Dubias

[Kreamcheese]

So my colony seems to be doing well. Eating a bunch and very active. I've seen a few females with the egg sac protruding so that's a good sign, even though no baby nymphs yet. I haven't had a death yet until I looked today and noticed a molting dubia seemed to be stuck in its molt. It was still alive but was curled and hardened so I decided to freeze the poor thing. It's only been this one time so should I worry? My digital humidity gauge says 60 and temps are going between 85-95.

[Sublime]

Nope, I wouldn't stress about one unsuccessful molt. Your temperature/humidity are perfect; just watch over for a week and see if this issue continues.

[Kreamcheese]

Yeah I figured it wasn't a big deal. Just want to make sure my investment doesn't crash on me! I'll peek in every few days just to make sure all is well. How is your colony doing?

[Sublime]

My colony is doing horrible, thanks for asking. Haha, no seriously though... I'm going to clean out the dead roaches tomorrow, since I'm only cleaning out dead once a week now. Trying to reduce stress like Monster advised. I'm keeping plenty of food in there, temps at the bottom are 95-105. I've been trying to keep the humidity up by spraying the sides occasionally (Still have a water bottle in there, your little tip), and water gel crystals. Man I just don't get it; I think the guy that supplied me with these adults gave me 'old' ones.

I bought some heat tape on bigappleherp to get additional heat in there, it barely raised. I'm gonna' try plugging it straight into the wall instead of a rheostat to get maximum temperature. It would probably be a good idea to do that insulation method that you did to revamp your setup. It's just starting to piss me off, this investment is going in the trash. Although, with all the negative stuff I have been saying - I always do see babies on top of the water gel crystals. They must be breeding a little at least.

It just sucks, I don't have a job and I don't have that much money to resupply if things get worse.

[Kreamcheese]

Damn dude sorry to hear that. Well if mine starts to take off I'd be happy to help you out

[Sublime]

Ah, no man you're very generous. Thanks for the offer though, that's way to good of an offer. I hope your colony sets of soon, that will be cool for you. I'll keep trying with mine; it just seemed like it was such a breeze to raising these guys what people have said in care sheets or youtube videos for them. I'm just not having a good experience at all; I'll show you guys my setup tomorrow. There's nothing wrong with it at all.

[Kreamcheese]

Yeah definitely post up some pics. You might also be right about getting old adults. I only bought like 10 adult females and 6 males. The other 350 were large nymphs of which maybe 50 have already molted into adults. Should have them around for a while!

[Sublime]

Yeah I bought 200 adults with a little overcount for $60. Then about 15-20 adults have already died in the 3 weeks to a month I've had them, mostly females. I should go the route of buying large nymphs like you though, then you know the life expectancy. There's some babies popping up, but not my expectations. You'll definitely have them for awhile.

[Niels D]

I've also seen females with the egg sac protruding, but still no nymphs. How long does it normally take for the nymphs to arrive after the egg sac is absorbed? I've started my colony 4 weeks ago.

[JeffreH]

The females will protrude their bood sac sporadically, and retract it. I'm not entirely sure why, but I note it most frequently right after fertilization.This is what carries her eggs (usually fertilized), so she'll retract it for incubation within the body in order to produce live nymphs. Give them a few more weeks and you might see some babies roaming around = )

Mark - what kind of dry gutload are you using, and do you do anything to it (add supplements?)? Also, try taking a few specimens out and examing them very closely (particularly around the joints and crevices of the head), Possibly with a magnifying glass so we can rule out parasitic mites as well.

I too would like to see pics of the colony and some specific roaches... Could be dye-offs from old age, disease, mites, or a very weak colony. I've seen some crappy bloodlines from individuals keeping their roaches malnourished and overpopulated. This sometimes has long-term effects on young nymphs where they maintain small adult sizes and fail to thrive or breed effectively. This is probably the least likely case though...

[Sublime]

Ok guys I took pictures today of my setup, sorry if I hi-jack your thread Andrew... I'm really stoked, after thoroughly cleaning the inside today I found a ton of babies! Some already molting and just so many more than I expected. Probably around 200-300 babies in there after waiting a week... Really happy about the results and knowing that I'm doing good now.

Note: Sorry for the horrible pictures! I use my phone and I'm not a good picture taker; I need an assistant.

This is the outside of my bin (2 heat pads, one going in and one on the bottom):



This is just a aerial view of the setup from inside (Before I replenished food after 2 days):


Another aerial view...:


How hot it is, directly on the bottom (A 30-40 gallon uth on the bottom and heat tape on the side wall inside):


A clutch of babies I found after lifting the water gel crystal dish:


Picking up one of the crates...:


Another aerial view taken with flash:


Fallen soldiers, you will never be forgotten (This is after a week of waiting to pull out dead ones):

[Sublime]

@Jeff Hm, that's interesting about the incubation process. I know I read somewhere about them retracting their sac, just wanted to get reassured about it.

My dry gutload consists of: High quality dog food, high quality cat food, whole grain oats, and grape nuts for a little bit of sweetness. I did them pretty much all in consistent parts blending in a food processor. I don't add supplements to the gutload. The dead ones that I pick up, their heads fall off fairly easily. Is this normal since their body is decaying?

That would suck to find out that my colony is getting parasitic mites...

I mostly believe that a lot of them are dying from old age and I have a weak colony. I pull out like 10 dead a week and I'm probably left with 150 adults including 200-300 baby nymphs that have just been produced in the last couple of weeks from my colony. I give them plenty of oranges a week, high heat, and spray the sides with a spray bottle including a water bottle set in there with water gel crystals... So the humidity is good I believe. I've been only resupplying food and water every 2 days now, and cleaning out the dead ones once a week. Seems that they're breeding has picked up substantially. I'm really stoked about this, found so many baby nymphs today with a few I already see molting.

