Suggestions for Introducing Yourself

[Blatticonjurist]

1. I currently have a single hisser nymph. It came from the floor of the insectary I'm interning at and I was told I could either take it home or sentence it to the freezer of death since it may have been exposed to poison during its time outside of its habitat and could not be returned home. So far I have no clue what variety or sex it is.

2. Just the one for now!

3. Pets!

5. Does anyone have any suggestions on another type of roach I could reasonably cohab with hissers? The lab is doing culling soon so I will have an opportunity to take some more friends home.

6. Found while researching cohabbing lol

You can check the last segment under the abdomen to determine sex; in females, it's a single uniform shape, while in males it's broken into 2 smaller segments. I believe this applies to all roaches and works well for hissers without obvious pronotum horns

 

[Bhjjr]

1. I currently have a single hisser nymph. It came from the floor of the insectary I'm interning at and I was told I could either take it home or sentence it to the freezer of death since it may have been exposed to poison during its time outside of its habitat and could not be returned home. So far I have no clue what variety or sex it is.

2. Just the one for now!

3. Pets!

5. Does anyone have any suggestions on another type of roach I could reasonably cohab with hissers? The lab is doing culling soon so I will have an opportunity to take some more friends home.

6. Found while researching cohabbing lol

There are very many species in the hobby right now, and you can cohab many with hissers. Are you looking for suggestions on what to buy, or are you taking home a different species being culled from the lab?
For potential cohabitating species maybe look at some of the smaller easy to start with species. Oxyhaloa duesta, Diploptera punctata, Compsodes schwarzi, Nocticola vagus, Euthyrrhapha pacifica, and Paraplecta cf. minutissima "Kenya" all could work.
Apologies for the late reply.

 

[DesertThorn6]

There are very many species in the hobby right now, and you can cohab many with hissers. Are you looking for suggestions on what to buy, or are you taking home a different species being culled from the lab?
For potential cohabitating species maybe look at some of the smaller easy to start with species. Oxyhaloa duesta, Diploptera punctata, Compsodes schwarzi, Nocticola vagus, Euthyrrhapha pacifica, and Paraplecta cf. minutissima "Kenya" all could work.
Apologies for the late reply.

For now I’m primarily looking at species I could get from the lab. I’m back and forth between school and home so I can only have a single small enclosure at the moment and don’t want to invest money in anything I wouldn’t be keeping a whole colony of. We don’t currently have any of the ones you suggested. Right now our ornamentals include giant drummers, firefly mimics, dominos, porcelains, a few types of hisser, glowspots, and question marks. We also have Florida woods roaches that I’d consider keeping even though they’re considered pests. I’m open to other low to moderate maintenance arthropods (isopods, millipedes, etc) as well but figured this might not be the place to ask about that

 

[DesertThorn6]

You can check the last segment under the abdomen to determine sex; in females, it's a single uniform shape, while in males it's broken into 2 smaller segments. I believe this applies to all roaches and works well for hissers without obvious pronotum horns

Thanks! I’ll take a look while rehousing today

 

[pdx_skitter]

Hello! My name is Johnny, I live in Portland, OR and am the new owner of a cockroach colony. I have many questions, so I figured I’d start here by introducing myself.

I recently “rescued” about 6-8 Eublaberus Distanti from the newly opened Spider Shoppe in Vancouver, WA (very cool spot). I have them in a bioactive 5 gallon terrarium with reptisoil, leaf litter, a large cork bark hide, two water dishes and some rotting wood for the springtails.

I purchased these to keep as pets. I was planning on getting two male hissers so that they wouldn’t breed, but alas that ship has sailed.

I bought fish flakes and carrots, and I sprinkled the fish flakes over the substrate yesterday and woke up this morning to find very little left. I will put some carrots in there tomorrow and see how that goes.

My questions are varied and numerous:

1. Perhaps the most ignorant question first: will these roaches breed?
2. Assuming they will, how will I know when to expect that?
3. What is the birthing process like? Can I “collect” the offspring immediately or do I go digging for the nymphs?
4. Once I’ve got a full blown colony, what do I do? Getting a “predator” to feed the roaches to like a spider isn’t out of the question, but I’d like to avoid amassing invertebrates. A lizard is not on my list of desires.
5. Is selling/gifting roaches to pet stores realistic? Will I end up having to ship roaches in the mail? Also interested in blatticomposting and would like to talk more about that.
6. Am I feeding them enough? What is the preferred frequency of feeding?
7. During the cold season, do I put a heat mat under the tank?
8. Do red heat lamps work for being able to see them roam around at night? Will they enjoy the heat or does it stress them out?
9. My final question is another ignorant one: will they ever stop breeding or am I a permanent roach farmer now?

Jeez, lots of questions! I guess I’d just like to know everything I can as a guy who didn’t expect to have a grip of cockroaches but who is now concerned he’s in over his head.

Thank you for listening!