Nanchantress

Peter, if you click on someone's name to see their profile, the top half of the screen still contains all those weird characters, at least on my computer. I'm glad you got the rest of the problem fixed

Yes, I just like it to be even - kinda OCD that way, I guess

This is what I do: I apply the vaseline with a 2-inch wide foam brush that I got at Home Depot for less than $1. It allows you to spread it very thin and uniformly - the perfect barrier to climbing roaches.

Thank you so much, Likebugs! I just read about them on the web - doesn't sound like anything I want to keep One landed on my son's shoe and he totally freaked and froze! ("Get it off !!!!! Get it off !!!!") LOL

Found 2 of these in my backyard. One of them is already laying eggs in the container I caught it in. Any idea what they are?

Welcome to the addiction! There is a ton of good information on this site so dive in and start the journey

Welcome to the forum, David! Now that you found this place I predict you will have many more species by the end of the year As far as my favorite roach, I would say Gromphadorhina portentosa (Madagascar Hisser) is my favorite for ease of care and ease of handling. I have about 9 Therea petiveriana (Domino) and they are a close second. Then again I love the expressions of my Archimandrita tesselata (Peppered) when they groom... Hard to choose Out of the 9 species I have those would probably be my top 3.

If you have school-aged kids then you just HAVE to get some Madagascars so your kids can take them to school for show-n-tell. I have loaned out small colonies of them to various elementary school classrooms for a few weeks at a time and they are always a hit.

This is a great community to learn from. Peter from bugsincyberspace.com and Kyle from roachcrossing.com are members and I have found them to be very helpful and knowledgeable. When I first got into roaches I spent HOURS on this site!

Update at 4 & 1/2 months: Hisser mother and 46 of her offspring are still alive and have been kept completely separate from the rest of my colony since the March 22nd birth. There is an extraordinary range of sizes. While the largest of them are mostly males, the smallest members of the litter include both males and females. I took inventory today and sexed them to the best of my ability:

1 mother (on the dollar bill)

27 males

14 females

5 undetermined (too small)

Today I will put them back in with the rest of their colony. This is a G.portentosa colony for the most part, but might have some G.oblongonota genes accidentally mixed in.

Absolutely beautiful set-up and the fresh molt photo will be a great entry for the calendar photo contest if we have it again next year!

What did you just feed them to make them swarm like that? Mine are usually so shy I only see them around 11pm and they never gather around the food dish like that...

Definitely do not use pine anything... Like satchellwk said only use hardwoods.

Interesting! Where do you find the bio-luminescent fungi?

In my opinion, L. subsinctas are way too expensive and way too beautiful to be used as feeders. The roaches cost anywhere from $4 to $8 apiece and I believe they have a very slow growth rate and the gestation period is 3 to 5 months. I think it would take way too long to develop a sustainable feeder colony.

They are at different instars at this point. The first molt happened within a 5-day-period for all of them, but now they don't molt as a group so I have lost track of instars... It will be interesting to see if they all reach the same general size as adults. I am also interested in seeing the male/female ratio eventually.

Update on 5/28/12: Now have only 48 nymphs. Here are 3 photos showing the nymphs on the day they were born (3/22/12), one of the nymphs at about 1 month (4/19/12), and the mother with 3 of the nymphs at about 2 months (5/28/12). I can't believe the size variation! This mother and this litter have been kept segregated from my other hissers since before the birth. I witnessed the mother making another ootheca about a month ago. I'm not sure if this species can store sperm from one mating to be used later, so if this egg sac produces nymphs then I will know they can (she has not come into contact with an adult male since before the birth). I read about it somewhere but just can't remember at the moment...

Just sayin'.....

Update?

Instead of changing brands of food, you might try adding something like oatmeal or baby oatmeal cereal to the mix. I have also added bee pollen and spirulina(just open capsules and dump on food). Sometimes it just takes one new ingredient to stimulate their appetites.

I imagine you are talking about normal grooming behavior. What species?

I have some that I can part with as long as you live in the United States. Your profile doesn't mention your location, so if you PM me we can discuss further.

All nymphs are exactly 37 days old - check out the different growth rates! Sorry for the poor quality of picture because of the container. I will rehouse them in a clearer plastic container next time.

4 weeks old today on 4/19/12 Molted around 4/10/12. All the nymphs molted over about a 5-day period beginning on the 10th.

Both of those look really nice! It seems like a great way to keep your pets forever and retain their beauty. I have actually been thinking about getting into this myself. What I want to do is somehow preserve my first 7 B. giganteus, which are the first roaches I got, when they die of old age. However, I don't know if I want to resin cast them, or if I want to pin them in a shadowbox. Since you obviously have experience with this, Nanchantress, what would you suggest? (sorry if I'm hijacking your thread, it's not my intention).

I do not have experience with pinning in a shadowbox, but I think it looks nice. One advantage to resin casting is that you can pass around the cast and people can hold it without the specimen breaking. A disadvantage to resin casting is that if you mess up, your specimen is ruined. Once I didn't use enough drops of catalyst and the cast was sticky after it cured. Couldn't be fixed so into the garbage it went. Sometimes it can be hard to remove the cast from the glass container, especially if you don't wait long enough for it to cure. Once I tried to pry it out and got a huge crack across the center. But I learned that if you wait for an extra day after you think it is cured, it pops out much easier.

I would recommend practicing on objects that are not as dear to you as your roaches. Maybe find some dead bugs outside to practice on. And some roaches, like hissers, have a waxy coating that makes it look silvery in the resin cast. I haven't figured out how to prevent that yet. I may experiment by spraying it first with shellac - I will post the results if I try that. I also may try dipping the dead hisser in boiling water first to maybe melt it off? I have no idea if that will work though.

where on earth do u get the resin from??

I got the resin at Hobby Lobby. Other supplies needed: paper dixie cups for mixing resin in, wood sticks for mixing, glass containers for molds, latex or vinyl gloves. Directions for mixing are on the can.

I read that if I let my substrate dry out and then use a dish of water crystals for hydration instead I should have less of a problem with the gnats. Thanks everyone for your comments

After looking at those pictures, I will agree they are fungus gnats, ADeczynski. Thank you! I sure like the sound of that more than parasitic wasps - yikes!