Post your roach setups :)

[prettyinpink]

Hopefully there isn't already a post of this.

I'd love to see how all you have your roach colonies set up! :main_thumbsup:

I'm going to start breeding roaches (after a little bit more research, to make sure I have it ALL right) since everyone seems to say it's so easy and their leos love them, also heard beardies love them so it's a win win :main_yes:

Also, do you only breed roaches? If not what else to you guys breed along with your roaches. I'd love to have a variety of feeders...but I think I may end up buying the rest. I HATE crickets, so I will not be breeding them. They seem to multiply without even me trying to breed them with I used to keep 1k of them. :main_no:

I heard that supers are a lot harder to breed than mealies. I wanted to breed supers so both my beardies and my leos could eat the same of what I ended up breeding.

Thanks guys!

 

[ChickenChump]

I'm wayyy to lazy to resize the pics...lol. Edited them out. :/

 

[prettyinpink]

I'm wayyy to lazy to resize the pics...lol. Edited them out. :/

:main_laugh: I just saved them to my computer so I could actually SEE them lol.

 

[ncbeast]

I would like to see this too...

 

[Merriweather]

Mine isnt amazing... Tupperware, egg carton condos, a couple dishes... I'd like to see how other people do their water dishes, mine isnt too effective for the roly poly babies.
I feed them cat food with ground cereal, fluckers cricket food, and then i give them bits of fruit and my crested geckos uneated CGD. They love the CGD.

 

[Chestersmom]

I keep mine in a rubber maid tote with egg cartons and a couple paper towel rolls. I work at subway so I take the lids from the 1 gallon dressing jugs and use those as dishes. I bought a bag of roach chow when I got my starter kit. I only breed dubia. I will occasionaly buy supers and mealies.

 

[Reborn]

Mine are in tubs(like the others) 2 breeding groups in 6qt tubs(around 20-30 in each(breeders)) with egg cartons and papertowel rolls/toilet paper rolls. A food dish i made outta a water bottle(cut the bottom off and melted the sides. My food consists of dog food, milk bones, ceral, oats, and baby food all mixed into one. the veggies i just throw in and removed every other day or so and replace them. they're on a heating pad(hooked up the a thermostat) and get misted every day. So far ive pulled well over 1000 babies outta them. Babies i put together for the most part till there a bit bigger then move them to a different tub. Ive read(and found out) that to many in one space results in mising antina and lose of legs. I breed both Dubias and "red racer" roachs for my geckos. there set ups are bascially the same.

I also breed mealworms and TRYING to breed superworms lol. it is alot harder. The baby superworms are eating eachother despite having veggies....Im with ya tho! Crickets SUCK. i just buy them using 7 dozen a week.

 

[Desdemona]

For the water gel I took a plastic container and cut three small holes in the bottom. It let's the gel last longer. Got the idea off a guy on youtube. He also took a pop bottle and put holes in the lid with a thumb tack to add moisture. I did that but I think my bottle got tossed, ha. Need to add that to mine.

How fast do roaches eat the chow? I don't have a lot of adults yet (should have more this week) but I don't really notice them eatting the food down. I have bought "roach chow" right now but will make my own when I run out.

 

[ChickenChump]

For the water gel I took a plastic container and cut three small holes in the bottom. It let's the gel last longer. Got the idea off a guy on youtube. He also took a pop bottle and put holes in the lid with a thumb tack to add moisture. I did that but I think my bottle got tossed, ha. Need to add that to mine.

How fast do roaches eat the chow? I don't have a lot of adults yet (should have more this week) but I don't really notice them eatting the food down. I have bought "roach chow" right now but will make my own when I run out.

My main colony (3,000+) can go through a pound of food a week. I use ground up dog and cat food, pond fish pellets (Which I have a ton, due to leftovers when I had a pond...) bran, and oats. As far as over crowding goes...I don't think it's bad at all, in fact, probably good for breeding. None of the roaches in the bin have perfect antennae, legs are fine, wings are too, but I don't think a roach with a clipped atennae will have any trouble getting on with roachy life.

 

[artgecko]

I use a medium Rubbermaid Roughneck Tote with a screen window in the top. I put a heating pad under the tote. Use some egg crates over the heated end.
I feed crushed cat food, left over cereal, carrots, oranges, occasional puppy Ziggies. I put the food on plastic lids (cream cheese tub lid etc). For water, I use water gel. I also mist the sides of the tote every couple days.

Here are some pics.

The tub with screen-window - hot-glue-gunned a piece of screen to the tote after cutting a window.

Egg crates, and food dishes

Some B. dubia roaches - most stay on lower levels.

Closeup of food dishes and messy bottom of tub.

 

[ZooKeeperKarin]

Raising supers are just like mealworms with two differences. They take longer to build a colony (patience, patience, patience!), and in order to pupate they need to be separated out into individual small containers (I use divided fishing tackle boxes). Other than that the care is the same as for mealworms.

