Axolotl

Congrats! I've been following along with your journey. So happy that you're having success with these. I love your set ups. I've been doing something very similar for my P. magnifica and it seems to work quite well. I think the verticality is key. Please keep updating.

How long have you had the bag of food? They might just be bored. I notice mine love certain foods for awhile (typically chow), but then won't eat it again until I break up the routine. If they don't eat it, you might as well be safe and just get a new fresh bag. 

I concur on the beetle jelly. Mine are nuts for the banana flavor. They also really like crushed, dried black soldier fly larvae and packaged moist grasshoppers. They eat way more insect protein than I would have thought.

Go bioactive. Basic substrate: 30% organic compost, 30% coco fiber, 20% crushed hardwood leaves and 20% flake soil. Mix it all together, keep it damp and top with moist moss. Add some springtails, dwarf white isopods, red wrigglers and the beetles. Offer horizontally stacked bark and vertical bark. Lots of ventilation. That's been working for me for ages. They will always have the "runner smell," but personally I kind of don't mind the smell ... Okay I actually really like the smell.

With that set up, you shouldn't need to separate the nymphs and ooths from the adults. The females will dig holes and bury the ooths, and the nymphs will have plenty of room to hide. Supplement with fish flakes, dog chow or high protein roach chow. Hope this helps! 

This is one of my favorite species. If you can get them into a 10 gallon, you will see so many amazing behaviors. The females usually bury ooths at dawn, and if you catch them on the right day when multiple females are digging in the same area, you'll see them drag moss and other bits to the hole to fill it in. When they go back for more, someone always swoops in and steals what the first female laid down. They steal back and forth like that all morning until they're satisfied. 

On 10/17/2020 at 6:50 PM, RFoster25 said:

I'm looking for Deropeltis paulinoi and
Elliptorhina davidi. Anyone who someone with these. 

I have both. Plenty of Deropeltis now, but I'm not parting with my E. davidi until I have a stable colony, which will likely be late spring. PM me for more info. 

I'm in awe. So much info and so well put together! I was unaware that our tiger hissers are likely Princisia. What are your thoughts on correcting the species name in the U.S. hobby? It seems like a major undertaking, but I would much prefer to use the actual species name rather than the commonly used name. 

Question on the Elliptorhina laevigata: My adult males look like sausages. They're so round I often mistake them for very, very gravid females. Is this characteristic of the species? And are they slow or difficult to breed? My females are equally fat (and have been for nearly 4 months), but no nymphs yet. 

My Elliptorhina davidi females (I have 13.2.X 🙄) each just gave birth. Any tips on helping them reach adulthood?

I'm waiting to get some of the Cleveland Aquarium stock from Kyle, but I'd also love to get my hands on pure lines of:

Gromphadorhina sp. "Madagascar - Unidentified"
Princisia vanwaerbeki "Black & White"
Princisia vanwaerbeki "Androhamana, Madagascar"

Do you know who is keeping these in the U.S.? 

Again, bravo on the exceptionally informative post. This one is going in my invert bookmarks.

@Beaker41 What a gorgeous girl! I'm curious... Did the nymphs survive? How many did she birth during the ordeal?

Wish I still lived in San Diego!

OMG. I immediately had adrenaline pumping through me. Do not joke of such things, for I will want them. I've always been fascinated by two-headed herps. Does that even happen with invertebrates? 

On 4/7/2018 at 5:53 PM, Hisserdude said:

Huh, how tight fitting is their lid? 

Yeah Corydidarum don't really eat their sheds at all, so you'll be finding "dead" individuals quite often!

I have a cup full of old molts. It scares me every single time I find one, thinking I lost one. 

Yes, G. oblongota are available for purchase -- and they are amazing. So huge and very prone to "hissy fits." I recommend placing a wanted ad in the classifieds to find a breeder. I have a handful of small nymphs available, but you might want to find someone with adult pairs to jump start your colony. If you're interested, send me a private message. 

I have both in my Therea petiveriana (bioactive) terrarium, and haven't noticed any ill effects. They make for great decor, but I don't think they're eating them or hiding in them. C. schwarzi might use them as hides, though my schwarzi colony loved cork bark as a edible hide. 

I've had this flare up from time to time in several of my hisser colonies, though most often on G. oblongonota. I see it rarely, yet with enough regularity for me to also think it's related to a biochemical/bacterial/fungal imbalance. It seems to show up overnight and only affects a few individuals at a time. Perhaps the individuals mite count drops enough that the fungus can flourish? 

All of my hisser colonies have mites, so I'm not sure what triggers the white bloom. Maybe a mite die-off? I've long suspected that the white coating may be a fungus, though a benign one that doesn't seem to readily transfer between individuals. When I see it, it's usually on a single adult in the colony (though thinking back, it does seem males are far more prone to it).

