Roach Problems (I need help)

[EverEvolvingExotics]

I've had my colony of dubia roaches since September of 2011. I've never had a problem with them producing enough for me. In the last few months I've had an alarming amount of roach death. For awhile I wasn't sure if it was a bad batch of egg cartons or if the roaches were just reaching the end of their life cycle. It's mostly adults that are dying but I have a small amount of sub adult dying as well. It's not just a few deaths either every other day when I change their vegetables out I clean out handfuls of dead roaches. Previous to this I was able to go many months without cleaning because I was told it's best to leave them alone. I'm now changing the egg crates every week to every other week and completely disinfecting the setup because I have tons of small flies/gnats I'm even noticing small maggots, it's disgusting. I'm completely on top of cleaning and don't understand how in literally 2-3 days I find more maggots, flies/gnats, and handfuls of dead roaches.

This is incredibly frustrating because I feed all of my geckos these as their sole feeders as well as my bearded dragon. All the geckos and bearded dragon haven't had any negative effects from this but I don't know what to do. Should I start over and get a whole new colony? If so how do I safely dispose of all the roaches I have? I don't want to get an entirely new colony just to have this happen again. I'm doing everything exactly like the care sheets say.

Any ideas would be great appreciated.

 

[Angrychair]

high roach die off can be attributed to roach diet, and too much protein, too much protein in their diet can cause them to convert to an acid, which is the same acid that causes gout,

I used to feed Repashi bug burger to my roaches, and still do from time to time. The creator of it's first batch had over 20% protein and was causing dubia roach dieoffs if fed consistently to roaches, since that first batch he lowered the protein and corrected the issue.

So, if you are supplimenting your roaches with a dog or cat food other than gut loading, to keep them fed, check the protein level in it.

 

[EverEvolvingExotics]

I'll make sure to cut out the dog/cat food in this next batch. Hopefully that will help me out a ton with all the death. I'm cleaning out the dead ones every other day but will be sure to do so more often until I notice there are no more Phorid Flies, they are pretty nasty. I will also start changing out the organic matter more often so there is zero chance for issues. I've never used the water gel but if I can find some at a gardening center I may give it a try.

I've tried searching for a quality list of materials to blend together for a dry mix without much luck. It seems like the roach pros don't want to share because they make and sell their own food and many others use straight up dog or cat food (which I don't want to do). I really do enjoy breeding roaches so that I can have feeders of all size available, especially with my growing african fat tail collection.

Thanks for all the tips!

 

[ReptileWorld]

I had the same issue on our recent trip to florida came home to a ton of dead dubia and flys in the enclosure horrible! im assuming its because the reptile sitter just didnt feed and water the dubia. To correct the problem of the flys I set up brand new bins for the dubia with brand new egg flats and new everything. then I set food down in a container in the old enclosure and just every night scoop the live ones into the new enclosures to try and save as much as the colony as possible. every i got a majority of the live ones transfered i dumped the old bins into trash bags and froze them and then threw them out. ( didnt want dubia and flys loose ). I then completely cleaned out the bins and re set that up. the already new bins the dubia were in had small little flys and stuff in there but not nearly as bad. so i re peated this process once more and the problem was corrected. I waited about 3 months and like was stated above i only feed my dubia chow 3 times a week and fruits and veggies 3 times a week and everything is back on track and better then ever.

Iv heard of people just doing away with the entire colony but i really didnt have the means to replace the size of that colony plus the flys were breeding in my crested gecko enclosures right into the direct! i had to swap their food nightly because every 2 days there would be 100's of fly larvea in the diet.

 

[BadKelpie]

I know flies/gnats will only breed where there is moisture, so how about drying them out for a few days (it won't hurt them, my roach tubs are dry).