 

[Insubordinate]

I'm curious -- is anyone feeding their roach colony a strict organic diet?

 

[prettyinpink]

Loving the ideas so far!

Where do you suggest ordering to start from. I've heard many people order from 'the roach guy' seems pretty good to me.

I see a lot of people using cat food or dog food. I stopped feeding my crickets that and only gave them veggies to gut load. Just didn't like the idea of cat and dog food...maybe I'm weird. I'm not an organic nut but I do wash my veggies I give my feeders so you could say I give them a 'strict veggie diet'

 

[CaliforniaPlaya]

Loving the ideas so far!

Where do you suggest ordering to start from. I've heard many people order from 'the roach guy' seems pretty good to me.

I see a lot of people using cat food or dog food. I stopped feeding my crickets that and only gave them veggies to gut load. Just didn't like the idea of cat and dog food...maybe I'm weird. I'm not an organic nut but I do wash my veggies I give my feeders so you could say I give them a 'strict veggie diet'

I just got my order from the Roach Guy. Good guy. I was able to customize my order to what I wanted. Quick shipping, great communication. Shipped double boxed via Priority mail. 1 out of 75 doa, overall pleased.

 

[Desdemona]

I am also a Roach Guy fan! I ordered from a different person the last time because the TRG was out of nymphs and the roaches came with a dead cricket leg and what I think is a meal worm. I was a bit annoyed. He shipped with food, which was kind of cool, but it makes me wonder when there are other bugs in my roaches.

I am going to make my own once I get through Roach Guy's chow. Greg's Exotic Invert's (the person I ordered the above from) has a roach chow recipe that sounds pretty spectacular to me. I might try to copy it or just order food from him.

What do you guys use to grind your food up?

Oh, I was going to add.. I ordered silkworms from Mulberry Farms and they sent them in a oversized petri dish. It works perfectly for a roach food dish! It's large but the sides short. I am pretty sure they will sell just the dishes as well if your interested, since they sell them for those who want to grow silk worms from egg.

 

[sambenz]

I am trying an old ice chest in an attempt to conserve electricity. I got an old internally smooth plastic 70 qt chest, cut a hole in the top and screened it, then I have a CHE above connected to an thermostat with the prob inside set to 90. Do you think this is a good idea? I am pretty new to rearing bugs.

I feed cat food, oatmeal, and veggie leftovers. They loved a leftover pb&j sandwich from my son's lunch.

I have been using Agar for water crystals. I bought it at a mom and pop asian grocery. About a buck for a pack that makes a bunch of gel.

 

[jermh1]

I got some pics, I started with 26L latch boxes with the tops cut out and screened. then I went to roughly 30 gal sterlite containers or, but found the taper killed too much floor space. so now I sort my babies and keep them in 26L sterlite latch boxes then my breeders are kept in 20H aquariums which perfectly fit 10 egg crates each, which I ram into place with sections of egg crate. I keep 11in heat tape under the back of the tanks, the front has food and water crystals. for food and water crystal I make a box out of window screen or hardware cloth, cut them with sissors and staple them together. Dont have to worry about the little ones starving or getting stuck in the food dish. I only have the pics I took a while ago,

This is how I used to do it, but there is lots of wasted space, the egg crates are around 12in wide, and at the top these are almost 20in wide, around 8in of waisted space on the heat tape, each.

this is my old setup for small scale crickets, now I use them to keep my different size roaches in 1,2,3,4. I have many more, and this is a old Pic back when I still raised crickets.

My current set up with 20H tanks, In a closet. You can see the little screen feeding boxes, thats the only pic I have of them. You can also see them up on plastic lids so I can clean out the area every few days. The tanks make maximum use of the heat tape, and keeps the egg crates from falling all over the place. I also put a few on the top of the stack to help keep heat in.

after last months sort. I throw all my unsexed nymphs into my sifter and sort them, then they go in my bins in the second pic.

This is my grow out setup, which has sexed nymphs in it at around a 5:1 ratio. I seperate my nymphs from my adults, because it starts to become a pain to seperate the new nymphs from the moltings from the previous generation.

 

[12many]

Where do you guys get those egg cartons?? lol. i know you get em when you buy eggs but, i don't want to buy the eggs. Also on a scale of 1 - 10, how bad do they stink?

 

[ReptileWorld]

you can find those egg flats many places.. some of the roach vendors sell them on their sites.. some people save them up from the eggs. I get mine either from ebay.. or there is this local Deli that serves breakfast from 5am to 11am and they happen to order their eggs and have lots of extra egg flats that they give to me for free since i tell them i am going to recycle them.

so Deli's
supermarkets
farmers markets
bagel shops
bakery's

anywhere you think they go through lots of eggs. :main_thumbsup: