lovebugfarm

The conservation issue is a big one with no wild specimens being allowed to leave Madagascar what we have is all we got and habitat loss is significant there. There's maybe 2-3 reliable sources of pure stock. Even my "pure" widehorns might not be there no way to know. I can be fairly sure on my e javanica. It's the same with a lot of tarantulas to. Just something that happens and it's unfortunate.

This is a topic that always drove me crazy cause everyone says they are different and hybrids are bad but there's no definitive way to tell them apart. US pure stock looks different from European pure stock compared to wild pics from Madagascar. I kinda gave up on hopeing I could tell them apart. Some people say that there's a intention on the thorax that helps it them some say it doesn't matter. Life is a mystery lol

That sounds like a lot of fun and very similar to my place lol Inverts make a very intriguing hobby so much diversity.

I probably will they are to young though they need 2 more molts and at least 2 meals before I will be ready to let them go

Hmm I like the idea of adding assassins they are just so small when they are born I'm pretty sure some were eaten by lateralis before...its worth a try though considering red heads don't seem as aggressive of eaters as lats. I really want to figure out something for my lobsters they don't seem to eat food fast enough. So I want a roach clean up crew for them lol

It's my expiernce they often don't stick ootheca and just scatter them about but do tend to try to put them in the most humid part of their enclosures.

I found roaches to be better than dermestids at cleaning skeletons. A large colony can clean a small animal in 2 hours. They might have killed the gecko if 3 grabbed it at once. Geckos are pretty delicate. Sorry your wife lost her gecko I love geckos

Not very likely people are wasteful and throw out fresh veggies all the time that maybe discolored or a lil moldy on one tiny spot. Its kinda a judgment call thing I wouldn't feed them just anything just the most choice trash lol I fed my dubia, orange head, and lateralis exclusively on trash for over a year and they did great.

Well there are 2 main factors for cost one is heating when keeping one colony or 2 heat pads are efficient but when you have like 20 Or more spieces in different bins it's cheaper to use a mini space heater to heat a room or closet. Food gets pricey carrot and apple are cheap for bigger colonys I use cantaloupe or watermelon. The best thing to do is dumpster dive then it's free I used to do that when I had more time.

Ahh yes I couldn't do that to a terrestrial tarantula I hatched out some p irminia recently that's where I got the idea but it's pretty silly I know. The tank I was gonna use is a 40 breeder. It probably won't happen since my wife doesn't like roaches display tanks I may try a scaled down version in my bug closet though.

I remember that story I thought he had a shellfish allergy and didn't know he was also allergic to roaches being they are all arthropods. Some roaches do have defensive mechanisms that produce nauxious chemicals but it's rare in the roach world and it's known those spieces don't works as feeders even for reptiles. Pretty sure gold metal roaches are one of them.

That's basically what I am going for 1 high up spieces, 1 burrow and I have added a "leaf litter" spieces that climbs some and never burrows. The leaf litter style roaches are lateralis, red head, red goblin, harlequins, p japonica, etc. That's an important point about feeding I forgot to mention. I spread food around enclosures and various heights to ensure they don't get swarmed by a dominant spieces and put in enough that there's enough for at least 24hrs so everyone gets a chance to eat. Glad you mentioned the magnetic feeders I am actually planning to make my own specifically textured for roaches. Or at least it's on my list of projects lol

I keep pure and hybrid I personally like my hybrids better they get massive I have been breeding for size for 3 years now.

So this has been something I have been thinking about for awhile. General guidelines for having different species together in the same tank. Maybe similar to how they do it for community fish tanks. So there are of course concerns and reasons not to cohabitate; hybridization, predation, health issues being transferred, telling the species apart when offering for sale. There are also strong reasons to cohabitate; more impressive displays, save space and time, using other roach species as cleaner crews over beetles. So I currently have 3 setups like this and 2 planned to some degree. The first setup is peppered roach, domino, and a black hisser species. They are easy to tell apart at any age, only the domino lay ootheca, peppered and domino nymphs burrow which is slightly concerning but so far they are doing well. I have specific "bait" ootheca I have checked regularly and neither the hissers or peppered have nibbled so I feel they are safe. Only observed issue is the male hissers like to head butt/bulldoze the peppered every so often when they get territorial. The next setup is widehorn hissers, gyna caffrorum, and harlequin roach. Only gyna burrows and harlequin stick there ootheca instead of scattering. Everyone seems happy but I need to check on ootheca safety but I don't think they are at risk. Setup 3 is banana roaches, death head (just a pair), hybrid hissers. As you can tell by now I like using the hissers this way because they stay high in the enclosure and don't interfere with the other species much. In the future I could see issues arising between the banana and death head because both burrow and can be quite dominant. One of the ones I have planned is what I'm gonna call my "wicked" tank. Its going to be all black roaches and have skulls in it. I'm planning to use warty glow spot roaches, red head roaches, p. japonica, and my black hisser group. I think this should be pretty safe. Once numbers are established I might add a sun tiger tarantula to keep the populations in check. : p The next one I'm not sure about I was thinking I want to combine my pallid and Surinam because the pallid don't seem to eat very quickly and Surinam may make a good clean up crew. Just a thought I will toy around with it some. Looking forward to your opinions and I would love to hear of your experiences with cohabitation whether its 2 species together or 20.

Right I figure the ones my wife lets me have out on display are the ones other people will like lol

It would be cool if those megalobatta made it to the u.s. one day

One of the best is therea species like domino/question mark roaches they arnt super easy to breed since there are always more males then female so make sure to get a large group 10 or more to start. Nymphs spend most of their time burrowed and adult male out on display. Gyna spieces are very similar but breed a lot faster slightly more roachy but pretty enough to not be to bad. The real key is roaches with big/wide wings they look less roachy to most people.

I mean adults can climb. Its hard to find non burrowing roaches that don't climb. Technically male lats climb but they normally don't. Personally I was thinking about the same thing in a community tank I am working on. I decided harlyquin roach and or domino roaches the nymphs burrow though. Of course both can climb but arnt that into climbing. Good luck I'm looking forward to hearing the awnsers. Its been tricky trying to find a fancy roach my wife won't mind being in our bedroom.

Red goblin roaches to look pretty much like lateralis, I think other wood roaches don't burrow either. I personally never use dubia as feeders cause they burrow such a pain.

Ohhh these guys are cool

I just did a trade with kyle I thought he didn't reply to me but turns out he still uses an @aol.com email and gmail considers anything from aol to be spam so I didn't know he had replied for like a week. As of this week he said hes also house hunting and packing for a expo. Busy busy guy lol

I currently keep mine in a really large plastic jar. Think big pretzel/cheese puff jar. So far on the slick plastic surface I havn't seen any attempt to climb. Its only been a few months though so I cant say for sure but I can say they are secure.

Haha nice I like the idea of a fat tail gecko named discord one of the meanest geckos I ever meet was a fat tail. Of course my association with discord is the character from my lil pony...I watch a lot of cartoons.

I normally have the opposite problem just way to many males...interesting it can be so different colony to colony

You can also buy plastic lids for mason jars and put holes in those.