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wodesorel

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Everything posted by wodesorel

  1. Hey all! Need some help with ID before my other half freaks out. Found this dude in my windowsill just now. Im pretty sure it's a wood roach of some type? We brought a lot females home in some hardwood mulch, but I hadn't seen a male yet. It was a bit larger than I was expecting and it caught me by suprise, so I'm hoping for confimation. Thank you!
  2. I think they're probably just covered in sub and hard to see as well. The last time I sorted out my colony I had to go through the discard pile three times because I kept finding more - and some of them were nearly full grown! Sprinkling it into a new bin should let you feel them since they're a little bristly, and if you wait about 30 seconds any that did fall should start moving or flipping themselves over so you can spot them, just watch for moving dirt. I've never had them climb glass before, although the nymphs managed to chew through plastic that had a tiny vent hole ice-pick punched in it, when they were done it was a 1/2 inch wide and they all had gotten out. (We found them around the house for over six months...)
  3. I've had them in my tanks for three years with no troubles. Everything from predatory to grain to orabatid to who knows what. Never affected the roaches or their breeding. They have spread to every single organic substrated tank I have in the house. Trying to get rid of them never seemed worth it!
  4. My adults live between 2-10 months, depending on the individual.
  5. Freshly molted symbiotic mites will be white. On any given hisser in my tank the mites will range in color from almost clear to black-brown. The majority will be clustered in the underside joints (which looks really freaky), but there are always several moving around on top. The big adults will have a dozen or more visible since there's so much surface area.
  6. Does he have the good mites on him? If I let the humidity slide too far down (thank you winter) then my adults start getting dusty looking because the mites go and hide in the leg joints rather than wander around on the roaches backs. Boosting the humidity fixes them right up again. Each of my adults when "nice" looking has dozens of mites wandering around cleaning them, and they are really easy to spot.
  7. Mine are a mashup of three or more species as well. After my oblongonota colony collapsed early this summer, I threw what was left in with my other hybrids that were believed to be portentosa and grandidieri and they've all been happy making babies ever since. All gromphadorhina species are fertile with each other - that's why it's so important to never house them together. It's not that no one else can make them, it's that no one wants to have them because it becomes a risk to the pure lines that can't easily be replaced with pure wild stock. My first roaches were hybrids when I bought them, so I just went with it and use them for feeders.
  8. OMG these are the little beasties I've been trying to identify for years! I find them occasionally crawling on and in my hermit crab's shells but couldn't quite place what they were. I always figured it was some sort of booklice and I never worried about it hurting the crabs, but I have always been curious. That shape is unmistakable. Thank you!
  9. When in doubt, it's always a good idea to message an admin or mod. They can double check and give you a clear answer, and if there is a rules list somewhere they should be able to direct you to it for future reference. Most of the forum software out there comes with generic posting guidelines and instructions on how to use the forum, but it's hard to customize and it can be even harder to figure out where to stick the list of forum-specific rules where it's easy to find.
  10. My critter room is 5 feet by 8 feet, so I slap some plastic on the window, throw the furnace register wide open and add a 150W bulb or two as needed to warm the entire room in winter. Close to 90 near the top, closer to 70 at the bottom. In summer the room is that warm naturally. It's really been a great thing. Not sure I could have afforded the variety I've had if every tank needed individual heat. My two downstairs hermit tanks can be a headache sometimes and took so much work to get comfortable. My Giant Caves did really well on the floor, which was close to room temp. The Dominos did outstanding. There are species out there that breed well without extra heat, but they do seem to need to warm up in the summer.
  11. Coming from a hermit crabbing background, our hermit group always recommends the largest pad that will fit on the back of the tank if you want side mounted heat. Most of the brands sold in stores run cold, and if you want tropical temps more is better and if it's too much then a plug in lamp dimmer from the hard ware store will adjust the temp down. There are no guides on what is the 'right' amount, because there are so many variables involved. Room temp, drafts, humidity, sunlight, other equipment, decorations, substrate, etc. Trial and error is pretty much the only way. Ultratherms are highly reguarded to pump out lots of heat, I've had great luck personally with Flukers (both brands are removable), and a rheostat will help with fine tuning.
  12. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/cockroach-apartment A bit (very) odd, but gave me a good chuckle.
  13. I was going to say the same thing about size. Females are noticably bigger and thicker then the males when they are adults. Their abdomen sticks out farther from the end of their wings, too.
  14. Did you sex them? The males will chase after females.
  15. I always toss some peat moss into the mix. It seems to help with both the cost and with mold growth. However, it tends to wash out the colors of some species because it's acidic and has staining tannins, so I wouldn't recommend using it straight up. It does not seem to affect their lifespan at all, but adults can look ragged really fast. This last substrate change I mixed a bit of peat moss with cocofiber and covered that with some loose Cypress bedding and sphagnum moss and leaves. Everything looks much better for it, and I'm liking the way the tanks are holding moisture.
