PuppyMintMocha

I can see the pic but it's a bit blurry and I'm not too knowledgeable about pests or identifying them, but maybe springtails? If they are springtails then they could actually be beneficial, since they just eat waste and leftovers, keeping your substrate clean. The ones I have in my millipede enclosure look smaller and whiter, but I think there are lots of kinds of springtails. I would wait to hear a more experienced person's opinion though, this is just my amateur guess, I'm curious as well.

No more deaths so far. I've still been noticing more mites, on some individuals more than others, but I guess overall they seem ok? Also saw a female airing out her ootheca yesterday so more babies are apparently on the way ^^

Alright, little update. I had initially doubted mites could be the cause because I rarely ever notice any mites by glancing around at individuals, but this morning I was staring at one for a while and noticed a good cluster of mites on its head/neck area?! I've checked all three of the bodies so far for mites and never found any, do mites immediately abandon the dead bodies? I'm fairly confident I've found all the bodies within hours of the time of death. Also, even if mites aren't the cause of deaths for the others, should I be concerned for the poor guy with them on his face? What can I do for him?

Here is a photo of the female with the hole. I suppose it's possible that this body and the nymphs are unrelated, but they both showed up the same morning, so I assumed they were related. How long would you expect E. javanica to live? I couldn't find any information on their lifespan so I assumed it was about the same as other hisser species. I believe the male was under 2 years old, as he was a medium-ish nymph this time last year. The females were sold to me as "subadults", but I don't know how to tell if a hisser is sexually mature or not aside from seeing them mate/give birth.

There are certainly some mites on them, but it doesn't seem excessive as far as I know. I'll try letting things get a bit dryer though just in case.

I have small colony of Elliptorhina javanica, and I've had three mystery deaths in the past three weeks, I'm hoping someone can give me advice on what to do. I've never had any of them die before this. So here's some background to the colony; I originally only wanted a handful of them as strictly pets, so I ordered 5 male nymphs back in March of last year. However when they matured, I realized that one was actually female, which caused the males to start fighting over her. Eventually I got more comfortable with bug-keeping so I decided I was fine with having a breeding colony, so I bought a bigger, nymph-escape-proof-enclosure, and 5 more females, which arrived last month (March 16th). Well, then on March 20th one of my original males died. I found him belly up laying out in the open. Nothing visible was wrong with him, no missing body parts (antenna was damaged but it had been that way for months). A week later, one of the new females passed, same deal with nothing visually wrong. And now today I just woke up to find a very disturbing sight- another of the new females dead, with a huge hole in the bottom of her abdomen and tiny nymphs gathered in another area of the tank. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume that she died before she could give birth and the babies just had to make their own way out? The babies all seem to be alive though so I guess they were developed enough already to manage on their own. Anyway, none of my original 5 had ever died in the year since I got them, and now 3 out of 10 passed in the last three weeks. My best guess is that the new females had some sort of illness or parasite that they've passed around, but I have no idea how diagnose or treat something like that. Any theories are appreciated, and advice on how to keep the rest of them from dying is ESPECIALLY appreciated. I already tried cleaning out all the substrate and rinsing decor.

Just to update this, I decided to wait and see if she has babies, and grow them out a little bit before finding other homes for all the nymphs and the female

10x6x8 inch

My halloween hissers never burrow unless I remove all the hiding spots and start bothering them, so I only use just under an inch of coconut substrate, and I spray it just before it becomes dry, which tends to be once every one or two days since the enclosure I have them in is quite well ventilated. I also have a little bit of standing water (not deep enough for them to drown in, but I don't have nymphs) to also help with humidity. I'm fairly new to keeping them, but they seem pretty forgiving. I've accidentally gotten it too wet and too dry before and they don't seem to care much

Hey all! Back in March, I got myself 5 halloween hisser nymphs. The guy I got them from tried to pick out only males for me, because I want them as pets only and am not currently interested in having a whole breeding colony. Now that they are adults and easier to sex, I have realized that one of them is female and I caught her mating with one of the others a couple weeks ago, so I'm guessing I should be expecting babies in late July/early August? Their enclosure isn't big enough to handle 30+ adults, and I don't really want to upgrade and have a breeding colony, so I should probably figure something out. Should I give the female by herself to someone else before the babies come, or try to handle all the babies in a separate enclosure and then sell them with the female? Do babies have to be a certain age before they can ship well? I've also never shipped anything living before, so I'm a little nervous to, but I don't know anyone local that would take her. PS: I know killing her would also solve the problem, but I'm rather attached to my hissers... I really don't want to get rid of her either but if she's just going to keep popping out unwanted babies, then I feel it's the best option for me at the moment....

Thank you both! I got my roaches yesterday and just got their enclosure all set up this morning! Here they are! Sorry for the blurriness, my phone camera is super picky about when it'll actually focus on stuff... The last picture is from their temporary setup yesterday while I waited for the terrarium to arrive, but I included it because it's the only closeup with good camera focus I've managed so far. I had bought a log to set over the egg carton because I found that to be more visually appealing (as these are just for pets), but the log ended up being just barely too wide for the terrarium. :/ Maybe I'll try something else later on.

Hello there! I'm basically a complete newbie when it comes to invert husbandry! I'm a pet enthusiast, and own or previously have owned almost everything; dogs, rodents, birds, fish, farm animals, reptiles (well, only one so far), etc.. However I have little to no experience with bugs, but I will be changing that soon! In fact, VERY soon. I am expecting my first roaches to arrive in the mail tomorrow! They are Halloween Hissers/Elliptorhina Javanica. I'm very excited to test the waters of invert keeping, and I hope to try getting some more bugs once I get settled with my first roaches and am ready to add in something else to my collection. I'd love recommendations for other beginner bugs, roach or otherwise. I love wacky-looking and colorful ones!