Dubia roach colony

[Lasher]

I setup a Dubia colony a few days ago in a 35 litre plastic tub, stacked egg boxes, 15 watt heatmat. I've fed with dried at biscuits(30% crude protein), carrots, fresh figs, dandelion leaves and gel water. Temp 32 down to 28 at night. Theres about 20 adults, 20 medium and a few dozen small.

Half a dozen of the larger males are dead and they seem very sedate, barely anything has been eaten - Is this normal? Is me setup ok? I've used them as feeders on numerous occasions but never tried culturing them before.

[madavies65]

Hey I normally keep my roaches to 26c, cat biscuits may contain too much protein, Id recommend dog ones... as to the fruit and veg, I feed mine butternut squash, oranges and bananas with oats and ground dog biscuits.

I also 'lightly' spray the top of the egg crates for added moisture which evaporates during the day. Just make sure you don't get any mold anywhere in the tub as this is lethal!

Your temps shouldn't make your roaches slow. A colony of your size would take several months to propagate and you would not notice a dip in their food from day to day. Do you have ventilation in your tub hood? Males are a lot less hardier than females too, though 10 dieing is very worrying

[FwoGiZ]

You seem to be doing everything well.. I do not use water gel personally, only fruits and veggies. Mold is the common dubias killer like madavies said
I've had several thunsands of dubias and not a single one ever died because of anything else than old age! I think heat will help them with breeding, maybe because it activate the dubias? I found out that putting them in my cold room would slow them down, until completely stopping. Then they would thaw and get back to normal...

[beckdg]

there's excellent breeding info here... Greg's Exotic Inverts - Home

[Stacyah]

hiya,

the males may be killing each other, they can be very territorial, you want a ratio of about 3 adult females to 1 adult male, so start feeding off those males! also here is a link for my dubia gutload recipe, it is easy to store, easy to feed and can be modified for the herps your feeding. YouTube - Gutload for Crickets and Roaches

[beckdg]

stacy, welcome to the site. do you mind if i embed that video into another thread i'm working on? i think it would be something that shows the overall simplicity and would really help people feel more confident about mixing their own recipe up. videos are an excellent way to illustrate things.

[Stacyah]

Thanks Beckdg
feel free to use the video, I would be honored I hope to have a dry gutload video up soon also, I will post it when done.

[beckdg]

why thank you. that's very kind and much appreciated.

[fallenangelfyre]

so i recently purchased a starter colony from someone locally. they said that it was 250, but i suspect that it's less than 100 (think i was had). anyway, i put them in a rubermaid tub with a hole cut in the top and screen hot-glued to prevent escapes. have a large uth under the whole tub. lightly mist 1-2 times a day. feed a combination of puree'd veggies and fruits as well as some chicken feed that was tossed around the inside by the seller. have yet to locate water crystals locally, so i am keeping puree'd veggies and fruits fresh every day to provide moisture.
yesterday i noticed 2-3 dead roaches, removed them. today i found 7 more. not just dead, but dried husks as if count dracula had his way with them. i remember a mention of dubia's going canibal if not provided enough moisture. wondering if this is that, or possibly the aformentioned mold as i have been lightly misting, and there is some chicken feed spread around the inside of the tub.
if it turns out to be mold, how do i go about cleaning that? just move the dubia's to a temp tub i guess (somehow), then get new eggcrates, blah, blah, clean with mild bleach?

[Stacyah]

Fallenangelfyre, it sounds like you are describing the husks left
over from your roaches molting. Look for a vertical split on the back of the
husks. Your husbandry sounds fine, if you offer fresh veggies daily then you don't need water crystals. What are the temps for your roaches?