The effects of high humidity on B. Dubia.

[MonsterPyxie]

Welp, not to happy about this one, but atleast I caught it before It got out of hand.

Yesterday, almost exactly 24 hours ago, I cleaned out my B. Dubia bin. I took out all of the roaches, and cleaned out all the frass. Trying something new, because of some advice for a reputable B. Dubia breeder, I then separated all of the small and baby nymphs from the large/adults. I put the small/baby nymph's into another bin, small, 5gal rubbermaid, perfect size for about 400 to 500 small/baby nymphs..... for now. (babies have some of the adults frass, there own food and watercrystal)

Welp, had made up some fresh water crystal, banana, oranges and potatos where still good from the bin, so I put that in the "adult" bin, with the water crystal, same amount I always use. Then added the "roach chow". Got the egg crate in, this time 3 egg crates instead of 2, for a little bit more room for the adults, another tip from the B. Dubia breeder.

Here is where my issue starts. I had made enough watercrystal for the three bins. Adult B. Dubia, small/baby's, and my Lobster roach colony, but I had made a little extra then normal on accident, so I just tossed the last bit, about a handful, into the adult B. Dubia bin.

So the Adult B. Dubia bin had there normal water crystal, a extra handful, a almost whole banana, a mostly good orange, a semi-dried out potato, and the bin was probably slightly wet from being cleaned out.

Being around 5pm, and me having to work grave shifts, I went to bed shortly after getting everything situated. Worked the night, had some sleep this morning, and been working on my car most the afternoon. Get done, moving the roach bins around to take a shower. (I keep my roaches in the small bathroom of ours, and heat the entire room, I find it easiest for us at the moment.) When I notice a large number of dead B. Dubia. (thank you clear bin!)



Humidity gauge was NOT checked last night... it read 85-90% when I first opened the bin tonight.



*WARNING* GRAPHIC PICTURES AHEAD.................... (for roach lovers )





This is the result. 20 or so dead dubia, 6 of which seemed to have "exploded" or come apart from the inside out? limbs and heads popping off.

death count
11 medium nymphs
6-7 large/adult males
2 large/adult females

Didn't really count, just going off my pictures. (please don't mind my dirty sink, been cleaning out all my critters bin's for the last few days.)


Here is what I mean by exploded or come apart, this is what appears to be a female that died during molt.










Here is a picture of the others that came apart/exploded. they where all very soft to the touch, almost "watery".






here are a few dried out ones, and molted skins.






and the other's, Males on the left, nymphs in the middle, and a female on the right.










I'm pretty sure I got most of the shed skins, and I made a point to get all the dead dubia out when I cleaned them out yesterday. So I highly doubt any of these are old deaths, I'm almost positive there in the last 24 hours


My bin has VERY limited ventilation, reason is because the climate is so dry here, and I find it hard to hold humidity. All the fruit and potato's had mold on them, they where clean yesterday. So all that was thrown out, water crystal removed, and such. Will keep all of that out for the next 12-14 hours, will put water crystal and fresh fruit back in the morning, the roach chow is still in there.


Good news is I caught it when I did, and just on the bottom of the bin, under a few things, and in the fruit, was about 50 fresh baby nymphs, had to be have been "born" in the last 24 hours. Probably even more new babies in the egg crates. Just thought I would share, Be careful with your creepy crawlies my friends!


Rob

[BG]

You are very lucky. Try to beat this .I did the same as you. The only deference is that i went away for a week on vacation. I came back to 5000 dead roaches maggots flies. you name it and the smell in the bin was horrible. The ammonia level was 150%. I had to throw out the whole bin. thank God i had other colonies.

[Sublime]

R.I.P dubias . Yeah, you're lucky it was only 20. That's strange that the humidity got up that high even with what you did. Lesson learned for all of us, thanks for sharing.

Do you think there was excessive amounts of moisture in the bathroom, besides all the other moisture that was already in there that caused it to get that high?

[MonsterPyxie]

You are very lucky. Try to beat this .I did the same as you. The only deference is that i went away for a week on vacation. I came back to 5000 dead roaches maggots flies. you name it and the smell in the bin was horrible. The ammonia level was 150%. I had to throw out the whole bin. thank God i had other colonies.

yea I remember your story, didn't know it was 5,000 roaches, jebus! that had to have been one hell of a smell!

R.I.P dubias . Yeah, you're lucky it was only 20. That's strange that the humidity got up that high even with what you did. Lesson learned for all of us, thanks for sharing.

Do you think there was excessive amounts of moisture in the bathroom, besides all the other moisture that was already in there that caused it to get that high?

I think its just the limited ventilation, just that watercrystal, about double what i normally add, and that fruit did it. I've decided I will add more ventilation, even though that means I will have to mist them probably twice a day.

Last night after changing the bin, no one was in that bathroom until in the morning, my wife showered, then gave my son a bath. Even with us showering in there, the humidity is void in about 30min afterward. my house stays around 10-20% humidity, and with me heating the bathroom, it burn's up the humidity also. so i don't think that was a factor. Hasn't been since we started keeping them in there.

moving forward I will soon be building a rack to keep my roaches. Already starting to draw up some plans. rack will have heat on the bottom and sides, and I will be buying a higher end controller/rheostat that you can program for daytime/nighttime temps, and has alarms if temp or humidity are too high/low. (its about 375 bucks last time i looked)

rack will come soon, trying to get these guys organized. Expensive *** controller/rheostat will wait until I have extra cash laying around to blow, lol.