The only problem I have is... Since so many of my adults are dying per weak; I'm going to need to re-flow soon, since they're wont be a point of waiting for a bunch of baby nymphs to mature by the time my adults all die off. Do you think you'll have some large nymphs available soon? I would love to replenish my colony since I have it under control now. I need to get this colony moving since I got a hungry african bullfrog!

Overall conclusion: I'm very aroused.

[Sublime]

Thanks Jeff and Andrew for the support, appreciate it!

[JeffreH]

The adults look like fairly normal dead adults, if that makes sense lol. This would convince me it might just be doom from old age. If you start seeing younger nymphs die off as well then we will be in for some troubleshooting.

Also good news - the living adults appear to be meaty and of healthy size. The weaker individuals I've encountered are very gimpy, not fill-out, and don't nearly have the same length to width ratio. You females look nice and plump, and I LOVE love love love love the colors on them. I've been culling a lot of mine lately due to excessive darker females, I want to see more of those bright oranges in the females that reach adulthood like you have there. Perhaps 5 years of inbreeding from a single colony of 250 has allowed more of the darker phenotype to come out and less of the nice rich oranges. I've actually contemplated buying up some fresh stock from good colorful bloodlines to mix into my current colony...

Also: some constructive critism. I wouldn't let the hottest point of the bin get any hotter than about 105 degrees F, 113 is a little intense in my opinion. See, just like our reptiles and amphibians, an insect's metabolism is directly proportional to the temperature and each species has its own preferred range. I think B. dubia fare best at a temperature in the long term when they are exposed to overall temperatures in the 85-95 degree range. Roaches will actually thermoregulate to maintain ideal core body temperature, but if things are too hot you may literally be causing them to age slightly faster. Not saying this is responsible for dei-offs, but it might be partially contributing. They may grow faster when kept extremely warm, but this also results in faster death and temperature spikes may even cause infertility or death of the embryo. I think your 95-105 range on the bottom was more ideal to begin with, although keep that heat tape handy in case things chill out some in the winter or you need to add another bin down the road = )

Honestly, I think you just have some old roaches - a 10% die off rate after 3 weeks isn't too bad, you still have in excess of 150 adults and assuming a 50/50 split of males to females, if each female can produce even one litter you should be able to produce another 1500+ nymphs at minimum. I think you'll be okay, there is just no way to tell an adult's age prior to shipping and some old roaches surely got mixed in. Odds are you'll have some old timers and some freshly molted adults, and those freshly molted adults will keep producing and thriving for you for months.

It sounds like you are taking fantastic care of them. The only concern I had about adding supplementation is I sometimes noted excessive calcium in the diet occasionally leads to bad molts in some inverts. Not sure why, I have a couple of hypotheses, but since you are feeding a perfectly good diet its not necessary to get into it.

Continue to do what you are doing and give them more time to settle in and start producing babies for ya. Keep us posted on them, I'm sure they'll continue to come around for you! Don't get discouraged!

And I agree with Mark in that a single bad molt isn't a major deal, you'll get that from time to time. Usually the fellow roaches in the colony consume this roach or it just falls down dead to the bottom of the bin.

Mark - I'll send you a PM regarding my availability = )

[Sublime]

Yeah I know what you mean; their body structure and color is starting to show their age... I'll look out for young ones dying, none of them have died yet from what I've seen.

Might be worth it to get a fresh batch in to mix it up and those oranges do make them look 5x better than just the standard 'black' roach. This isn't a big concern to me because I'm just trying to get a colony started lol. For you though, I could see you wanting to do that. Plus, it's just good business - a lot more appealing.

Thanks for that advice on the heating, the infrared thermometer gun I use I think is off by 4 degrees (elevated). I'll work on adjusting the rheostat down to your preferred range. I just thought I was having a heating issue problem when I wasn't seeing results, so I turned it up even higher. Yeah that's the good thing about stacking egg flats vertical in their as opposed to horizontal. The frass falling down for the babies to eat, easier to clean, and thermoregulating where the heat dissipates or moving closer to the heat source. That does make sense about them aging at a much higher pace due to the intense heat. Alright sounds good, I'll taper down the heat little by little to get back to the optimum range so that it doesn't cause drastic changes in temperature for them.

Yeah I'm hoping the death rate slows down and I got some younger adults in the mix...

Thanks, I try to take care of them to the best I can do... The reasoning for why I never add supplements into the diet of my feeder insects anyways is the crickets die off quicker in their life cycle if they excessively are taking in calcium into their diets. Those commercial cricket gutloads are a great example of too much calcium. They need higher protein in their diet, not calcium. That's all done by dusting . This diet is for my crickets and roaches, everything has worked out fine with it. I might down the road add like powdered skim milk and tropical fish flakes, but there's already enough in the blend as it is.

They should settle in fine now that I'm on a better routine for them that seems to be working smoothly. I'll keep you guys posted, sure. Thanks.

Replied to your pm .

[MonsterPyxie]

Mark,

Only issues I see is the lack of frass, babies nom on that stuff, and the high temps. Like jeff said, I would try and get them down to a 105 peak. (make sure your taking temperature readings of the entire bin for hot spots)'

Also get some scissors and snip a V or square out of the lip of your food/water crystal dish's so the babies nymphs can crawl right into the dish. they might not be able to climb over even that tiny lip of the lid.

I turned my temps down to 93 peak, and around 88 at the lowest, with me sitting at 90 on average, and my peeps seem to be doing great.



I'm trying some new stuff that I got info from a reliable breeder.... see how it goes.