  16. I am a little worried about humidity and temp... We live in a century home, so the basement is a little more dank then I'm comfortable with, especially around the laundry area where they keep getting found. And as far as temp - last winter their tank was below the window and it stayed in the low 60s for about four months straight. I had well over 1,000 babies this past spring. And I started off with 6 large nymphs two years ago, so we're talking population explosion despite the temps. So winter in an old house might not have the same effect on them as it does on other species. I've had lats get loose and never make it outside the critter room. I've dropped containers of hissers and had them run around for a while in there as well but only one tiny nymph ever made it across the hall onto the bathroom ceiling. I've found adult Giant Caves in the storage closet that is directly off the critter room, but again - never in the main house. This is the first time I've found any of my creepy crawlies loose and apparently thriving outside that room. It's a little unnerving. Also, hubby has stopped screaming my name when he finds them. Last night he just let out this enormous sigh, and carried it upstairs to the "unknown" container I have set up for them until they mature. That worries the most.... I have to wonder if it's a sigh of resignation that he has to put spiders in my sheets in retribution....
  17. Yeah, I have no idea where or how they're escaping. I'm trying to remember if I may have dropped a container of them earlier this summer, but for the life of me I can't recall if it was them or the flat horned hissers. (Or both. I have butterfingers.) They might have gotten loose when I sorted them in the spring, but I have no idea where they could have been hiding this whole time. Anyway, in the last few weeks we're finding near-adult Domino nymphs all over the house. The hallway, bathroom, crawling down the wood stairs (they are really talented little things, I sat and watched the show for a bit before collecting it), the middle of the living room. Hubby has found several in the dirty laundry in the basement, but I think it's more likely they're being carried down from the bathroom rather than making it that far on their own. If they were dropped, that means they've been wandering the house for a couple of months at least. Every one we're finding still looks great, so they certainly do okay in Northern homes. Hubby is getting a little concerned about the whole thing. I doubt they could breed or that the ooths would be okay in the house... right? I'm not cursing us to a super-cute roach infestation in two years, am I?
  18. You won't know when the ooths hatch out - the babies are mite-sized and they immediately dig to the bottom of the container and pretty much stay there for the next year. It's a long wait, but they are stunning and active as adults and it's totally worth it. Deep, moist substrate is a must so they can grow properly. If you can get your hands on dried maple leaves where there haven't been any pesticides used, sprinkle them on the surface and the nymphs will go crazy for them and will usually swarm the surface for them after dark so you can monitor their growth. Every time you wet the substrate down they'll also dig to the surface. The first time after waiting for months when all of a sudden you realize the entire surface is moving with itty bitty babies is so cool!
  19. The Therea species look like "bugs" more than roaches, so as long as she's not afraid of creepy crawlies in general I would think that would be your best bet. To someone who doesn't research insects to learn more, the adults look a lot like giant monochrome lady bugs. My husband who is a little nervous around the roaches at times will scoop up the nymphs without a second thought because they resemble beetles and don't trigger cockroach flashbacks. (He went to college in Florida and had some bad experiences with the native fauna down there.) The only bad thing about adult Therea is that they're fast and jerky, which can be startling since that can come across as being unpredictable and if you're already nervous then not being able to know what they're going to do next is not a good thing. I recommend putting them in a sealed jar and letting her decide how much more she wants to touch/see them. Having control of the situation is key! I wish I had done that rather than just walk them out when I introduced some of my roaches to my mother and step daughter. They were so freaked out by the hissers they won't even walk near the door to where the critters are kept now.
  20. Not everyone wants to or knows to buy online. When I first got mine I think it was like $40 for a pair of hybrid hissers and two pair of dubia. In the three years the shop had been open, they were her first roaches and she sold me the ones she had planned to breed. At the time it was worth it to me, because there was no doubts in mailordering something that I had no experiance in. The local reptile shows never had them, nor did any other pet shop. What she's selling now are offspring of species I gave to her (gave, not sold, because I know how much she loves bugs) and honestly, they aren't selling because it grosses normal customers too much.
  21. See if you can install an exterior door sweep on your bedroom door. Just one more layer of protection, though it won't stop nymphs or tiny species. Used to have one on my foster kitten room to keep nosey adult paws out and skinny kittens in because there was a four inch gap at the bottom of the doors. Should work the same for roaches if you always keep the door closed.
  22. My local shop does I think one dozen for or $4. No place around here sells them, so they can get away with the higher prices.
  23. Keith - I think it's only for their penultimate and/or final molt. I've never seen the smaller ones yellow before, only the big ones. And yes, it's only when they're hardening. Usually they molt in the middle of the night after the lights go off, and by morning if you're lucky they have just a twinge of the yellow left on the edges that showed they had molted. I have a decent sized colony and I've caught maybe a dozen or so when they were still fully yellow.
  24. The Canfield Bug Day is definitely a kids' event.
  25. I was actually needing to take a photo of them anyway. The ooths will usually take months and months to hatch. The females will leave them EVERYWHERE, so use caution when changing food or water, or if you have to do any cleaning!
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