Shinylarvitar97

Depends what species you may be looking for in particular. If you're looking for websites, Roach Crossing has a fair selection. Also Bugs in Cyberspace offers some species of roaches at times. There are also plenty of keepers here on the forum that keep a variety of things, including myself and a friend of mine Ty Randall.

Appear to be Blaptica dubia, looks like an adult male and female.

I believe the "UCR" strains pronotum markings are less defined normally. So the jack o' lantern like face isn't super pronounced like the McMonigle strain or other craniifer. That's what I've seen at least.

I've had issues with Periplaneta australiasiae eating ootheca, but my americana don't seem to have this problem. My colony seem fine on egg crate. Granted I do have a thin layer of substrate and moss in the enclosure for added humidity. I know another keeper has his on egg crate as well, but not sure if they have problems long term with it. Mine seem ok after having them for over 6 months. They do degrade over time of course and with the added humidity, they may become a bit soggy/molded.

First off welcome to the roach keeping hobby! Hissers are definitely a good step into overcoming your fear of roaches. While the adults seem huge and intimidating, they tend to be fairly docile. Like you said smaller nymphs are a perfect size to try to get used to handling. I can relate, since I was in a similar situation to you I'd like to believe. At younger ages I loved digging up worms and finding ants, mantids, butterflies, and all types of other invertebrates. As I got older, I strayed away from bug catching as well. I later in my early teens encountered German roaches at a friend's house, and I found i was terrified of them. I then got into reptiles, but became tired of feeding crickets, so I decided to try dubia roaches as feeders. It was one small step, but it took me a long way. Long story short, I kept them as strictly feeders, but then obtained more and more "feeder" species until I had a small collection, than years later i have many many more bugs than reptiles lol! I've overcome my fear of roaches and other inverts that way, and I'm sure the longer you keep and interact with your hissers, the more you will come to tolerate handling them, and may want to even try keeping another species or two down the line!

Yeah I'm sure some extra enclosures would be good to have in case some species don't seem to get along. Hopefully you find some more info and others that have firsthand experience in keeping species together. Thank you, she had a good life, and was thankfully able to grace me with 1 litter of nymphs before she passed. I never paired her for almost 3 years before I found a male.

Hello, to help a bit with your question usually some roaches may get along better together than others. A concern with cohabitation of species is one species outcompeting the other for food/hiding places, etc. Some would thrive and the others would dwindle down in population, but since you don't intend to have them reproduce it may be possible to house multiple species together and have them coexist to an extent. There may be aggression between different species, but I have no evidence myself. They may stress each other out, but they don't seem to get lonely if not able to breed. I had a single female Deaths head roach live for over 3+ years in her own enclosure. Just recently lost her. Another concern is different microclimates/care. Some species may require much different husbandry needs than what another species may need (humidity, temperature, ventilation, substrate depth etc.) so there can be conflict on that end as well. Some aren't super picky. I've heard of others that have successfully kept different roaches together, but not sure how it may work out in the long run. I myself haven't really mixed species, but maybe some others with more insight/experience can pitch in better information. I've heard of Blattidae sp. "Kenya" aka "little Kenyan roaches" getting along with other larger species of roaches due to their small size and tolerance to different conditions, but i have no proof of this unfortunately. So it could be false

Yeah I'm sure it was their frass and exoskeleton that probably gave you those bad reactions. Sucks, but at least the Eublaberus genus hasn't given you much issue. I feel Pycnoscelus may have similar behavior/traits as well, so it may be worth a shot. Yeah species like P. striatus, P. nigra, P. tenebridgera are some of my favorites. Potentially good feeders as well for bare bottom enclosures or in smooth sided food bowls as the smaller nymphs cannot climb, but adults can. Only con is they're much smaller bodied than Eublaberus sp.

I haven't had any major issues with roach allergies, but possibly Pycnoscelus species might give you a similar result as Eublaberus sp. Not a guarantee of course, but i keep the genus fairly similar to Eublaberus species. So I would theorize they might be a viable alternative. Maybe some others more familiar with roach allergies may be able to assist further. I do know many people do react fairly badly to hissers though in particular, but are ok with other species. Lucihormetica might work out to a degree as well, but nothing is certain.

Hi, with African bullet roaches I tend to keep mine on 1" of dry coconut fiber substrate with 1/3-1/4 of the enclosure moist and some moss in a corner or 2. They enjoy mainly hiding under cork pieces or the leaf litter i provide for them. They seem to be fairly tolerant to drying out, but their ootheca seem to need a bit of moisture to hatch of course. Which is why I mist them weekly. This allows them to drink a bit and for the ootheca to hatch well. For heat I have kept them from room temp and up in the mid 80's. They seem to do fine at cooler temps, but they are most productive at around 80°F if provided. My staple foods are apples and fish flake, but they should take other fruits/vegetables/feeds. Overall I find them very easy and prolific under optimal conditions. Adults and mid sized nymphs are striking with their mostly black bodies with tinged of deep reds/oranges on the them as well. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me!

I do think any Therea species would look awesome in there, willing you have many adults in there at once, just unfortunate they don't live long once mature, which may leave the enclosure looking empty for a while. Also maybe some Lucihormetica or Hormetica like you said would be nice. I find my adult Lucihormetica verrucosa like to hang out on the surface on top of bark and such, but I do have a good amount of adults in one enclosure, and it might just be they are a bit crowded. Other than that maybe some large Blaberus species like Blaberus giganteus or even Archimandrita species would make use of it. If you had a way to contain the adults, maybe some Gyna species could make an interesting display if the adults are active enough. Just a few suggestions, but I'd have a hard time deciding myself.

No problem, hopefully you have a female if the pics helped a bit, and you're able to identify them better since they've grown. That's unfortunate, but sometimes it happens. I've lost all types of roaches myself. Sometimes you find them alive, some times you don't.

I think keeping them in a substrate would be fine. They are a burrowing species, so I'm sure they would be more comfortable in an enclosure of that type. I keep mine on egg crates, but that's so i don't have to dig out nymphs whenever I need feeders. Also as you said it should assist with humidity retention as well. Not many downsides in my opinion except for having to search the substrate for roaches if you use them feeder insects, but it's not very difficult as I already do that with other burrowing species i keep.

I keep this species. I have them in a 19L container with plenty of ventilation and temps in the low 80°F range. I try to keep the substrate moist, but since I have good airflow and additional heat, it tends to dry quick. A good watering once or twice a week works for me. They can handle dry conditions, but I've had success keeping and breeding them more humid with good ventilation. My substrate consists of coconut fiber, cypress mulch, and spagnum moss with a nice layer of leaf litter on top for cover. They can be a shy species so good hides like cork bark/wood pieces are a must. I feed mine mainly apple/carrot/fish flake, but they don't seem to eat a ton at first. Once you get a larger colony of course they will consume more. I'm sure they'll eat other things, but those are just my staples. Also I may have a group or two up for grabs if you'd like to give them a chance.

Agree with TJ, they seem to appreciate more moisture for sure. Yeah i keep mine with some vertical pieces of cork bark mainly. They tend to congregate together as nymphs, so they don't need tons of room, but if you want to give them a bit bigger enclosure they should be fine as long as they have easy access to food/moisture. Mine mainly eat apple/fish flake, but that's just my regular roach diets. They develop well with good heat/protein. Not the fastest growing species, but they have fairly steady growth.