Roachman26

Initially I bought a dozen subadults and had them set up in an 18 gallon bin. All did fine and then half of them died in their molt to maturity. Only two females made it into adulthood. It took a long time, but those females finally gave me babies. All the babies did fine and when they molted I had zero casualties. When those babies started having babies, I couldn't give them away fast enough. It became like a dubia colony... only bigger. The temperature in my reptile room never drops below 80 and it would get into the mid 90s everyday on summer days. My conclusion from this and other anecdotal evidence is that they don't like moving or having their environment disturbed. I saw this with many other species too. I had 18 species at one time. Whenever I got in nymphs, it would take a long time for a colony to really get up and running. When things really seemed to get going was always when the babies born or hatched at my place reached maturity and started reproducing themselves. Anecdotally too, I never had much luck getting babies out of adults that had been shipped in from elsewhere. Because of this I made it my practice to ask for young nymphs so that they could have several molts and mature in their own enclosure at my place to make things as stable as possible for them. As far as temp in the wild, I saw a Southeast Asian turtle study where they recorded temps in the actual locations where the turtles were found. Ambient air temps would be 95-100 at human head height with humidity near 100%. They found temps from 69-72 down in the underbrush on the ground where the turtles were. Just throwing in what I've seen.

Can anyone name this species for me? Not able to figure it out on my own. Thanks.

I don't ever have any problems with allergies or asthma. I have about 20 bins of various species, including discoids, in a 12x20' room. Some have substrate and some don't. I also agree with the above. They are as clean as their environment.

Umm... what happened to the forum? Did I push a wrong button or something?

This is only for hatchlings and babies. Adults are fine in the dry air. This simulates what they go through in the wild. Babies hide out in humid places. Once thy get big enough, they start hanging out topside more often in the hot dry air.

Hello and welcome to the forum. I'm a hisser lover too.

My B.colloseus went straight out of the shipping container from Matt and into their bin. I've never moved or messed with them other than to pull the bin down and throw in some food. There have never been any escapes or questionable incidents of any kind and they are on the other side of my roach room from my other Blaberus with 4 hungry tokays, glue traps and roach bait in between. It is within the realm of physical possibility that "something" happened, but very very unlikely. Even if they found a way to climb up and out of their smooth-sided bins, they would have to run the gaunlet, cross the room, get back up to the shelves, climb up the smooth sides of the other bins, and squeeze in through the closed lid. Its also possible that I wouldn't notice two different species in the same bin, but again, not likely. These are pretty old specimens. Probably the originals as this species is one of the few that didn't do well for me. I've got fusca, craniifer and discoids coming out my ears, but these, the giganteus and E. decipiens just haven't done well for some reason. Also, I've only ever received three shipments of roaches, the last one was in January of this year. One from James T., one from Matt K. and one from Zephyr.

I use 18 gallon plastic bins with aluminum window screen hot glued in for all of mine. I used to use the dark colored plastic bins, as I thought they would like it darker, but now I've switched to the clear bins instead. The problem is that SOME of the colored ones have a little "texture" to the inside walls and some of the non-climbers could climb them a little. The clear ones are all very smooth. My bins all have regular snap on lids and the only issue I've ever had was with Blatta lateralis (know escape artists) and one of the aforementioned "textured" bins. They are now in the clear bins and I haven't had any "escapes" for months.

G. portentosa will do just fine with dry conditions too. I've been keeping them in a room with very little humidity for 18 years. You can keep your substrate and just let it dry out a bit.

Hello and welcome. I have no experience with those species, except the dubia and hissers, but good luck. The germans seem to have a lot of good roaches.

It just so happens, I'm building two more cages, just like these for both Aregentine Tegu Species. Should be all done and planted by Spring.

Ha! I've been there more than once.

I finished them a while back and forgot to post them here. I have seven blackthroated monitors living in them. Easier to just post a link than trying to post them all here again. http://tortoiseforum.org/Thread-Finished-G...izard-Cage-Pics

I've studied this exhaustively for the last 20 years and have observed all sorts of crazy stuff all over the globe. It has been an obsession of mine since my very first failure in the early 90's. The first bit of info IS correct and that's why its noteworthy enough for mention. I used to say "such things" too until I learned better and saw it repeatedly contradicted with my own eyes. Like the smooth adult sulcatas from New Orleans and South FL who eat dog and cat kibble as a staple. They might not be in such great shape on the inside, but they were wild caught smooth on the outside. If you've got some time, check this out. It will explain in detail why and how I got to these conclusions. http://tortoiseforum.org/Thread-The-End-Of-Pyramiding Thanks for the compliment on my youngin's.