Marlon

I buy a 5-dozen box of eggs at Walmart once a month. A friend has a restaurant connection to get his free.

That is in fact commonly touted as a black tiger hisser what he's trying to sell there. I have some, not from him, but another breeder. Love em. http://limberlostexotics.com/tiger-hisser-gromphadorhina-grandidieri-black/ His ebay feedback is pretty good. 99.7 positive with over 1000 reviews aint shabby at all.

I have a friend that had some escape and it took him 2 years to get his house free of them. And it's pretty dry here in Colorado. I can for sure see them surviving in a bathroom or kitchen. So far I had several escape but I managed to capture them immediately afterwards. So glad they can't climb. I just started with these too. No substrate, just water crystals and dry feed always available and feed fresh food once or twice a week. First batch of ooths didn't hatch, I tried misting but no luck. I stopped misting, now I have some babies. Do the ooths need to stay dry but humid or... ?

Friend feeds his tegu with them. Tegu and cat might not get along. Pacu (common fish in pet stores) eats anything. Including raw chicken including bones. They were fun until they destroyed the filtration / aeration system in their tank and died.

I kept mine in a clear jar for a long time, vent cut / glued on the screw-on lid. They do seem to appreciate the space now that they are out of the jar.

I clean dubias once a year, keep it dry. On a heat pad most of the time keeps it dry. No substrate. Put food on a disposable plate (piece of plastic, a lid, whatever) in case it goes bad. I keep one superworm in right now to cleanup what I miss.

For the record, the powdered pig chow (plus water crystals) is working out great for the babies. The adults just nibble and prefer lower protein food from what I can tell. So for the colony I am doing that plus a wide variety of table scraps and fresh veggies and old mushrooms. I've been noticing species specific preferences, for instance, the flat horned hissers don't seem to like seaweed+sesame oil, while red runners fight over it. I set up a time lapse cam on the red runners to see what food they prefer and the results were interesting. I just want to come up with an appropriate arthropod / home mini-ranch hobby youtube name and I'll start uploading bug vids.

Congradulations!!!

I had missed this post, glad you brought it up. I party with my bugs too, but just the black soldier fly larvae and superworms I share beer with. Now that I know the roaches are down, I might buy them a round too. That's a nice link for shelving parts. I got similar full shelves on ebay for a great price and some heavy duty shelves on Craigslist. I use them for "giant rabbit" cages. The roaches are on on pegboard wooden shelves (so very adjustable) with harbor freight foam anti-fatigue mats down first for nice looking insulation, then a waterproof heating pad, so less heat is lost to the bottom of the mat or dissipated into the shelf. You could do similar with the wire shelves with an insulative bottom, perhaps some kind of foam or wooden board. I'm almost done with my closet setup and I'll post pics soon. For the hissers and dubias who I worry less about escapes (except babies), I prefer the side vents. That lets me stack them if I need to when moving them around and keeps the heat in better. For others that want substrate, I like the top vent. Turkestan, I feel safer with a top vent.

I had that with a millipede too. I was wandering the jungle trails in Malaysia late one night and found a huge beautiful millipede on the trail. Forget which species. It only lived a day before worms started crawling out of it. I guess it was on the trail because it felt sick. That memory still disturbs me. Eaten alive...

Yah man, no doubt. When things are good we can afford some extra indulgences in hobbies, when things go south I kind of wonder what the heck I am doing. I think a lot has to do with dopamine. When you hit crisis time, the dopamine reward for something that was interesting, like a few new species, just doesn't show up (or not enough to make a dent in the void of dopamine that the crisis presents). Its not priority anyway, unless it happens to be your job. You're good at the hobby, have taught many others so that's and awesome experience. You can leave completely and come back later and I'm sure everyone will get you restarted with what ever you want C ya around bro! #RoachThugs4Life

Bunny chow is a high (~14%) protein food but is clearly not a favorite. They eat a little but take forever. It goes faster if soaked in fruit juice. About the same with coffee grounds. I found ground pig food is a great choice; it is 15% protein and super cheap in 50lb bags; cheaper than rabbit and dog food. Feed it to and make bedding for meal and super worms too. And entirely vegetable based. The baby roaches of various kinds are eating it up. The adults prefer fresh veggies more. Best results with dubias I've had are to have ground pig chow to a powder and give with water crystals always available, with a variety of fruits, veggies, and various table scraps rotating through. Dried mango was a huge hit and doesn't readily go bad if you keep the bin dry enough and give water crystals (chopped up the mango and dried it in the fridge).

Had a sick dubia, picked it up, maggots started jumping ship. It was alarming and VERY disturbing as I was holding it. Figure out it was an injury and phorid flies had laid eggs on the roach and were eating it alive. cleaned out the bin and keep it drier now, no more problems. Might be what you got, its quite common to get them in the colony.

What else will they hunt? Do they hunt B. germanica? That would be cool.

After your post, I started watching my dubias. Sure enough, the babies are always hanging out around and in the pig chow which is 15% protein. With adults only the pig chow lasts a long time and instead they are always eating up fruits and vegetation. When I put in a bunch of babies the pig chow disappears quickly. Not exactly scientific but I do think I am seeing the same thing you are. I like pig chow because it is a lot cheaper than cat food. Unfortunately they've only eaten 1/8 of a pound, out of a 50lb bag... need more roaches!

Wow. Is there nothing people won't milk? What's gonna be next?

@Hisserdude don't ruin our first chance to have genuine Dubissers !!! HISSBIA FANS UNITE! I vote we try to GMO them to glow in the dark too.

I was thinking about putting a loop of clear tape on each door edge to make a flexible gap filler it might work out ok. I haven't tried it yet though. wall _____ |_|(___ <door ^ that does not look how I wanted it to

I like my hissers like I take my coffee. Most of mine are this cultivar.

Put a football game on TV and set out some cold beer?

I found a screen door in the trash last year. I used a jug and some rubber bands to cover the jug opening with the mesh. Not convenient but it held my dubias until I got a proper bin and found my glue gun. some old thin cloth can work too.

WOW

Amazing that they were able to recover after so long being down. That's a good lesson! They are beautiful. Really surprising story. Along those lines, I was humbled recently by one of my rabbits; she got in a bad fight and got torn up really bad. I could see exposed toe bones and a large section of thigh muscle. She lost a lot of fur and it was below freezing every night. Wound dripping with puss, I could see muscle tissue and tendon drying out due to contact with the winter air. Time to put her down. But, I didn't have time that moment and she was one of the prettiest little girls I've had, so I put her in a cage and she ate heartily. I thought she would succumb to infection, but to my surprise, over a period of 6 weeks, she's managed to make a miraculous recovery with no antibiotics. Animals (including roaches) are amazing.

Hmmm. I think my twigs might have been in the peat now that I think about it. However some Amazon reviews also reported a stray twig and some sprouts. If I see another sprout maybe I'll replant it and see what it is. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003MOD2HY

I got the 10lb block on Amazon (made in India) and use a saw to cut small chunks off. It expands because it is mechanically compressed for shipment, but it doesn't shrink that much when it dries. Like those little towels for children that come compressed into some entertaining shape, but add water and it turns into a regular cheap hand towel. For some reason I feel the compulsion to add sphagnum peat to it. Mine has a few small twigs and weed seeds in it, no big deal.