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What would be the best roach for my home?

  • #21
Roaches are supposed to live a very long time compared to crickets, that would be good if they last a good long while and really don't stink. The herp shop wants anywhere from $0.50 to $3 each for hissers at that rate my pets would be eating higher priced meals than me sometimes! lol

I've been You Tubin it up tonight searching "roach colony" videos, seems the dubias are the #1 feeders but they all seem to be kept about the same. High protein dry cat food or dog biscuits, water crystals and fruits/veggies high temps 90*F+ for breeding activity and vertical cardboard eggcrate for housing. I got my colony box built today, now I'm waiting on my eggcrates and water crystals and of course, the box full of nightmares!

If you need water crystals for roaches, crickets, etc get the dry crystals and add your own water, way cheaper don't buy a teaspoon of crystals and quart of water from petsmart for $10 buy a 2 lb bag of dry crystals and have enough for god knows how long: http://www.watersorb.com/prices.htm
 
  • #22
3 bucks a pop damn they getting catered some fillet roaches :) plus I agree with mass the big ones may be kinda big even for big ts. you are planning on sprinkling them with some vitamin powder before u feed them do you?
 
  • #23
Thanks for the heads up, swords! I normally give my crickets some veggies, and that keeps 'em pretty good in terms of water. I don't think I'll invest in roaches until after I figure out my living situation for the next year (or even the summer) first.

you are planning on sprinkling them with some vitamin powder before u feed them do you?

I know that this wasn't a question for me, but on a related note: My beardie LOVES both the calcium powder and multivitamin power. If I'd let him, he'd eat it straight out of the container (don't worry, I don't/wont).
 
  • #24
Thanks for the heads up, swords! I normally give my crickets some veggies, and that keeps 'em pretty good in terms of water. I don't think I'll invest in roaches until after I figure out my living situation for the next year (or even the summer) first.



I know that this wasn't a question for me, but on a related note: My beardie LOVES both the calcium powder and multivitamin power. If I'd let him, he'd eat it straight out of the container (don't worry, I don't/wont).

U can also try "minerall" the best in the market, as many herpers recommend
 
  • #25
From what I've learned, calcium dust/hi calcium feed for bugs being fed to Tarantulas is a no-no. I guess it has something to do with the Tarantulas new exoskeleton being too rigid when they molt. I do dust feeders every other time I feed my Anole, alternating between multivitamin (Reptivite) and some calcium stuff (Reptocal). My cousin just got a pair of new Panther Chameleons maybe I'll make up a colony for her, merry xmas, I got you roaches! LOL

I won't be feeding out any of the really large ones for a while so maybe I can make some extra dough selling the biggest ones to the herp shop until I need to start using them. 1/2" up to 1 1/2" is all I'll really need at the moment but I have a feeling bigger meals will make for bigger spiders faster - within reason obviously i wouldn't put a 4" roach with a 5 " T... lol The big ones would just be for the largest guys like LP or TBlondi but the variety of sizes from small to large will be great to choose from.
 
  • #26
From what I've learned, calcium dust/hi calcium feed for bugs being fed to Tarantulas is a no-no. I guess it has something to do with the Tarantulas new exoskeleton being too rigid when they molt. I do dust feeders every other time I feed my Anole, alternating between multivitamin (Reptivite) and some calcium stuff (Reptocal). My cousin just got a pair of new Panther Chameleons maybe I'll make up a colony for her, merry xmas, I got you roaches! LOL

I won't be feeding out any of the really large ones for a while so maybe I can make some extra dough selling the biggest ones to the herp shop until I need to start using them. 1/2" up to 1 1/2" is all I really need at the moment but I have a feeling bigger meals will make for bigger spiders faster.

for my last TF post in the next comming like 5 months i must say that giving your girl cousin a ton of roaches for Christmas is the MOST GENIUS IDEA EVER!!!! I just couldn't resist commenting on that :-O
 
  • #27
swords.....for the record dubias will breed at lower temps, mine breed at 70-75, they just breed slower....
 
