Discoid Colony Full of Adults, NO nymphs (No breeding?)

[Small Pet Feeders]

Hi everyone,

I have a Discoid colony in a 22 gallon rubbermaid with about 5 egg flats, gutload, and water crystals in it, along with a 4" x 4' heat strip I wrapped around the inside of the container for heat. They stay at about 90 or so degrees, but I haven't noticed a newborn nymph in a long time. I know the colony has both sexes, as there are 50 or more adults in there, but there is absolutely no breeding going on. Any ideas?

-Dave

[Bamboo]

Mine seem to go in waves .... I've got probably 1200+ various sizes in a 55 gallon sterilite crate with 5 or so inches of substrate and egg crates ... This weekend I'll split up my colony into a 2nd 55 gallon sterilite crate..

[Jayson745]

I would make sure the humidity is high enough.

This is just a possibility, but we ran into a problem when we set up a new roach closet. The heat tape wasn't set right and they were cooked. About half our stock of adult dubias was lost. We also had a lot of sickly ones that took a day to die, but the remaining roaches looked and acted perfectly fine like any other roach would. So I thought they were ok. But the ones that didn't die, were unable to breed again even many months later. Somehow the heat sterilized all the adults because sense then the nymphs that we had are breeding fine in the exact same closet/conditions. So if you might have had a severe heat spike to the point of having dead roaches because of it, thats a possibility. There really aren't that many variables, so if you keep on top of heat/humidity, and all is perfect, and still no breeding, maybe the same thing happened over there.

[johningeorgia]

Fascinating stuff. I think one of the extreme treatments to get rid of pest roaches is cover the area, insulate it and heat it up to 120 to 140. Maybe that even doesn't kill all the roaches but it might sterilise them.

[Bamboo]

Here in texas , my discoides seem to breed like crazy later sping into early fall because the temps are always in the 90s-100F in the garage.. I also spray them down every other night .. come later fall to early spring, they do nothing but eat and sit there.