Marlene

Bags are a rarity in this house, haha. There are also a lot of people that live here, so there's almost always someone in the kitcchen, or in the room adjacent to it. But I now do prep work in the mornings, so I am able to get fresh veggies to them. And I do believe we have mandarin oranges at work now, so I might be able to sneak on slice every week or so.

The ones with the "flat heads" will more than likely grow out of it. I have one that had a bad shed, and that is what happened to it. The edges kind of curl upward as well. As far as the colour variation, I've had a breeding project going on for a while now in which I have about 5 "caramels" and quite a few that are high red/orange with reduced blacks, some with no black pigmentation, it's simply a dark brown. I'm waiting to see if my solid blacks turn out, but currently those are all first- second instar, so they're too small to tell what they'll be.

Oh yes! My dubias miss having citrus fruits... But, it is difficult for me to sneak that into my room for them. Bananas, however, they get fairly often. We typically have too many bananas in the house, so I'll usually sneak back with some slices for them!

It still looks the same. I just checked on him/it to try to sex him. He seems to have a little bit of damage to that last segment that is preventing me from getting an accurate ID of gender. Its next molt should fix things though; so for now I'll be calling him "it." I suppose I should post what Bob, and the others are eating. Main diet is Tropical/goldfish fish flakes Re-hydrated fruits every other day to every couple of days (Zilla[?] brand freeze dried fruit) Algae/bottom feeder sinking food tablets (looks like green cat food) Halo Brand chicken or salmon dry cat food (sensitive stomach or grain free formula. Whatever is on sale at the time of purchase that my cat will eat). Sometimes they will get fresh bananas or some bruised strawberries. Though fresh produce is something that they rarely get. The dubia colony that I have at home with me I had to sneak in and the homeowner does not know that I have them. This is why they don't always get fresh produce. Otherwise they'd have a salad every week!

I have bottom feeder fish food that has algae as an ingredient and my roaches LOVE it. They also have absolutely NO decrease in appetite. I have pigs for roaches, haha! They never stop eating! Especially my one adult male dubia, he will steal food from other roaches and is always the first to find the food.

I put a few other nymphs with him, I felt bad keeping him alone, haha!

If there have been sudden changes in temp/weather that could have affected them, than that could be it. I know I lost a lot of Fuscas to sudden temp changes before. Otherwise, my only thought would have to be the age of some, and the weak being pushed away from the food by other roaches so they eventually starve. I have a few dubias that, despite them being full, they will steal the food from another dubia and run off with it. Is there anything different that you do/did with the two species that had a massive die off than with the other species?

I've been keeping track of one of my nymphs since I first noticed it. This will be where I post progression pictures of this particular nymph as it grows into adulthood. Here is a picture of when I first noticed it, almost two months ago And here is what he looks like today! He has been this colouration for at least four days now. Bob will be separated from the majority of the other Dubias, just so I can make sure it is him/her that I'm tracking. I only know that this is the same one because of an indentation on its left side and some parts are cratered more so than on the other dubias. I have sexed him before, but I just keep forgetting what gender it is. Once I sex it again, I will post the gender.

I'll admit it, I was one of those people that thought roaches were dirty and shouldn't be in a house or near food, blah blah blah. Though I would still catch them and toss them outside if I saw one before someone else did. I was at a reptile show in SoCal talking to Donna of Ron's Reptiles about different feeder insects and she said Dubias are great for feeders! My reaction was "what's a Dubia?" and when she said its a roach I couldn't believe it. then she explained that they are much better than crickets, especially since they don't smell! That was what turned me on to roaches, the fact that they didn't smell NEARLY as bad as crickets. Once we bought out first colony I sat there and watched them for hours! Now I have some as pets and some as feeders and have many more species, including Fuscas, dominos, "Ivories" and something else.... We've had hissers before, but we (my fiancee and I) didn't have the room for a proper setup, so they got overrun with mites There are so many species that I wish I could get my hands on (most of which are Australian species), sadly they haven't been introduced to the US yet (to my knowledge). There are others that I'd love to have, but cannot get until I move and can properly take care of them. I'd love to create a living vivarium for them! Anyway, thanks to Donna, my fiancee and I are roach lovers!

Congrats on the new nymphs! And I'm rather jealous of your collection!

Well, Ken the Bug Guy has informed me that it could just be a miscoloured molt I really hope it stays that way, but i know it wont.