  • #28
If they breed at lower temps doesn't that mean that escapees could infest your house?

I thought that was the "selling point" of tropical feeder roaches that they can't propagate outside the colony box...???
 
  • #29
in all reality i have never had an escapee....i use a tall sided rubbermaid with a 2 inch strip of petroleum jelly along the top just in case......never had one make it to the jelly let alone out.....they are piss poor climbers of smooth surfaces and cant fly.....it isnt an issue with dubias.....
 
  • #30
dont feed them minerals.....just give them the highes quality gut load from things in your fridge 6 hours before and sprinkle em with rep cal calcium(green labeled bottle)
 
  • #31
Well I am a bit late to the party but I'll ante in.

I have kept both rusty reds and lobsters.

I got rid of the rusty reds, entirely to spastic and funky smelling.

I have a thriving colony of lobsters now and they are a cake walk. My wife was worried about their being climbers but I keep mine in basically the same way Rattler keeps his dubia (the only exception being I have a heat cable threaded into my tub to keep them breeding at a higher rate) and I have never had any escapees. Heck they never even climb anyways. Size wise they get about half again as large as a cricket and have a lot more "meat" to them than crickets do. They breed fast and can keep it up down to 50F (though at a much slower rate.) I was pleasantly surprised that they are also pretty cold proof on the short term, when I moved up here I left the colony in the car and it dropped to 17F that night, only lost about 30 of the individuals, the rest went right back to it after warming up. I feed them acorn squash and dog foor for the most but readily toss in any other stuff from the kitchen, veggie scraps, cheese, even the occasional meat scrap (and on the rare occasion that the GBK does not eat I throw in the pinky rat.)
 
  • #32
Now I have two colonys as well, the hissers and dubias. These hissers don't look like the textbook hissers, they may be the oblongata species (long and black) and not the standard ones (G. portentosa). I'll have to see what becomes of them in time. I'm going to be putting up my new terrarium shelf soon and I'm gonna stick the roaches at the very top where they can get the convection heat from the striplights I just don't trust heating cables, pads and such anymore after I had the aquarium heater stick on and boil my fish.

Here's a new question for this thread, how big of a tub setup are you guys using? Is there an advantage to using a bigger bin?

I've got both of mine in 10 gallon rubbermaids with half dozen eggcrates in each. A tray of dry cat food and a tray of expanded water crystals. I put an orange slice into each tub every other morning or whenever I eat an orange. They love the oranges there's not even any scraps left by the time I go to refill their dishes.

If only grandma knew I was "refilling food dishes" for roaches... :D To her the idea of keeping Tarantulas was bad enough. lol
 
  • #33
I use 50gal tubs. Because it's just a matter of time..
 
  • #34
Not sure what size the tub I use is... It has the footprint of a 32Q but is about 45cm tall rather than the 10cm tall that a 32Q is.

But Mass is correct, you will want bigger, when they go BOOM (and they will) they will fill a 10G in no time flat.
 
  • #35
Once I get my new shelf setup I'll measure what shape of tubs I can fit up there and look for some larger ones.

How long does it generally take for a colony to get going if conditions are good?
 
  • #36
How long does it generally take for a colony to get going if conditions are good?

Let me put it this way, when I moved up here I kept about 30-40 adults (froze the rest and trashed them cause moving a few hundred roaches was just asking for trouble). That was 3 months ago and I probably have over 200 of the buggers now (that is just a real rough guess, hard to count individuals when they are nothing more than a seething mass when you pull out all the egg crate and paper towel tubes... LOL)
 
  • #37
Speaking of paper towel rolls I've put PTRs in and the roaches won't touch them, any idea why? I don't use scented or printed paper towels but I keep checking and there's not a one anywhere on or near them. Do they just have to be in the bin a while and get their "smell" on it before they'll climb into it?
 
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