Hi all,
Last October I ordered a few banana roaches from roach crossing. It took me a bit to figure out their husbandry, but after some initial tinkering they started doing very well. And now they are very numerous. I'm honestly not sure how many hundreds of roaches there are. I love flipping through their cover and seeing and hearing all of them scatter. It is like a rain stick! Now that there are so many I am thinking about optimal husbandry again.
I have the colony in a black plastic bin. See:
http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/kis-bi-box-large-40l-container-black-kisbb40lbk
There is a few inches of ecoearth and reptibark mix for soil. I have a few stacks of cardboard in one corner or sometimes propped up against the wall. The roaches generally live in soil in the corners or on, under, or in the cardboard. Now that I have so many roaches the cardboard deteriorates quickly. The lid fits pretty tightly, but I still add a layer of vasoline. Some banana roaches do end up in my hisser bins on occasionally, but the escape rate is pretty low. I feed the roaches aquatic turtle pellets and whatever fruit and vegetable scraps I have handy. They have a dish of water crystals, but the bin is usually plenty moist. I recently drilled a few holes in the top of the bin for ventilation, but for the last few months there was no ventilation and they were fine with only fanning the bin out every day or so. The colony also has sow bug isopods that I added, and some sort of spring tail that found their own way in the colony. The colony sits on a heat mat, I am not sure off hand what the temperature is in the bin.
Any suggestions for upkeep of the colony? I am recently finding many dead roaches, but they are all adults and I understand this species is not very long lived. I have never found a dead nymph and there are still a few hundred adults left so I am not incredibly concerned. Should I be concerned? With my hissers, I can remove roaches, sift out frass, and add new substrate as needed. But the banana roaches are everywhere in their bin, I'm not sure how you would even clean the soil or anything else in the bin. When they shred the cardboard enough I remove it and add new pieces. But I'm not sure what else to do. What do you guys do to ensure your colonies stay healthy as they grow? I was intending to use these for teaching and research, but so far they have been mostly pets. I am not using them as a feeder colony, so my colony will continue to grow and grow.
Last October I ordered a few banana roaches from roach crossing. It took me a bit to figure out their husbandry, but after some initial tinkering they started doing very well. And now they are very numerous. I'm honestly not sure how many hundreds of roaches there are. I love flipping through their cover and seeing and hearing all of them scatter. It is like a rain stick! Now that there are so many I am thinking about optimal husbandry again.
I have the colony in a black plastic bin. See:
http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/kis-bi-box-large-40l-container-black-kisbb40lbk
There is a few inches of ecoearth and reptibark mix for soil. I have a few stacks of cardboard in one corner or sometimes propped up against the wall. The roaches generally live in soil in the corners or on, under, or in the cardboard. Now that I have so many roaches the cardboard deteriorates quickly. The lid fits pretty tightly, but I still add a layer of vasoline. Some banana roaches do end up in my hisser bins on occasionally, but the escape rate is pretty low. I feed the roaches aquatic turtle pellets and whatever fruit and vegetable scraps I have handy. They have a dish of water crystals, but the bin is usually plenty moist. I recently drilled a few holes in the top of the bin for ventilation, but for the last few months there was no ventilation and they were fine with only fanning the bin out every day or so. The colony also has sow bug isopods that I added, and some sort of spring tail that found their own way in the colony. The colony sits on a heat mat, I am not sure off hand what the temperature is in the bin.
Any suggestions for upkeep of the colony? I am recently finding many dead roaches, but they are all adults and I understand this species is not very long lived. I have never found a dead nymph and there are still a few hundred adults left so I am not incredibly concerned. Should I be concerned? With my hissers, I can remove roaches, sift out frass, and add new substrate as needed. But the banana roaches are everywhere in their bin, I'm not sure how you would even clean the soil or anything else in the bin. When they shred the cardboard enough I remove it and add new pieces. But I'm not sure what else to do. What do you guys do to ensure your colonies stay healthy as they grow? I was intending to use these for teaching and research, but so far they have been mostly pets. I am not using them as a feeder colony, so my colony will continue to grow and grow.
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