I have a B. Dubia nymph that shed about four days ago and, well, I'll just show you the picture. I've been keeping my eye on this nymph and am now trying to take pictures of it every day. It has been this way for, at least, 3 days. Well, 3 days ago is when I started to take pics of it, but I noticed it a few days prior to that. Is this something that I should be concerned about that may affect the rest of my colony? Or is he just a "fluke"?

I thought that in California Rhino Roaches were illegal, but I've seen a few Californians posting about their Rhinos' growth, breeding, care and sales on some other sites. I think Rhino's may just not be on any list, which means, if it's not on the list, than it's kind of illegal. I'm not too sure though. I know Ken the Bug Guy sent me a list of all the legal or illegal inverts to own in California, I'll try to find it and post it here.

My roaches loves Nutro chicken flavoured dry cat food. at that time I was only feeding dubias and Fuscas. I'll be testing out Halo brand cat food tonight. And apparently Dubias love Algea wafers for bottom feeders. Apparently they LOVE Halo brand catfood "Spot's Stew, Wholesome turkey Recipe" Sensitive formula. I just put a few pieces of kibble in there and they've already swarmed it... Some are even fighting over it, and I just fed them a large meal two days ago.

Celery... My dubias wont touch it, and I do believe that Ken's roaches wont either. You'd have to verify with him though. I just remember trading some veggies with them one day because none of their roaches would eat it, so I figured I'd see if mine would, and they didn't.

I don't have one... I usually just took off the coolside thermometer and set it on the basking spot... There's a probe on the hot side, but I just use it for the ambient temps.

I tend to keep her substrate fairly moist, not like the tegu's substrate though. I'll have to get her set up with a better basking spot then! I thought the basking spot was supposed to be around 115-120 D.F. so I'll have to get that fixed! Luckily it should only take one good bulb, since she is tiny and she's not in a HUGE vivarium. I'm trying to save up so I can buy her a nice large one and possibly get some live plants in there for her.

Well, ya learn somethin' new every day! ;P And I hope I didn't sound snarky in that post (had a bad day at work and am trying to file a lawsuit, which is not fun). so far the breeding project is going great! In about two more generations I'll be able to possibly prove a dominant trait!

That's the ambient temp, i'm not too sure of the basking spot. Possibly around 100. I've given her shrimp before (the local markets didn't have a small thing of crayfish) as well as salmon, which is her new favourite treat! I'll have to go out and buy some snails to try out on her.

She's probably grown about 1/3" - 1/2" since those photos were taken. She eats almost as much and just as often as the tegus do. I kept the tank (on the hot side) at around 95 deg. F. She's also been through multiple moves (I'm a bit nomadic) and during the initial move-ins she didn't have a proper set-up, but that usually just lasted a week or two, then she'd move in to her enclosure and be happy again One theory from one person is that she's just a primordial dwarf... So that's just what I've been calling her. She's very healthy (possibly a bit obese, actually) and content. She eats roaches/crickets dusted in calcium and roaches that have had liquid vitamins either dripped on them or in their water (once a week for the multivitamin). She also now has a "pool" in her vivarium to soak and poop in, which she does quite often... Oh! she also gets meal/superworms as a treat along with waxworms every now and then. She used to get phoenix worms quite often, but I can't afford those anymore.

I thought they still produced an ooth? And that they let it "air out" shortly after mating, then bring it back in during the incubation period. Anyway, it took about two days, but she finally brought it back in! I thought for sure she'd abort it. Also, this particular dubia is a part of a selective breeding project (and she's over a year old) so I can't risk her losing these babies! I managed to find an old pic of one of my dubias "airing out" an ooth, for reference of what I'm trying to explain: The above is not the female that had problems.

A lot of my roaches (not just dubias) jump, whether they have wings or not. It just depends on their flight or fight instincts, I guess. I haven't messed with my large dubia colony in a long while, so when I cleaned their enclosure, I decided to handle a few. Some just ran around, and a few jumped.

Ugh, I can't type on a laptop... the title is supposed to say "B. Dubia" not "Bubia"...

I have a female dubia that looks like she may end up dropping an ooth. It's just hanging on by a thread now. Is there a way to incubate Dubia ooths, what temp/humidity does it need to be at? Thank you to anyone that answers!

The argentine tegu will probably grow close to 4 feet and the columbian will probably make it to 3 feet. I'd advise getting an argentine for a first tegu though! They tend to be a bit more mellow and "tame" down a lot easier. My columbian has been a great tegu so far. He's hit his "terrible twos" stage where he throws random hissy fits. But he seems to be outgrowing that, thank goodness!