[JeffreH]

Poor roachies D=

I'm sorry this happened to you, Rob. Glad you are staying positive about it - like you said, at least you caught it early.

Quick question: Have you actually monitored humidity within the bins? Despite your house being so low, even with ventilation the bin can be such a controlled environment that a small dish of water crystals above the heat source can really crank out a decent amount. Did you note obvious molting issues before adopting the plan to increase humidity? Not questioning you (you house is one of the driest I've ever heard of, lol!) just curious.

A substrate may help you as well - kind of makes digging out some smaller nymphs a pain in the rear, but I've had success rearing this species with coir based substrate.

[MonsterPyxie]

Poor roachies D=

I'm sorry this happened to you, Rob. Glad you are staying positive about it - like you said, at least you caught it early.

Quick question: Have you actually monitored humidity within the bins? Despite your house being so low, even with ventilation the bin can be such a controlled environment that a small dish of water crystals above the heat source can really crank out a decent amount. Did you note obvious molting issues before adopting the plan to increase humidity? Not questioning you (you house is one of the driest I've ever heard of, lol!) just curious.

A substrate may help you as well - kind of makes digging out some smaller nymphs a pain in the rear, but I've had success rearing this species with coir based substrate.

Thanks for replying Jeff, was looking forward to your thoughts.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that when I get home from work in about 2 and a half hours that i don't have more dead roaches. So we shall see.

I have a cheap walmart outdoor gauges I keep in all my bins, I have put my $15 reptile gauge next to the $2 walmart, and they read the same, so I bought a few more.

The gauge is laid on the bottom of the bin, so its at there level, with the meter, or whatever it is that picks up the humidity, facing upward, (so its not pinned to the bottom of the bin, giving bad readings)


the 10% humidity in my house surprised me even. I had the gauge out on my desk after buying 2 more of them, and grabbed it to go put it in the roach bin, and was like Whites Tree Frog 10%? thats the same one I tested in the roach bin, compared to the $15 reptile specific gauge. I consider is moderately accurate. for the price, compared to the $15 reptile specific ones that it's as accurate as, I dig 'em.


substrate is not going to work for me right now. I'm trying out this new method of removing the babies from the adults every month, to give the more room, and according to a good breeder, its supposed to ramp up the production a bit. Hard enough already to separate the babies now, substrate would make it a nightmare!



Before I had the fruit and watercrystal getting the humidity up. When there wasn't fruit, I would have to mist once a day, but with something like a banana, they stayed at 60-65%. I have a very small amount of watercrystal, around a handful in there, and thats the norm. so I effectively doubled the normal amount of watercrystal, which was freshly "made" so it was probably overly wet too.

I didn't intend to raise the humidity, just was tired, and didn't put enough thought into it that the extra handful of water crystal, with the fruit and stuff in there, would have such a huge effect. the entire room is heated to 90 degrees or so, so the entire bin stays around that temp.

[MonsterPyxie]

update.

all seem's well. I found 3 more dead, but they where not all squishy like the others. Humidity was still high at 70% when I got home, but when I got up around 1pm after my nap, its at 65%. So I went ahead and added a mix of kale and baby carrots blended together. They devour this mix, but hopefully it doesn't spike the humidity.

[JeffreH]

Good to hear that losses weren't too significant; thank goodness you were able to address the problem promptly before it got out of hand! It sounds like you know exactly what went wrong and were proactive about fixing it... I guess to think optimistically, this little trial and error has helped to realize the limits of what you can offer them given your situation.

I do feel your pain though - I had tryed playing around with a chick-waterer to provide moisture to my Orange Heads. Unfortunately, the thing overflowed and flooded the entire bin... out of those that survived, the hypopigmented individuals became cannibalized and the colony decayed to about 1/4 its initial size.


Also - I've contemplated over and over separating sizes, I just don't feel like adding additional bins to my already crowded feeder rack area to rear various sized nymphs. Not going to lie; it would make things much easier come feed time though... Might adopt this strategy at some point. Let me know how it works for you = )

[MonsterPyxie]

Good to hear that losses weren't too significant; thank goodness you were able to address the problem promptly before it got out of hand! It sounds like you know exactly what went wrong and were proactive about fixing it... I guess to think optimistically, this little trial and error has helped to realize the limits of what you can offer them given your situation.

I do feel your pain though - I had tryed playing around with a chick-waterer to provide moisture to my Orange Heads. Unfortunately, the thing overflowed and flooded the entire bin... out of those that survived, the hypopigmented individuals became cannibalized and the colony decayed to about 1/4 its initial size.


Also - I've contemplated over and over separating sizes, I just don't feel like adding additional bins to my already crowded feeder rack area to rear various sized nymphs. Not going to lie; it would make things much easier come feed time though... Might adopt this strategy at some point. Let me know how it works for you = )

yep, hopefully this won't happen in the future, now that I know how sensitive it is. I will be adding more ventilation to try and make it not to sensitive to slight changes like this.

to seperate the baby nymphs from the adults, I have 2 buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. first bucket has pretty good sized holes, where all nymph's medium sized and under fall through them, and the second has TINY holes, to where only frass can fall through away from the baby nymphs.

some shaking, and "stirring" by flipping the roaches around in the air a bit, and you got some easy separating, while not perfect, it sure makes it simple!