I've successfully removed/eradicated it from my colonies by treating the affected individuals with a 20% vinegar/80%water solution. Vinegar has corrosive properties when it comes to exoskeletons, so I use it with care. I spritz it on a paper towel, wipe all of the white off with the paper towel and quarantine the individual. I repeat the treatment once a week for 4-8 weeks. Once it's gone, I maintain quarantine for any additional 2-3 weeks to ensure it's gone. During that final quarantine period I perform "mite transplants" from others in the colony using a kubuki brush to transfer the mites from one roach to another. The treatment is tedious and requires many quarantine enclosures as I keep the affected individuals separate from each other, but it does work. 

I've also quarantined affected individuals without the vinegar treatment or mite transplant, and they usually die within a few months. 

I've also noticed that some colonies are more prone to it. For example, I had a hybrid G. oblongonota colony where it showed up every few months, but my new non-hybrid G. oblongonota show no signs of the white stuff. 

I'm very curious as to what it is. Perhaps someone with a high quality microscope and a biology background could investigate?

I'm curious: Why are Henschoutedenia flexivitta and Nauphoeta cinerea referred to as "lobster roaches"? How did they get that name? Even using my imagination I can't see a resemblance to lobsters. And are they both called lobsters due to their similar appearance or were they once in the same genus?

Arthur Aeluropoda said:

Find yourself some fat millipedes @SirUblaberus. We just got some #SmokeyOaks and Gordon Roachsay has nothing on them. Their poop is delicious! Best part: Nymphs don't seem to want any. #foodhacks #dontjudge #findyourownfood #moreforme

LadyLat said:

Just laid my first ooth. It took awhile to bury it because the other moms-to-be kept stealing my moss, but it's now tucked away safely underground. Time for some Bug Burger. I'm starving! #momlife #healthyeats

On 4/5/2019 at 10:19 PM, The Mantis Menagerie said:

I have kept B. giganteus before, and the timing of this post is interesting. I submitted a PPQ-526 commercial biological supply permit application for this species, and it was just denied. To answer your questions, I never had them in a decorative cage as I got rid of my colony before it was ready to be displayed. When I kept them, I just had them in a bin with a couple inches of coconut coir substrate. I wonder, though, if you could make a background out of spray foam and then imbed sand or pebbles in it, so the roaches could not eat the foam. 

The USDA no longer requires a permit for B. giganteus. Full list of permitted species.

You could use the spray foam, paint on black silicone and pack coco fiber on top. It works quite well with little to no shedding of the coco fiber. I've been keeping them for years, and I doubt they would chew into that. They're more interested in high-protein and high-sugar snacks. In fact, it might provide a nice area for the nymphs to molt into adults. 

I keep my non-climbing pie-dish beetles in a 2 gallon fish bowl and my E. arcanum in a slightly smaller bowl, both with no lids. They make great tabletop displays. i love being able to see them from all angles. I hadn't thought of putting isopods in one. I'll have to keep my eye open for more bowls!

I've noticed that my colony tends to get picky when I feed them too much. How often do you offer food? I always have chow and water crystals available, but only offer fruits/veggies every 7-10 days. Also, be careful with bread as it can lead to grain mite outbreaks and you definitely don't want that. If you're using them as feeders, stay away from meat and cheese as well.

As for cannibalism, they will eat their dead friends, no way around it. Males will also fight and cannibalize when there's too much competition. I just feed off most of the males to my assassins to keep things calm.  

In the summer if you have access to fresh, pesticide/herbicide free sugar maple, they'll throw you a party. Mine can't seem to get enough. They also really like apple, grapes and beetle jelly. For protein, I supplement with alfalfa meal, fish flakes and walnuts. 

I feed mine dried sugar maple leaves, which is another hard wood. They love it. Most of my roaches prefer it to oak, but I only have access to Northern Pin Oak.

I've been alternating alfalfa meal with my usual chow. Most everyone seems to like it. There are a few picky hold-outs, but all my feeders gobble it up. It's a little pricey right now on Amazon, but you can find it reasonably at garden centers. A little goes a long way, so it lasts quite awhile - Bonus: I've yet to have any get moldy or rotten, even in moist enclosures.

I'm so excited by this! I hope you get some adult pairs, too. What a crazy backstory for a new species in the hobby. Crossing my fingers for you.😉

I've only successfully trapped hissers so I don't know if this will work, but I've set out favorite foods (i.e. fruit) on top of egg crates and caught escapees. They come for the food and stay for the egg crates, so I think you're onto something with the paper towels. Looking forward to see if you can get enough to start a colony!

21 minutes ago, aoikirin said:

Lol I love this topic 

Please join us in our nerdery. 😉