Okay so a week ago I bought 500 mixed size dubias a week ago. And I was wondering how long it would take for my colony to grow enough that I can start feeding them as a staple for my 7'' african bullfrog (aka pyxie frog) ,my baby bearded dragon and my four whites tree frogs.


Thanks for any help

Hello,

How many roaches do they eat per week? Dubias are very slow-grow.

Best regards,
Javier.

They dont eat any roaches yet. But when my colony gets huge, all my guys well eat about 500-700 roaches a week.

Wow, these are many roaches. You will need a very hard roaches production and Dubias are very slow growing. Why don´t you breed Shelfordella lateralis/Blatta lateralis?

Best regards,
Javier.

There are numerous factors (food, cage, temperature, level of care, stock, etc.) that will affect how well your B.dubia breed or not so it's a difficult question. As your colony starts growing well you can start feeding them off and then you can guage wether or not it can keep up.

Another consideration is whether you plan on feeding off the adults or if you will be feeding nymphs to your pets. If you will be feeding off the nymphs they won't take so long to grow but you want to make sure to let enough mature to keep the colony growing. I hear of a lot of people raising at least 2 kinds of feeders-smaller, fast breeding like lateralis and large, slow breeding like dubia. If one is not sufficient you can use the other and switch back and forth as needed. It also gives your pets some variety.

Okay i might just use the dubias as a staple for my african bullfrog then. and i'll just get lobster roaches for the rest of my guys.
So how long well i take for me to be able to feed the african bullfrog with them if he would only eat 90-120 of them a week?
My cage is a twenty gallon rubbermaid and my temps are 90 degrees right now.

Well I also got a mixed colony of Dubias (100) about 40 days ago and almost all are mature now but I'm still not seeing any nymphs..I feed them fresh fruits, veggies, dry dogfood, bread and such and mist them and make sure they have fresh water everyday temp is like 80-85 and the misting keeps the humidity up. They are in a 10 gal glass aquarium and I painted the back and both sides black to keep out as much light as possible. So why are they not reproducing? I swear I once had a pet rock that died on me

B. dubia offspring are very small indeed, and can easily be missed if you have a substrate.

Perhaps you do already have offspring that you are not aware of...?

I just transfered the colony from a 10 gal glass tank which had no substrate to a plastic bin..about 30 gal which does have potting soil in it and saw no babies...I checked the dates and have had them for 56 days today, they were a mixed size colony and there were only a couple adults when I got them but now almost all of them look mature...but it's not been quite 2 months yet..I'll try that "patience" thing and hope, they seem to like the new environment a lot better and I see them a lot more often...but I'll probably not see the nymphs cause of the substrate so I will just keep watching and see if there seem to be more running around. Substrate was probably a bad idea but I got sick of seeing all the roachpoop.

Heh heh!

Roachpoop makes great substrate!

I tend to leave my B. dubia colonies alone as much as possible, which seem to work well. Don't spoil the broth by checking on it too often...

Well I do fill the waterdish and check on the fruits and veggies every morning, I try to be as unintrusive as possible..hope that isn't stressing them..Did find out they love grapes recently