# Dubia Roach Hotel



## zzxxy (Aug 28, 2011)

Hi there,

I've had my colony in a small container for a while now and it's been growing nicely. I'm now at the point where i want to transfer them into a bigger container before they explode out of it :blowup:
What are the breeders / hobbyists using to house their colonies? Feel free to post links and pics. I need some ideas lol ( i've got about 90 adults so far with a lot of medium's on the way up )


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## AOTP (Mar 22, 2012)

i bought a big 80litre plastic tub from my housewares store, then bought some lace/fine netting from a fabric shop, and whacked that over the top, also put some selotape around the top incase some climbed the sides where its not so shiny.

Ive got a few thousand in there even after i split them into 3,


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## zzxxy (Aug 28, 2011)

I've seen an 80litre clear container in Wilkinson for £6. Its got a corrugated top though. This might cause problems fixing the mesh to it. My current container has a flat roof so was easy to setup.


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## AOTP (Mar 22, 2012)

I didnt fix the mesh to my lid

I just draped the mesh over the top and pushed the lid down on top. As long as the plastic is very shiny they wont climb it.

Each corner of my tub wasnt shiny and they did climb but couldnt get out, i put some selotape in those corners and its fine no escapees!

Doing it like that means the often corrugated tops are no longer a problem. : victory:


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## daniel-james (Jan 10, 2012)

I picked up a large storage box from high street pound shop for £5 its 2 and half foot long. 1 and half wide and 1 and a half tall. Not sure on the litres but it's perfect. drilled hole halfway up on one side to put heat mat cable through. make sure it's a nice tight fit (so no roaches escape) lots and lots of egg crates and toilet tubes/kitchen roll tubes this make it very eay at feeding time as they act like a cricket keeper tube. Just tap away and they drop out 1 at a time. I cut 2 6inch holes in my lid and I pop an offcut of a mesh virtual over the tub before clicking the lid on. it's pitch black inside, warm, tight spaces and I started with 200 adults and now have hundreds upon hundreds of babies rapidly growing. So they must like it. 

Make sure any cardboard or crates inside are atleast 3 inches short of the top to stop any roaches crawling around up on the mesh or whatever you use as ventilation. As it would be a pain having to bang them off everytime you take the lid off. only thing with a big tub is finding the space to put it! It doesn't fit anywhere convenient. Typical


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## zzxxy (Aug 28, 2011)

I went for a 45l container from Ikea in the end ( £4.20 ) they do a 65l ( £6.20 ) it's part of the samla range and comes in clear and black. The lid is the same for both ( £2 ) and for the truly paranoid, you can get clips to hold the lid down for another £0.80
The deciding factor was the flat lid, i can cut holes in this and fit my mesh. Heating wise, I've got two 6x9 heat mats running off of a mat stat. This now means i have a big colony and a small colony but don't tell the missus lol


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## liam peel (Sep 26, 2011)

I have a quick question for you people, I have just recently baught a set up, it includes a 45l ( I think ) for water I have water crystels, for food I have got myself some cat food and also gona put fish flakes in the protien count in that is pretty high, still need to get a heat mat but going to get that with the roaches, and have 4 egg trays right now still looking for more tho, now I am not looking into getting wire mesh as I was hoping to dril a few holes in it, it is a grooved lid so I was going to drill hopefully between a rang of 3 - 10 holes through each groove, is that good enough or too much?
Oh also for humidity I was going to fill a bottle with water and plop a hole or two in the lid and put that in there and hopefully that will realese some moisture.
Any thoughts on this?


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## liam peel (Sep 26, 2011)

Toaly forgot, I am hoping to get 100 large roaches, how long will it be before thy start breeding, I just baught 2 boxes of crickets so that will feed my lizards for about a week but anyways back to my question, how long do they take to breed? Even in the best of circumstances.


