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Peter Clausen

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Everything posted by Peter Clausen

  1. The original Allpet Roaches Forum saw its first post on September 16th, 2000. In 2007 I helped Orin McMonigle (Allpet Roaches) move the forum to an updated software and hosting platform. Since that time the forum has incurred monthly expenses (I've paid for it every month!). Now, 9 years later Roachforum.com is extending an invitation to our members to help support this expense. As long as this forum exists, everyone will always be able to access all sections of the forum free of charge, but all members are encouraged to help us support this forum and the hobby through a yearly donation of $14. Unlike other forums this won't give you any additional benefits or privileges. It will only allow you to support the continuation of this forum and the hobby you love. And it will move you from the general "Member" group to the "Forum Supporter" group (in green text). It has been my pleasure to help Orin bring this forum into a modern software platform. In 2007 we painstakingly (mostly Orin) moved every single original post from the old guestbook style forum format to the new software set. He has done the bulk of all the moderating work for 16 years, has written the book we all love and originally cultivated nearly all of the most popular species that now grace our growing hobby. We appreciate sharing this hobby with all forum members, including all the businesses that sell roaches. Please consider showing your support through a yearly contribution of $14 payable via PayPal to peter "at" bugsincyberspace.com If you make the donation, please include your display name in the paypal payment "notes" section to ensure that your account will be moved to the Forum Supporter member group in green text. For other non-PayPal donation methods please send an email to that same email address, or a private message to me.
  2. Welcome, Tex. A decade or so ago there used to be an online seller named Golden Phoenix Exotica. Your intro reminds me of an animated gift/banner he used to run on the forums. His rotating banner/image was a series of three that read in order... Mom Said No... Dad Said When You're Older... The Time is Now! It was my favorite, and my second favorite was an animated banner by Roachman (Richie) where it showed a big hissing roach that made it onto his tongue in the last banner image. (All you people with more than 4 lines in your signature area, please cut it down to 4. It prevents excessive scrolling on the forum. Drop a comma or two!)
  3. At about 75 degrees, my Princisia vanwaerebecki consistently produce as well as my G. portentosa. Elliptorhina javanica are right up there too. G. oblongonota aren't too shabby, but for whatever reason the G. grandidieri seem to need more heat than I give them. I think one of the reasons a lot of people think the G. portentosa do especially well is that they are cheaply acquired and most people tend to have a larger founder colony of them (which naturally produces more nymphs in that exponential sort of way).
  4. 20 seconds of my life I'll never get back. For some reason this is one commercial that's always tickled me. or this one... or this one... And by the time you get done watching those you'll be as old as I am now.
  5. Wow, that's a little bit of a trek down memory lane. Has it really been 7 years since the forum conversion? I don't have many of those sites mentioned in the first thread. Bidabug failed miserably and the wiki site was sort of supplemental to it, and just too much for me to manage (and pay for) outside of everything else. In the last seven years BIC has really expanded. Here is a link to the old version of the website in an online archive (a fairly interesting page), and back when things were a little different in June of 2005 (seven years after I first created the website, but it had a different name for the first 5 of those years). https://web.archive....ecies_list.html Now I stay busy enough with BIC, Mantidforum, Beetleforum and DeadInsects.net, in addition to this forum. We all live in a very fortunate place in time. Neither the past nor the future probably offer the same opportunities we enjoy as contemporary cyber-naturalists.
  6. We need about a dozen members to check in here and indicate their interest. 12 members, 12 months. There is only ever a contest if more than 12 people submit photos. Then it becomes a contest for the only 12 spots. Once we have all the submissions in, we set up a poll and members vote in the Top 12.
  7. Just to be clear, if you might be interested in participating in the contest, please post your interest in this thread. We need a good handful of people to show interest to make it worth the time to do it. Also, if you want to offer help in working on the contest and calendar, please PM me. It will require some back and forth discussion that will bog down this thread. Thanks!
  8. Oh, I think it is terribly interesting to see what hybrids look like (and sometimes terribly tempting to share them with others twice as excited about them and half as responsible)!
  9. Nobody has said it yet, so I'll just pop it out. Hybrids are generally frowned upon and you'll often get a lot of flack for promoting intentional or even accidental hybrids on public forums. I try not to preach about what people do in their tanks because animals don't really belong in tanks anyway and we're all hypocrites for that reason alone. But you might want to prepare yourself for some negative feedback (to put it nicely) if you continue posting info. about hybrids across the internet. Again, I'm surprised we are ten posts in on this thread and nobody has mentioned this yet. This is an info. only post I'm making here. I've seen a lot of people deal with this issue in very unconstructive ways. Their argument usually centers around how these two species do not meet in nature and therefore should not meet in captivity either (because it is "unnatural").
