I bought 6 adult female roaches and 6 adult male roaches towards the end of january of this year, and i knew that buying that little amount would result in a slow colony, but as of today while cleaning out the tank, only 21 were of "adult" sizes. the rest were babies, and there were only about 30 babies. There weren't any dead bodies, and i feed them water crystals and cheerios, or oranges when i have them, cause i know it gets them excited. but it seems like they're growing super slow, and i'm not getting any new babies. Is this normal? I kind of expected to be at like 300 roaches by now and stop having to buy crickets, cause they die 4 days after i buy them every time.
I'm new to roaches, but from what I've seen you need to have at least a few hundred to get started and it will still take several months to get up to a sustainable colony size (depending on how many you need). I would order a mix pack (mixed sizes) and add them to your colony to try and help jump start things.
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I was just browsing . I'm also new to breeding dubias so I'll just tell you what I know. If you haven't already, feed off a couple males. I believe the ratio to shoot for is 1 male for every 5 females, and as long as your temps stay in the high 80's and humidity is in the 30-60% range, you should be good to go. And yes, adding a few hundred mixed sizes would help immensely.