WarrenB

6 hours ago, Silverback said:

I'm only using leaf litter for sub now (I was using 3/4" forest floor plus couple of inches leaf litter on top) which they seem to prefer about 3/4" crushed layer and a couple of inches whole leaf litter on the top 

That's interesting. I may be asking for too many nitpicking details, but what benefits do you see from using all leaf litter?

Liking the progress. I was thinking of using coir matting for something similar, might have to make it stand up too!

Congrats!

I'll keep an eye on your progress. I had these years ago, they popped out little 'uns without any special attention on my part. I got another batch a couple of years ago, pampered them, and it seemed I could barely encourage them to eat, let alone breed. Thinking of trying again, but taking lots of notes...

On 11/17/2022 at 8:26 PM, Silverback said:

And just for the record measured at 7cm I was expecting them to be bigger but maybe it just seems small compared to my hybrids as I'm used to their size now 

The last lot of nymphs I had, the males all matured quicker, so I separated out the females and kept them warmer to speed things up. The last one, the smallest nymph, I thought would take another couple of moults to mature. Took one, and came out maybe two thirds the size of the other adults!

On 3/30/2022 at 11:50 PM, Tea said:

I am aiming for something a little larger eventually though

Definitely! 10l to 4l would be a bit of a downgrade. The narrowness is also a pain to clean out. The closest I've come to a bioactive setup is dumping a lot of Stratiolaelaps mites in there, because the duesta bodies all the way at the bottom proved a hit with grain mites. (Also wondering if I should throw some isopods or dermestids in there to combat the cause, not the symptom)

Also, dead jealous of your magnifica. I've no idea what to suggest for glass vivaria, I'm still going with plastic boxes. To pass it along, I'd say see some of @Martin 's enclosures. Check out his roach entries here:

https://www.thewildmartin.com/

18 hours ago, Centipede Uncivil said:

What is the brand name of that container? It's unlikely I'll be able to find them in the US, but it's worth a try.

They were merchandise from some home decor ogling show. Let me search for a bit...

... here we go:

https://www.containerstore.com/s/the-home-edit-cereal-canister/d?q=the+home+edit+cereal+canister&productId=11012913&utm_source=Linkshare&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Linkshare_Affiliate&cid=af:gen&ranMID=37353&ranEAID=*2nGiS3mv0Y&ranSiteID=.2nGiS3mv0Y-V7x3VhyiZrOEqSUcweJx4g

Job's a good 'un. 🙂 That won't start to peel anytime soon.

I'd guess there's something about the pet store poisoning them, whether biological or chemical, but I don't have the experience to say for definite.

Either way, I'd consider casting my eye towards alternative purveyors of blattodeans.

Never saw a gizmo like that. So it basically melted the plastic around the mesh?

Nice collection! Gyna lurida yellow is on my 'someday' list. (Yellow roaches 😉) Haven't had any Gyna or Therea species yet so I'm no help.

My orange heads are definitely fussy eaters. They'll eat fruit and veg (especially apples, oranges, grapes) but it's kind of pot luck what they'll take at any one time. One day they snub melon and parsnip, a few weeks later they bolt it down like it's going out of fashion. I've offered them banana skins but they go ignored, while my red heads will strip them. The rough factors on how much they like something seem to be:

1) water content (fruit and veg are their main source of water)

2) sugar content

3) how much it costs me 🤨

Protein food has a heirarchy. Soft pond pellets win over hard dog nuggets. Grassy rabbit nuggets are right out. It's like they say "why is he putting these balls of substrate in our dish?"

That sounds like a quick turnaround.

As soon as I got my Archimandrita tesselata nymphs last year, I noticed some were more orange-tinted than others. It might take longer than eight months to make anything of it, though.

Looks good! I'm fond of yellow myself. How long have you been separating them?

I've known people - self included - who knew the phrase 'looking a gift horse in the mouth', knew what it meant, but had no idea why you'd look in a horse's mouth!

I noticed the second female had a very broken up pronotum marking in the photos, though she was still slightly teneral and I think it's all filled in now. Though she was further along than #3, who had a solid marking straight off. To be honest I've tried not to disturb them too much, but I think I might have to line them all up and see just how distinguishing their marks are.

@Silverback You can attach the pictures directly to your post, as long as each picture, and the overall total of multiple pictures, is less than 300kb/0.3mb. In which case the pictures are hosted on the forum's server space. You should see an 'add files' option below the text space when you type out a post.

Alternatively, upload your photos to a photo- or file-hosting service, and embed image links in your post. (I use flickr. Although here, I have to confess my own ignorance of alternatives. I used to use imageshack when it was free. I don't know if a cloud service like google drive or dropbox would work too.)

You should be able to get an address or url from that, looking something like: https://www.file-name-or-numbers.jpg

Copy that address (you may need to highlight and right click)

Look to the bottom right of your post options here on the Roach Forum, where it says 'other media'. To the right of 'add files'.

