# How To Set Up Dubia Rub's!



## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

Hi i was asked some advise earlier and told that person i would do a post on how i set up my rub's inorder to breed my dubia.

I start with the rub itself i use Large rubs from IKEA as i have a lot of roaches, they can be found here IKEA | Boxes & baskets | Secondary storage boxes | SAMLA | Box you do have to buy a lid which is seperate.

The next thing i do is to cut two holes on one side of the lid and then silicone in two pieces of car filler mesh available at Halfords for £1.98 each. this will keep in enough humidity to help them moult

It should look something like this










Once u have this sorted you need a place to sit it, 










then u fill it with egg creates. this rub will allow two rows of creates side by side.










As you can see from the previous pi it leaves u with around 4" of space running along the front. here we have room for ur food trays and other veggies u may want to feed. I will talk about what i feed in a moment.

Here are the adults in their rub



















Once all this is done i tape an 11" by 11" heat mat to the middle of the rear panel this will give a gradiation of temps. it is then plugged into a habistat to control the temp i keep mine at 95 degrees.










Now the food i feed is a mix of fish flakes dry cat food and igh protien chicken feed. this is all blended together using a coffee grinder so it turns into a powder as you can see for the picks. with food the secret is to get as high a protien as possible this will help them to breed easily. I add veg a few times a week and this is also good for gut loading if u are feeding

I keep a 3-1 ratio in one of these rubs there is 750 females and 250 males all adults. once a month i remove all the young into a seperate rub and u can keep around 4 or 5k in one of these with nymphs. this is set up exactly the same as the adults


all the surplus males go into a smaller rub which is done identical and these are what are fed to my dragons i use the baby nymphs to feed all my young dragons of various stages.

Doing it this way i manage to breed enough to sustain my colonys and to feed 17 adult dragons and over 60 babies.

hope this helps anyone who needs it and if u have any questions just ask. now im not saying this is the only way to do it cause like anything else there are hundreds of ways, this is just my way and it works for me.

Tony


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## Anna89 (Sep 18, 2008)

Hi,

This is very informative! Thank you!

Anna.


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

cheers anna any more questions just fire away

tony


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## Fluffygirl (Apr 12, 2009)

Nice guide, thanks! I am going to start a smaller colony soon and was just looking today for info about it! Very helpful guide! 

What type of veg do you feed yours? and you have 2 dishes in the tub, what are they?


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## Jim2109 (Mar 30, 2009)

nice setup, fairly similar to mine. the only differences in what i did were to use mesh across the whole RUB under the lid with holes cut in the lid. i then use clingfilm over these holes and vary the size of the gap to control the humidity. i dont even have to mist them now, it seems to self sustain from water gel on a heatmat.

also i glued all my egg crates together into "cells" to make it easier to move them around. there is never a shortage of roaches on the floor to grab for feeding or what not. and this way made it easier to clean them, etc. one thing i did slightly differently was the amount of free space. i initially did it similarly to yours, but then thought about how hard it would be to get access to the floor to pick out egg cases, clean, etc. so i only used egg crates that fill half the floor space, that way i can slide the "cell" to the opposite side and get equal access to all areas of the floor.

one thing im curious about is how you pick out the young? do you use the buckets with various sized holes method? or something more innovative? ive got hundreds of babies running around (Turkistans not Dubias, but theyre all very similar) some of which are absolutely tiny to the point that i dont see them unless they are moving, and im at a loss as to how i will seperate them.


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

Fluffygirl said:


> Nice guide, thanks! I am going to start a smaller colony soon and was just looking today for info about it! Very helpful guide!
> 
> What type of veg do you feed yours? and you have 2 dishes in the tub, what are they?


 the large dish is an old icecream container that i cut down to make shallow and the veg usually gets put into another one of those to prevent and mould. the other is an old cricket tub also cut down, its cut to the bottom slits on the side and that is used for the water gel


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

Jim2109 said:


