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Hi I'm looking for information about red runners as I have very little experience with them (other than for feeders which I kept no problems but never had a colony before) so I currently have 3 Roach colonies all thriving and producing well a Dubia - P Nivea and P sp Giant and recently bought 350 runners adults and sub adults used a 1/4 m/f ratio and ended up with about 100 excess males I housed separately for feeders their set up the same as the dubias vertical egg creates - water crystals - dry food plus fruit/veg temps 80/85 they ate very well first 24 hours but started dying off very quickly I removed the dead as necessary to keep everything clean but massive die off continued and I noticed they get very sluggish jerky twitchy walking/movement the 100 male feeders are the same I cleaned out the colony today and ended up with about 30 healthy females and 7 healthy males and so far no more deaths obviously seriously not happy I know my care standards are very high hence my other three very successful colonies anyone else had this issue or know what it is and my apologies for the long post

A few days ago two of my Schizopilia fissicollis nymphes died unexpectantly. One just sat on top of a leave, the other on top of a piece of wood. Not moving.... Which made me suspicious. I have their death on camera (time-lapse). They have been moving around in the hours prior to they demise. Eating, walking, and then slowed down, stopped walking and after a few hours stopped moving altogether. So that made me consider that the condition in their enclosure wasn't, lets say 'optimal' I assumed they preferred a hot, humid environment with a lot of bark, and a substrate with dried leaves. When I took out all roaches and did a thorough overhaul of the terrarium, there was a lot of fungi in the substrate and the wood tended to rot at the fringes... no good. The new setup consists of slightly moist coco peat and a lot of bark pieces on top. I provided better ventilation as well to reduce air stagnation. Basically I will try the classic 'moist corner' setup. Water is provided through fruit and agar blocks. In any case, the roaches are now much more active at night and walk over the whole area. They eat well (fruit and a leaves/grasshoppers/fish food paste smeared on bark). Keeping my fingers crossed! Do other people have similar experiences with keeping their roaches too humid and/or with too little ventilation? In particular with rainforest species? How did you solve it? Is moisture a real problem for roaches?