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## zzxxy (Aug 28, 2011)

Hi there, 

I feed mine, Wetabix, cat biscuit twice a week, Grapes, Butternut squash, oranges and apples. Water crystal wise, they get that in two milk containers 3 times a week in addition to the above. As far as i can tell. they get most of the moisture they need from the fruit as the water takes two days to be consumed generally. This should also help with the humididty too. 
There is no 100% way to set up a box and everyone's environment is different. You may find that you have too many holes and the temperature is too low or, you may find there aren't enough and you get condensation which is bad. In short, it's trial and error with regards to the setup. Unless, you have a temperature and humidity controlled room where you can leave the lid off of the box and not have to worry. 
With regards to growth. It takes around 6 months for a new born nymph to reach maturity. Each adult female can lay between 15 and 40 eggs a month. so, the sustainability of a colony depends on how many nymphs you can produce coupled with how many roaches you need to feed per week. You'd need one hell of a lot of adults to be able to sustain regular feedings within the first 6 months. i started off with 600 medium / large and adult. two months down the line, i've got about 800 in there with minimal feeding going on. If you get 100 adults, i'd get 20 males and 80 females ( 1 to 4 ratio ) and don't feed from it for a few months. 

hope this helps?


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## liam peel (Sep 26, 2011)

zzxxy said:


> Hi there,
> 
> I feed mine, Wetabix, cat biscuit twice a week, Grapes, Butternut squash, oranges and apples. Water crystal wise, they get that in two milk containers 3 times a week in addition to the above. As far as i can tell. they get most of the moisture they need from the fruit as the water takes two days to be consumed generally. This should also help with the humididty too.
> There is no 100% way to set up a box and everyone's environment is different. You may find that you have too many holes and the temperature is too low or, you may find there aren't enough and you get condensation which is bad. In short, it's trial and error with regards to the setup. Unless, you have a temperature and humidity controlled room where you can leave the lid off of the box and not have to worry.
> ...


So are you saying that I shoudn't feed of any untill they have layed their babes? That was going to be my plan, I was going to get the roaches and buy crickets to feed untill my roaches are actually producing.
I was thinking about once that happens I wil start feeding males of first as I feel If I keep the females they actually give birth so I need thm to produce more.
After how long should I start feeding them off? After the first batch are born or wait untill they reatch sexual matureity?


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## philipniceguy (Mar 31, 2008)

here is a link to my thread which has a bit about the roaches I keep/breed with tub so on
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/foru...monitors-caiman-hopefully-17.html#post9915332

I feed similer to above but I provide a big bowl of water which helps humidity and makes sure with such large groups I keep they always have water, heat wise I have 2 heat strips running under the back of the container bottoms, but the building is heated to 25'c anyway so they breed like crazy:2thumb:


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## zzxxy (Aug 28, 2011)

liam peel said:


> So are you saying that I shoudn't feed of any untill they have layed their babes? That was going to be my plan, I was going to get the roaches and buy crickets to feed untill my roaches are actually producing.
> I was thinking about once that happens I wil start feeding males of first as I feel If I keep the females they actually give birth so I need thm to produce more.
> After how long should I start feeding them off? After the first batch are born or wait untill they reatch sexual matureity?


Correct! but i would say, Don't feed off of the colony for as long as you can. The babies are quite small - Like wood lice when born. The adults do lay upto 30 eggs / nymphs at a time and this happens about every 6 weeks given the right conditions but the babies ( nymphs ) take a good few weeks to get to a reasonable size to feed to something. Also, Bear in mind that the adults have a lifespan. They get old - they die, They also slow down their ability to lay large amounts of eggs the older they get. So you need to let a quantity of roaches grow to maturity to replace the adults you have when you started. Males don't last as long as the females can do either. It's hard to accurately sex roaches until they are about 2 months old so picking out the males is sometimes hard to do.