  10. We do one over at Mantidforum each year and it is a lot of work. In years past we have scraped a calendar or two together here on Roachforum, but I can barely keep up with the approving of new members against the spammer database between the three forums, these days. If somebody wants to volunteer to put the calendar together once the submissions are all in, I think I can work alongside that individual to make this happen. It's actually quite easy to follow the calendar template instructions. My thought is to create a new section of the forum and temporarily promote a volunteer to moderate that section of the forum through the contest (to make sure that people are following the rules from beginning to end with respect to photo requirements, for example). So, thanks to Dubia Dynasty for the suggestion. We'll hold this thread open to any volunteers that want to be considered for helping out with the contest (i.e. doing most of the work), and gauge general interest along the way. Since it has been a week and a half since you posted the idea, I would like to see a few more members posting in this thread to indicate their interest in participating. I guess I should quickly say that these calendar "contests" consist of members taking decent quality photos of their pet roaches and submitting them to an open thread (as yet to be created). If we get more submissions than months it does become a contest where members vote in the best 12 photos. More details to follow (if interest warrants it)...
  11. I donated to this project. Please check it out and consider helping them out! http://www.rockethub.com/projects/41273-blue-beetle-genome-project
  12. Our beardies have always loved dubia (7 or so years now). When I drop the roaches in the cage they usually land on their backs. The dragons aren't as interested them until they right themselves and begin to move away. Sometimes the roaches begin to burrow into the sand and I have to flick them back out. We keep our dragons pretty warm and feed them every other day. Their staples are kale and dubia, and though they get a smattering of other things these are their favorites. One is definitely not a picky eater, while the other has always preferred a carnivorous diet (but still gets both).
  13. I'm a little addicted to Rihanna too. What's the name of the song/video?
  14. I provide textured vertical surfaces for this species to molt off of. Still, I do see a slightly higher percentage of mismolts with them than other roaches. Their bulky tankmates may be the cause of this through disturbing molting individuals.
  15. We're due for an update anyway, so I'll try to get that sorted during the extra holiday time off.
  16. Yes, we accept donations! Oh, I thought you were asking if we accept donations for supporting the forum. Darn! I suppose I should probably open a new group on this forum as we have on Mantidforum for "Forum Supporters". It would help me out with the $25 or whatever I pay per month. Still, I know that Orin's time in with moderator is probably the more valuable of the two forms of support. Anyway, if you put some egg crates in there or any other "furniture" that increases surface area, it helps with the colony vs. moderate cage-size issue.
  17. I can offer the Pacific dampwoods most times of the year with a little notice, or on trade! I'm sure Wards charges an arm and a leg, but I could be wrong.
  18. No worries, S. Hartzog. I don't recall your emailing me about them. So many people have and between the three forums (and others) I am totally lost on who's who most of the time. I'll check back here in a day or two. I'm off to hopefully collect more Parcoblatta americana in the morning!
  19. Okay, here's the deal. I acquired a breeding colony of these roaches a year or so ago with the understanding that I would breed them and distribute them to the US hobby. Their scientific name is Simandoa conserfariam, with the latter meaning "to conserve" and it is in that spirit that I have initially offered them to our members here: Orin, Mr. Crackerpants, Zephyr and blatta70. What's the big deal? These roaches (originally) came from a mine in Africa that was apparently mined for bauxite and they are not known from any other place. Their one habitat is gone, meaning that captivity is the only place they exist. Anyway, I have another lot of 8 of them that I want to send to somebody. So, we're going to let the membership here decide who should get the next batch of them. I am specifically requesting that no member here submits their own name as a candidate. If you submit your own name or plead on your own behalf in any way, you'll be disqualified not only from getting this next batch, but quite likely have your own name moved down the list a rung (or ladder) or two. What I am requesting here is for our membership on this forum to form a consensus for who is mostly likely to do a fantastic job in helping us to perpetuate the existence of this species. Who will keep them alive and share them with others? Sorry, but this offer is only open to US members of this forum. I can't ship internationally. Also, please, nobody send me PM's to ask for these or to be on a list for them. When the next batch comes available I will be offering them in similar fashion. I will be covering shipping costs, as well. Here's a video I shot of the species when I first received them.
  20. Decided to look for an introduction post from you since you mentioned work on mayflies in another thread. I collect quite a few semi-aquatic insects including caddisflies. Do you have any experience keying them out to family? I see quite a few species in my own backyard (usually at the UV lights I set up every night the temps are over 55 degrees or so).
  21. Thanks for forwarding the message, Orin. The forum had an issue recently and would not approve new members. That issue was corrected yesterday, in fact, and it's updated to the newest software version 3.4.5. You may notice that we run an older version here on the roach forum because it's really stable. Not incidentally, THIS is also by far the most drama free forum I have ever seen. Thanks to all for that! Also, here is a link to Beetleforum if anybody would like to check it out: http://beetleforum.net/forums/
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