Salzy

Thanks for the suggestions. I did a complete overhaul of the bins and everything on Monday night. I hand sorted every single adult and large nymph and anything that even had a missing leg or walked funny or anything I tossed out. I was still able to save probably 75% of them, since they appeared healthy and could still move quickly. I'll continue to sort them out once a week or something to make sure I'm keeping only the best. I've also separated everything based on size for the most part. Adults to their own bin, large nymphs to another, and small nymphs in another to make it easier for me to use them as feeders. I figured this will help me to monitor how quickly they are dying off or growing. I did notice that almost all of the roaches that were dying were adults, because I have hundreds of large nymphs that are ready to molt into adults soon. It may have just been the demographics of the colony, and the adults were just at the end of their lives anyway. The flies are also slowly going away already too. I've only seen a couple in the past few days, so hopefully that is all under control. Again, thanks for the advice and help. I'll keep you all updated.

Hello everyone! My name is Kyle and I joined up to ask some questions and hopefully read and learn more as I go. I'll be honest and say that I don't have a ton of time these days, so I didn't do a lot of searching for answers before making this post. Please help me out though as best as you can! I'm in need of some good advice. I'm not sure what the reason is behind my colonies decline, but I am easily losing 100 adult roaches per week all of a sudden. All this past season they were breeding extremely well and I was selling off the nymphs and extra adults that were overcrowding the colony. I sold off 4000-4500 small nymphs to a friend at one point. Now, I can't seem to keep them alive. My care hasn't changed whatsoever...they are still on the same heat and diet and in the same corner of a closet. The only thing that has happened is that I've had an uncontrolable outbreak of fruit flies for some reason. That is the only thing that I can think of that is decimating my roaches. I have no other explanation. I'm looking for your help or insight if you have any. Before long, there will be nothing left and I'll have to raise up the few nymphs that the adults actually are producing yet. Is there some type of disease that they can get? Is it the fruit flies causing the problems? I'm thinking I may have to just kill off the rest of the colony, toss the bin that I've had them in, and start over. Is there any saving them? It has been suggested to me that I split the remaining roaches into 2 colonies, and hope that at least one does well and helps to rebound my colony. Anything else you guys can tell me would be extremely appreciated. Thanks!