Manuel_P

watch out with the holes you make, the L1 nymphs are tiny... I keep them in a plastic box (BraPlast) with two big holes covered with extremely fine metal mesh

cool video But it looks more like stridulation with the wings/abdomen to me, than "hissing"

Thank you for your answers! Didn't know that they were only commensal, interesting. How would I even be able to remove the mites?

Hi I got a group of P. vanwaerebeki "Big" today. I just noticed that the bigger ones all have mites on their body. relatively big mites, to be exact. They are brown and move around a bit, some are stationary. The mites are bigger and darker than the ones pictured in this thread Well, I know that "Princisia" and Gromphadorrhina sp. often have symbiotic mites on them, which apparently even prolong their lifespan.. Now I´m wondering, what are these? Parasites? Symbionts? And what should I do to remove them (if parasitic)? Will post pics tomorrow Can anyome of you please post a picture of the symbiotic mites please? I can´t seem to find any good ones Sorry if it´s obvious, but none of my roaches had mites until now, not even the other hissers.. EDIT: Well, I just found a pic online, they look like an Androlaelaps sp. Should I still remove them?

they can cohabitate with snails, but would outcompete shrimp

If your tank is not too hot, they do really well in a planted tank. They also reproduce fairly quickly. I had Asellus aquaticus, they were fairly interesting. I was recently thinking about keeping them again. I would say, go for it!

one more pic of the P. expansus

I wouldn't do it Why? I don't really want to get too specific, but think about mold, grain mites, bacteria, roach poop mixed with the grains they eat..

Panchlora sp. (as mentioned before) are great for chameleons. I can also recommend Oxyhaloa deusta as a small feeder, they move quick, love to climb during the day and reproduce pretty quickly. They are not a pest species. But they are relatively small...

Then I would advise you to look for another species than H. coronatus. They are not easy to keep/breed. I mean, they are not as hard as I. diabolica, but they are no where near easy either. Also, the males mature SIGNIFICANTLY faster than females, and live a very short life. So I guess that might be hard to manage for beginners. I always kept the males a bit cooler, but it did not work everytime. If you like flower mimicing manzids, the easier ones are Creobroter species (nebulosa, gemmatus,....) When you gathered a bit of experience with these, I could also suggest Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii, they would be a bit more tricky, but far away from Hymenopus. If you like all mantids, classic beginner species are all Hierodula sp., Phyllocrania paradoxa and Sphodromantis sp. as well as Tenodera sinensis and a few others. Also, please don't feed mantids crickets, I'm not just copying this from somwhere, I've had bad experiences with that before. Also, "flower mantids" are mostly specialised in flying insects (bees, flies, butterflies, moths...), so flies are more suitable (and I like them better..) some might tell you, crickets are perfectly fine, and sometimes nothing happens at all, but I wouldn't risk it. If you want to feed it something else, there are so many choices. It will save you a lot of trouble

Thanks guys! I love them too, the bolivare are absolutely massive! But apparently the P. expansus can get even bigger, at least old males. I was told that their uropods alone can reach about 1.5cm in lenght. Also, their colors will get more intense as they age. But I only got smaller ones for not. Here is one of the P. bolivari males

P. bolivari female

Hi today I got a new package with Isopods, Porcellio expansus and P. bolivari I was really happy to finally get these two species. I've got almost 20 of each, so that should be a good start. Now I hope they will breed well. juvenile Porcellio expansus

Hi, I have kind of a stupid question... How do I know if my P. saussurei are adult? Here are a few pics So are they already adult? I thought so, because their light markings on their thorax are not really prominent anymore..

well, the roaches themselves are not too heat sensitive, but their symbionts are (at least that's what I was told..). I use about 6 inches of substrate, I was told that 4 inches are the minimum, the deeper the better Apparently their burrowas are, as you say, at least semi permanent. I can't see any change at the tunnels they built along the container wall. But they only use them to come up at night. During the day, I never see them there. I think they have many more tunnels all throughout the container It seems they like fungi, because I put in a tiny slice of oyster mushroom, and it disappeare overnight. That was the first time they took anything besides the wood/leaves. But it seems pretty logical to me that they like this mushroom, considering that white rotting wood is just dead wood that's broken down by fungi, and these fungi are most commonly Ploeurotes sp., and oyster mushrooms also are a member of this genus

