How many roaches per quart? "Stocking levels"

Matttoadman

Matttoadman

Blatta
So since roaches seem to be commonly kept in containers measured by quarts how many roaches per quart? For example I am getting some eublaberus pantanal, how many adults could be housed in a 16 quart container? I realize this may vary depending on depth of substrate, climbing species or burrowing, surface area for climbing(carton size), breeder or feeder.... This may be more complicated than I think lol

 
For my hissers, it depends on several things. If they smell, there are too many roaches. My hissers have gone from 1 to 3 bins. I have no idea how many there are. They have a hisser smell anyway, but it is subtle. When there are a lot they start to notably smell, especially if one dies. Also, if there are fruit flies, there are too many. It means some died that I'm not finding. I've also noticed some hissers I ordered are much much smaller, and from one dealer much softer, than hissers I raised in small groups. If the adults are dwarfed, there are too many roaches.

For my banana roaches, if there get to be too many condensation builds up. I just leave the bin unheated for a few weeks and things balance out.

I think for any roach, a good bin ecosystem will let you have more roaches per volume.

 
It's usually about surface area, not volume unless you have burrowing substrate-dwelling roaches. A bin stocked full of egg carton or other similar climbing surfaces maximizes the space available for the roaches to crawl around on and reduces crowding, but you'll have to determine how many is too many in a bin by how frequently you want or need to clean a bin at that point.

 
Thank you guys for the tips. I had to order 100(more than I wanted to start with) so I didn't want to overcrowd. I am putting them in a 20 gallon tank. And I'm going to cull heavy. My toads will eat well.

 
Well I got my 100+ pantanals. Plenty of room in my 20 gallon. No culling needed since they are all way too big to feed my young toads.

 
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