Click that, then click 'insert image from URL'

The selected photo should show up in your post. Place the cursor before inserting the URL, if you want the photo to be positioned at a certain point of your post.

Looking forward to see your results!

Nope! One moult.

I wasn't expecting that so soon. Although as a small nymph she ended up a fairly small adult - only 55mm from pronotum to wingtips. Still, mouths, gift horses and all that.

> Polyzosteria mitchelli

> Australia

Yes, that'd do nicely.

Just read this topic and yes, it's a genuine pity. It's a very attractive morph. Though with the sheer amount of dubias being bred, I wonder why no-one else seems to have encountered or isolated something like this.

Maybe unusually coloured roaches pale in comparison (in some eyes) to unusually coloured bearded dragons.

More Periplaneta japonica. A roach that doesn't mind the cold seems very... housable right now.

More brightly coloured roaches. Basically any photo in For The Love Of Cockroaches with 'Australia' or 'Singapore' in the caption. (Australian imports, a boy can dream)

More Grammostola iheringi tarantulas. Which is why I just ordered a juvie male... 😎

Looking through a lot of dedicated homemade roach chow recipes, I see brewers yeast mentioned a lot. Never bakers/bread yeast. What's the difference?

I see that brewers yeast is inactive. Is that the main factor? Can live yeast be harmful to roaches?

Then there's nutritional yeast, or yeast flakes, mentioned rarely in chow recipes. I suspect that's rebranded brewers yeast, or at least performs the same function. A fair assessment?

Be right back, have to go rewatch Gentlemen Broncos.

Thanks!

On 3/3/2022 at 1:19 AM, Hisserdude said:

while practical

The only practical thing about it! 😅

Same 4 litre cereal canister with gasket lid and gasket hatch, and tough-as-nails beech twig. Now with more and bigger vents; hopefully chew-proof bamboo; Spider Shop vent door relocated for top access; and 1 inch of olive oil around the rim.

And a few hundred dazed and confused roaches.

Thanks!

2 hours ago, Bhjjr said:

Are the vents held in place with an adhesive or just a snug fit?

Hot glue. It's convenient enough and I think it should hold okay*, but to be honest I'm moving slowly back to silicone sealant. I don't know if it's the climate here or what, but the stuff cools and hardens almost as soon at it comes out the gun. If I put a bead of glue around one of those vents I wouldn't have time to push it into place, let alone reposition it. As it is, there's a mm or so gap between the vent tube and the edge of the cut hole. I held the vent in place and squeezed the hot glue into and around that gap. Even with the extra width of the tub it was a faff getting the gun in there!

It works a lot better for gluing the mesh into the vent, though.

* I scored a groove around the cylindrical part of the vent for more grip. Also, I think the rigid plastic of the vent helps a little. I remember sticking flexible mesh straight onto a rubbery food tub lid years ago, the stuff was always peeling loose. I can sympathise with your own mesh problems.

2 hours ago, Bhjjr said:

The wast pipe pieces almost look like wood being scored like that.

Not entirely unplanned! It wouldn't fool anyone but for free and easily scrubbed 'fake bark' it's good enough, and the roaches don't care. I hope to use more of the stuff with future periplaneta, less scoring, more of a roach hut setup.

From 13l to 18l, better vents, actually transparent so I can see them. 6" waste pipe offcuts chopped up, scored, and stacked up for hides:

Cork bark for more perching spots:

Lastly, since I got back into invert keeping I've had 'cross ventilation, cross ventilation, cross ventilation' drummed into me. But using heat mats in a relatively cool room, I still got pretty bad condensation on the room-facing side, except under the vents. I figured that whatever way the air flowed, there still needed to be a little top ventilation along the edge, to wick away that excess moisture. So I taped down a strip of graph paper on the lid and drilled some 1mm holes this afternoon.

Thanks!

"Two for two"

I should've said 'two out of three',  honestly. The initial failure being what gave me a thing for recording and crowing about their growth.

One more to go, but she's significantly smaller. Might take her another couple of moults before she can sit at the grown-up table.

12 hours ago, minionsonice said:

My group of 1.2 has turned into many x 100+ now…

Haha, excellent! I hope I can have half as much success with my own giant roaches.

On 5/19/2019 at 11:19 AM, Guest Mushroompizza said:

I am noticing that they don’t really eat that much as adults, I raised them on fruits and kibble. They don’t seem to touch the kibble at all anymore and what’s being eaten is far less than when they were nymphs

Something I've noticed with A. tesselata. I even wonder how the nymphs manage to grow when they seem to subsist on a few nibbles every few days.

Do you have any photos of your giganteus colony? That's something I wouldn't mind seeing.

A while ago my first female nymph succesfully matured:

Today, two for two.