Lobster Roaches vs Turkistans

[GroovinOnFunk]

Hey guys, (I accidentally posted this in the wrong discussion section I think so I'm moving it here)

I'm new to this forum (was shown this website on the BeardedDragon.org forum) and have a lot of roach raising questions.

I currently have a bin of lobster roaches. I started off with 1000 but the population has greatly dwindled. I am now having to feed the adults off to my bearded dragon.

Basically here is my question. Because I am a poor college student, I need to be as economical as I can when it comes to caring for my Bearded Dragon (obviously without cutting corners though).

I know that I can get 1000 lobster roaches for $29 at http://www.aaronpauling.com

I also know I can get 1000 turkistan roaches for $17.50 at http://www.thebugpros.com

I'm wondering what people here think I should do.

I do have an under the tank heater for the lobster roaches and a 150 watt light (unfortunately it's a white light but the bin does stay dark-ish) to heat them up. (The UTH is the smallest one zoo med makes which is the only one they say works with plastic tubs. Anyone know of a stronger UTH that wont melt the plastic? the 10-20 gallon size one perhaps?)

So basically here are my list of questions

1) Should I continue working with my lobsters and try to build up that colony or switch to turkistans?

2) Is it true that an adult turkistan is about half the size of an adult lobster roach? (if that's the case, then it's not worth it i dont think)

3) What are some pros and cons to either species?

4) Is there any way that I can put 1 or 2 thousand turks in with 200 or so adult lobsters that I have remaining? (that's if i decide to go the turkistan route)

thanks a lot for your help,

Brian

[jbrumble]

i purchased 1000 from Aaron a month ago and I'm currently waiting for a 1000 adult only order. I'm surprised you need to order more. I am feeding 2 bearded dragons off my original 1000 and they breed so fast that I don't think I'll ever need to replenish that colony. The new order is for a different set of herps. If you went through the 1000 roaches your probably doing something wrong in terms of breeding conditions. Check their temp to make sure its over 80 and their humidity over 30. Make sure they have enough to eat and drink. Feed off the medium/small nymphs. It's more work but the more large nymphs that make it to adult hood the more babies you will get sooner.