njohns

Thanks All About Arthropods, I will definitely do that!

I have kept roaches for most of my life, and have never had any problems, except for these species, and I was wondering if any of you could try to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. I keep them in 10-gallon aquariums with about 2-3" coco fiber, and vertical pieces of bark. The substrate is mostly dry, but I try to add water every once in a while. I keep the room at about 80 degrees with a space heater. I feed them what I feed my other roaches: fruit, vegetables, bread, and cereal. I feed my other roaches cat food occassionally, but they don't seem to like this. A couple things I was thinking is maybe they aren't getting enough protein or maybe the humidity is too low? I live in Montana, and it's really dry here. I have a humidifier in the room, but even that only raises it to about 50%. The reason I don't keep the soil moist very often is because I keep getting mites...

You can do it, but I've found that they don't do as well or breed as well. I had a bunch of Halloween hissers with my peppered, and the hissers slowly died off. Cockroaches are very social, and like to be among their own kind

It was canned vegetables

Is this OK? Maybe I'm just paranoid or whatever, but I'm just thinking about the preservatives and everything...

hmm yeah they might be falling. It's just hard to watch them all the time to know for sure... idk like I'm trying to use screen on the sides of the tank instead of cork bark, but maybe it's not working as well. Maybe I just gotta shell out the money for cork bark

Well unfortunately no one's replying... OK well I think it might actually be the humidity. On Roach Crossing it says that humidity doesn't matter, but maybe he just means that they can SURVIVE at any humidity...

So most of my Shield-spots aren't developing their wings well when they molt. I have vertical spaces for them, and I think the humidity is ok. What's going on?

Yeah that seems like a good idea too.

lucky

Yeah dude I'd really like to see that. Something else I just thought of is to use that screen mesh to hang on the sides of the tank. The main thing is I need vertical spaces for them to drop their wings when they molt. The thing with this is that you'll still be able to see into the tank... But yeah, I've found that you really need completely vertical objects in order for their wings to really develop well...

Thanks, that would be awesome!

Alright thanks. I guess tat's kind of obvious I actually don't have a lot of oak where I'm at. Is Aspen or Cottonwood ok?

This stuff seems kind of expensive, but I'd like something a bit more natural than just egg carton flats Anyone have any ideas?

They're really easy to hatch. You don't need to do anything. I haven't kept track of how long it takes for them to hatch, but I think it's probably a couple weeks...

Do your roaches eat the plants at all?? I tried live plants, but I had too much of a problem with that...

The first one is a darker variation of a Peppered Roach, and the second is an interesting light-colored Flat-horned Hisser that is HUGE!

I love this site because I know that the people here care for the health and well-being of their roaches I probably feed my cockroaches better than I feed myself. I believe in giving them a wide variety of foods and trying to imitate their diet in the wild as closely as possible. Today I was feeding my amphibians and dusting the feeders with Reptivite. I was thinking, "Why don't I do this for my roaches?" I know about the whole calcium thing, but I assume that they need vitamins just like reptiles and amphibians. Granted, it isn't necessary, but do you think it would be a good idea to add some vitamin (not calcium) powder to their food every once in a while?

Really? I have them in a 20-gallon. How many do you think I could keep in there? Thanks everyone for your help.

For dog food, is that canned or dry?

Unfortunately there isn't that much info on roaches. People just don't care enough to research them. It's a shame, as they're really some of the most fascinating creatures out there... There are a few books out there though. I got a pretty good one from my university library...

I have a cannibalism problem in my peppered roach cage. I'm feeding them plenty, but is there something missing in their diet? Do I need to be feeding them more meat or something?

This is so cool, man! You are changing hearts and minds here. Keep it up! I just realized that you and I are the same age. It's really an inspiration for me

How do you keep your humidity levels high enough? I've been considering getting a misting system, but I don't know if it's worth it...

So I've been keeping hissing roaches for a long time and have never had trouble breeding them. Last year I bought some other species to keep with my hissers, but I've noticed that none of them have really been breeding. Do you think it's because I'm keeping several species together?