Hi I have a real problem with these tiny, disgusting flies in my enclosures. Does anyone of you know how to completely get rid of these pests? I've read everything from completely renewing the enclosures to using predatory mites. Now I want to know if anyone of you has any personal experiences with eradicating them best regards Manuel

I was told they eat a bit of fruit/dog food too, but so far, the have never touched anything I put into their enclosure. So I suppose they only eat the wood and leaves. They also shouldn´t be kept too hot, just like Panesthia sp. So all in all, care is pretty much the same for these guys as for Panesthia sp., not too dry, not too hot, really high substrate (they build extensive tunnels, even right up at the walls of the container) and lots of rotten wood/leaves. They also seem to eat hyphae, as I´ve seen them gnawing on some in one of their tunnels (the hyphae were right up on the container wall, so I clearly could see one of them eat). But don´t ask me which fungus it came from, I´m pretty sure it grew from the white rotting wood. But this should not really be a surprise, considering they eat the rotting wood (which is basically wood broken down by certain fungi) What I also found really interesting is, that they come up at night and make a mound of substrate around the entrances of their tunnels. the mounds got bigger every night since I got them, until a few days ago, since then, it stopped growing. I guess they just finished their burrows, because I can still hear/see them crawling around in there. I will post more pics, as soon as I find the first adults

I mean, I have a few hundred Isopods in my hermit crab tank, mostly Trichorhina tomentosa, but they usually just chew up the dead hardwood leaves and rotting wood, the Porcellionides pruinosus often eat a bit of the food the hermit crabs get, but neither of them touched live plants Only when the hermit crabs destroy a plant, the isopods eat it too But maybe that´s only because they have more than enough food available at all times But I never tried it with other Isopod species, because I only use these two species as "clean up crew" in my humid terrariums

I have Isopods in many of my enclosures. A few of them also contain Pothos plants. All I can say is, they readily eat the dead leaves, but it doesn´t seem like they touch the living ones.

I think so too. I actually use dry sand for my assassins, mixed with a bit of coco fiber. I only moisten the area (about 15cm radius) around the water dish only a few times a week. That way, there is no mold, also the dead feeders are easy to spot and I usually take them out of the enclosure relatively quick anyway.

Were the mites already on the roach before it died? Or did they appear after the death?

The little ones look even more like Macropanesthia nymphs. Here is a pic I took of the tiny ones before putting them in their box. I can't wait to see the adults! Man, I hope I've got both sexes and they start reproducing well. Now I just have to be patient.. I really hope so, these are all fascinating roaches! But I've only seen Panesthia sp. for sale a few times in the past years (but as you said, they start popping up here and there now), same goes for Macropanesthia and Ancaudellia (tho these are apparently even harder to find). I've never seen Salganea sp. anywhere, even tho they are apparently in the hobby here.. And if someone has them, they don't want to give any away, if they do, only in trade for other rare species.

Hi After looking around for quite some time for these, I finally was able to aquire some of these interesting little roaches. I really hope they will do well for me. I hope the pic isn't too shitty, I only took the pics with my phone ant these little rascals wouldn't stop moving. Just wanted to share them with you, because I figured some of you might be interested

I use BraPlast Boxes for the smaller species. i would´t use Terrariums for roaches, because they will never be 100% escape proof But if you want really clear ones you could build your own boxes our of Plexi-Glass. I built some for Beetles a while ago, I would upload pics, but I don´t have the boxes anymore They were pretty much just cubic or cuboid Boxes with a flip top. and ventilation holes in the sides and the lid. I used these for beetles because they need really high substrate, which would be impossible to do in normal Terrariums. Might be something for you I didn´t explain it very well, but I hope you get the idea I´ll look for a photo on my pc, if I find one, I´ll post it

Yes, I breed Psytalla horrida. Nice, I didn't think they were able to pierce such heavily armored roaches. I mostly feed them relatively "soft-shelled" prey. Really interesting. seems like I can go ahead and buy A. insignis without worrying too much god damn, this hobby is so damn addictive, luckily, I have enough space...for now..