot! I made a couple changes and the dying seems to have slowed but not completely stopped, but I think it should be soon. Taking the breeders advice i allowed taller cardboard to allow a temp gradient but theyre still staying down low so it probably wasnt that. it was probably just stress.

Two nights ago I had separated and made two bins, the old bin (problem bin) holds all the large and breeders and the smaller bin holds the feeders, which I did not put a heat mat on (was testing to see if heat was a problem). So far in almost 2 days I've had only one juvy die last night in the feeder bin, and 2 adult females on the breeder bin, but those females seemed huge so it was probably just old age. Also the juvy that died in the feeder bin may have come from the other bin when i did my shuffling and was already on his way out... So ya, I went from losing about 5 a day to only 2-3 the last day... So Im crossing fingers this die-off is ending...

 

[Sauzo]

Yeah that's what happened to me. About day 3-4 I only would lose like 1 or 2, then day 5 I didn't lose any. Now at day 6, they are doing the roach thing like running like hell for cover when I open the bin and chowing down everything in sight.