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## popitgoes (Oct 24, 2010)

well i just use 140litre really usefull box and 84litre boxes that are from staples home brand and they are really good


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## elliotuk (Jan 1, 2012)

i use an 80litre box, but i just leave the lid off, they cant climb the sides or jump like crickets and locusts so theyre not gonna get out, just leave the lid off tbh


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## OrigamiB (Feb 19, 2008)

zzxxy said:


> Correct! but i would say, Don't feed off of the colony for as long as you can. The babies are quite small - Like wood lice when born. The adults do lay upto 30 eggs / nymphs at a time and this happens about every 6 weeks given the right conditions but the babies ( nymphs ) take a good few weeks to get to a reasonable size to feed to something. Also, Bear in mind that the adults have a lifespan. They get old - they die, They also slow down their ability to lay large amounts of eggs the older they get. So you need to let a quantity of roaches grow to maturity to replace the adults you have when you started. Males don't last as long as the females can do either. It's hard to accurately sex roaches until they are about 2 months old so picking out the males is sometimes hard to do.


My colony has taken ages to get to a sustainable level aswell, I feel that it will only be sustainable once my babies have reached adult. I've had the colony about 6 months now and the biggest roaches are probably about L3 / L4, so this gives you an idea of time-scale. saying that though there still churning out babies like no tomorrow so once the young reach adult and start breeding the population should really explode


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## daniel-james (Jan 10, 2012)

as a reply to your earlier question abou when you can feed off some adults, 

If you start feeding off large/adult roaches once they have laid you have to wait 6 months before you have anymore adults that will produce babies, 

As previously stated to be ableto feed off from a re colony it has to be one he'll of a big starter colony. a few thousand with lots of various sizes/age 

I bought 200 adults for £200 150 females/50 males roughly 7/8 weeks ago i have Tons of babies.. that's it. if I feed off my adults nothing will reproduce for another 4/5 months and if I feed of my babies I have nk future colony as the adults will eventually get old and die. 

I'm very impatient but it will be worth it in the long run. 
I'm currently buying as many roaches as I can afford, by the end of this week I should have a few thousand to allow me to feed a small percentage off each week while my own starter colony establishes.. 

It's a loooooong term process. From
What I've read some guy on here can constantly feed off 200 plus roaches a week from there colony! that's what I'm looking for..


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## imginy (Jun 14, 2009)

daniel-james said:


> as a reply to your earlier question abou when you can feed off some adults,
> 
> If you start feeding off large/adult roaches once they have laid you have to wait 6 months before you have anymore adults that will produce babies,
> 
> ...



You bought 200 adult dubia for £200? That don't sound right.

I can feed my most of my bearded dragons and lots of my babies with a relatively small roach collection its all about getting your colony established.

The best way to get a colony established is to either buy a whole colony off someone (not one of the pretend £20 colonies) or to buy a couple of hundread adults and wait a year before feeding off it.


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## daniel-james (Jan 10, 2012)

Typo! Downside to Using this site on your phone.. 
keypad is tiny and I rush when I write 

I paid £20 guy on here who Lives 2 minutes away from me 
He is waiting for his colony tonbuild back up ATM I believe but once it's up
I will e buying more that's for certain people are charging £25 for 100 I've even seen people ask for £40!! For 100 dubia lol


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## OrigamiB (Feb 19, 2008)

I paid £15 for 100 adults, which is one of the cheapest prices i've seen, just buying adults is hardly a colony and it takes ages for adults to establish there own colony. I can see where the money is though, once you have established a colony they just keep going and going! and keeping a colony of 10'000 is just as easy as keeping a colony of 500


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## daniel-james (Jan 10, 2012)

I bought my 200 adults from
A guy who had an add in the classifieds on here, £20 he is not selling them at the moment. he just sells excess off to cover the cost of feeding his owns reptiles rather than making as much money as possible, 
I've seen adds for £40 for 100 dubia imagine having a colony 10,000 strong and selling them at £40 per 100 that's just greedy (if anyone was silly enough to pay that anyway)


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