> nice setup, fairly similar to mine. the only differences in what i did were to use mesh across the whole RUB under the lid with holes cut in the lid. i then use clingfilm over these holes and vary the size of the gap to control the humidity. i dont even have to mist them now, it seems to self sustain from water gel on a heatmat.
> 
> also i glued all my egg crates together into "cells" to make it easier to move them around. there is never a shortage of roaches on the floor to grab for feeding or what not. and this way made it easier to clean them, etc. one thing i did slightly differently was the amount of free space. i initially did it similarly to yours, but then thought about how hard it would be to get access to the floor to pick out egg cases, clean, etc. so i only used egg crates that fill half the floor space, that way i can slide the "cell" to the opposite side and get equal access to all areas of the floor.
> 
> one thing im curious about is how you pick out the young? do you use the buckets with various sized holes method? or something more innovative? ive got hundreds of babies running around (Turkistans not Dubias, but theyre all very similar) some of which are absolutely tiny to the point that i dont see them unless they are moving, and im at a loss as to how i will seperate them.


yeah i used to glue my cells together also, but i decided to stop doing this as it made it very dificult to get the roaches out should i need to, because i empty my roach rubs of anything other than the 1000 adults every month it would make it real hard. i used to set them up so i had one continuos row of creates down one half and foo in the other, but i found that by placeing them in this fashion the roaches doubled their yeild of babies i am getting.

to filter the babies and nymphs out i have 4 other rubs one with no holes and 3 with dif size holes in these are big enough for me to put a whole create into at a time and shake it off. this way i can filter for any size i want to feed my various sizes of baby bearded dragons i have here at any given time. if im just emptying the rub of anything but adults i go straight to the biggest one that allows everything through except the adults. as nymphs turn into adult i replace any that have died out of my breeding stock then start a new rub. infact i need to start another now as i have about 400 males and 200 females all sat in a dif rub waiting. 

When i am taking all the babies and mymphs out of the breeding rubs to put into their own this is the time i clean out any frass so i dont need to worry aboutmoving the creats from side to side. i simply put a few baby dragons in the rub and aloow the to clear out any baby nymohs that i couldnt be bothered to pull out then i hoover the frass out. job done

hioe this answers ur questions

Tony


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

sorry about all the spelling mistakes i didnt proof read it and i think my batteries are running low on my keyboard. lol


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

Fluffygirl said:


> Nice guide, thanks! I am going to start a smaller colony soon and was just looking today for info about it! Very helpful guide!
> 
> What type of veg do you feed yours? and you have 2 dishes in the tub, what are they?


 i feed them all sorts they love things like bannana squash and i always give them the viens from the greens that i give my dragons. they love sweed carrot and orange and apple but i dont give everyday just a couple of times as u dont want them to gorge just on this. u want them to eat the high protien mix u have made this will give u the best yield of nymphs

tony


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## Juzza12 (Jun 12, 2008)

I seperated my adult females and males recently to see what kind of ratio i had and there were roughly equal amounts of both. How much will breeding improve if i have a 3 to 1 ratio? I have lobsters not dubias but i know the recommended ratio is the same for both


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

when u have 2 many males there is too much competition so they end up squabbling over who gets the girl rather than doing the deed itself. u prob get more like a third more babies by reducing the males and u get to feed the male surplus to ur reps. thats the idea


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## Juzza12 (Jun 12, 2008)

Cheers, will take the surplus males out then


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

just keep that 3-1 ratio and ur laughin


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## Sollytear (Aug 7, 2008)

For my setup, I went to "pound land" and got a plastic box for £1. Its big enough (height and width) for 1 of them egg crates. I put two in there, leaning against different walls, in a V shape. I put a 3 deep layer of cat biscuits (32% protein) at the bottom. The babies infact spend alot of their time in this mixture. I put the heat matt on the side. This is how they live. Oh and I put 1/2 a orange in there every week. By the end of the week the flesh has either gone, or nearly. So I assume they are hydrated enough. This sits at the bottom of the V shape created by the egg crates, raised off the cat biscuits.

As for seperating the babies, I actually bought 2 of these boxes. The one the adults are in has lots of holes at the bottom, smaller than the cat biscuits, but only just. Head matt stuck on the side as above.
In the other one, there are no holes, and a few cat biscuits. I attach a heatmat to the bottom. I then put the adults box in the other box. The way they are designed gives a 2" clearance at the bottom. 

As the little babies run about in the cat biscuits of the adults box some will make their way into the other box. These become the eaten babies  Others that dont, they are left to mature.


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

good way to set it up. as i said in my original post there are hundreds of way the good thing about this thread is that ppl can post how they do theirs and others can pick which ones they think will work best for them


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