# Lobster roach, bio substrate? Also pet roaches?



## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

Alright people, as I'm a complete failure and cannot balance the heat, ventilation and humidity needed for turks (read, after being given a great many for a low price I managed to basically kill most within three weeks  )I'm going to switch to lobster roaches. It helps that I can get a fair starter colony free, but was wondering about some ideas for keeping them.

Of course I can set up your standard box, mineral oil around the top and egg crates (I work in a restaurant, easy to get), but cleaning out frass etc. is a bugger, so...

What do we think of having a slighly moist coir subby, seeded with springtails and maybe tropical woodlice, as well as egg crate hides? Roaches get their humidity, springtails and woodlice clean up mess, everybody happy! Or am I looking at a stinking box full of incredibly happy sprintails along with mouldering cardboard and dead roaches?


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## snowgoose (May 5, 2009)

haven't kept this species before. Well, that's a lie, I kept them for about a week and killed them lol

Can't help with the care side of things, but you will almost definitely end up with mouldy egg crates. However, you could use some wood ( small pile of branches or something ) instead of the egg crates which wouldn't moult as easily / quickly and should be fine with woodlice and springtails keeping it clean.


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## garlicpickle (Jan 16, 2009)

When I kept lobbies I kept them dry with egg crates side-on so all the *frass* (very posh!) fell to the bottom.
Then every few months I would lift the egg crates over into another RUB, most of the roaches will go with it, only a few small ones hide in the crap. You can tap out the RUB into an old colander which will sieve out the crap and just leave the babies behind. Then chuck them back in their RUB and replace the egg crates if you need to.

Jake, how did you manage to kill lobsters, mine were in the shed last winter, some nights it got down to -8 but they still survived!


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## claires bugs (Apr 7, 2011)

How do you kill lobsters :gasp: my colony is out of control. The little things just keep mulitiplying even when i feed the females to my tarantulas they spit out a eggcase that hatches whilst they are being digested. :Na_Na_Na_Na: They will just not stop reproducing :mf_dribble:


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## ch4dg (Jul 24, 2008)

i use a bio-active soil with my dubia so i dont see why it wouldnt work with lobsters


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

ch4dg said:


> i use a bio-active soil with my dubia so i dont see why it wouldnt work with lobsters


Thanks.


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## PeterUK (Jun 21, 2008)

Hedgewitch said:


> What do we think of having a slighly moist coir subby, seeded with springtails and maybe tropical woodlice, as well as egg crate hides? Roaches get their humidity, springtails and woodlice clean up mess, everybody happy! Or am I looking at a stinking box full of incredibly happy sprintails along with mouldering cardboard and dead roaches?


Sounds like a mouldy nightmare waiting to happen to me.

I keep turks AKA red runners and dubia at the moment and have excellent results, so much in fact that i have turned off the heating and have resorted in using the females only for feeding. (hopefully this will cut down on the amount of juvs >>adults) and also sold over half of the colony to keep the number managable.
I have kept lobster roaches before and had the same results in breeding, so good that I had to resort to freezing large amounts so as to keep the numbers down.

My opinion for what it is worth, is to totally ignore heating and humidity.

Put a heatmat under the tub with NO thermostat, (I have no idea on the temps just that it is HOT) NO substrate, Use egg flats standing upright with ONE egg flat laid flat over the top. Once a week pour 1/3 to 1/2 cup (not mug) of water evenly onto the top egg flat.
Ventilation, I use metal insect mesh now but previously I just drilled/melted a multitude of holes in the lid (approx 2 inches apart)
Food, I use 2 chinese plastic takeaway containers with a small section cut away on the 'short' end. One is for 'wet' food like apples, oranges, carrots and the other is filled with powdered cat crunchies. I always grind the cat crunchies into powder as I've found that they can eat it much easier than whole crunchies. I also black out the entire tub so that the roaches do not have to hide during the daylight hours just eat and have babies :blush: 

I'm sure you've seen these photos before but I'll post them again to refresh your memory. 

This is an old photo, I now have a 3 inch wide ventilation section cut out the full length of the lid.











Notice egg flat laid flat on top





























I bought approx 70 adult turks/red runners at the BTS in May and took this video in October (approx) ALL of the roaches shown in this video are juveniles from the original 70 .




Old photo of dubia colony, there is probably x 10 this amount now











A VERY old photo of lobster colony (I didnt grind the crunches in those days)


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

The box I have is too small for that alas, though it looks like a good setup.

I'm not interested in massive yields to be fair, tarantulas eat little enough as it is so this is what I've done (cos I picked up the roaches yesterday, I needed to get my waterproofs back from him anyway for a field trip the day):

Box, mineral oil barrier around the top. 
One side:
Coir, trying to dry it more.
Layer of broadleaf litter (moulds more slowly than egg-crates, plus aesthetically pleasing). Springtails came in with litter, no pedes etc. though as I checked it all.
Other side:
Food tubs.

Cockroaches no longer trying to climb sides, seem "happy" with leaf litter, even if some of them are ignoring the fresh greens I gave them in favour of beech leaves :/

I also dumped in the rest of the turks as their numbers have been dwindling. One less heat mat, if they die the lobsters will eat them, if they thrive, then good times had by all.

Aside from anything, at least this will only smell of leaf-mould (something my room smells faintly of anyway) rather than roach tub (less good). Plus the dry leaves make a cool rustling noise when the roaches run


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## garlicpickle (Jan 16, 2009)

you may not want massive yields but with lobsters that's what you'll get, and quite soon too : victory:


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

At a rough count I grabbed about 50 adults, and a couple hundred below that,


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

I always laugh at the phrase 'bio-active'. 

Just call it what it is; soil. 

And yes, it does work. You won't get the same yeilds as PeterUK but then again if you don't want hundreds/thousands then it might be a good call. 

Use a 2ft fish tank or similar, 6-8" of dirt from the garden with a layer of leaf litter on top about 1-2" deep. Forget the cardboard, forget everything decor wise except perhaps some bark. Chuck in a few plants if wanted and a light bulb to heat. Use a heatpad on one side. Voila!

You can also house multiple species together in this fashion - I know, but I have about 6 species in a single tub the now all doing away fine. The trick is to mix leaf litter specialists with surface active ones (single species) and then some dirt living ones. Easy way to ensure a mixed diet for tarantulas as you never quite know which ones you will capture on each occassion. 

As an example, I use red runners, porcelain, 4-spot and madeira roaches together and they seem fine after a good 8 - 9 months. I just top up the leaf litter now and again and feed them fish flakes every so often. The red runners suffer a little in my particular set up because it's quite humid (and theres a good chance the 4 spot roaches will eat them too), but the others are thriving.


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## snowgoose (May 5, 2009)

GRB said:


> I always laugh at the phrase 'bio-active'.
> 
> Just call it what it is; soil.
> 
> ...


It's now called "Bio-Soil" and is available from me for the wonderful price of £64.99 per kilo :whistling2:


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## Hedgewitch (Feb 12, 2008)

GRB said:


> I always laugh at the phrase 'bio-active'.
> 
> Just call it what it is; soil.


Spoil sport :Na_Na_Na_Na:

Anyway, as it's coco-husk with springtails added it's more of a humus or compost than it is a soil. The definition is loose but there's no mineral content nor was it formed through normal pedogenesis (go suck on my grudging knowledge of soil science).



> And yes, it does work. You won't get the same yeilds as PeterUK but then again if you don't want hundreds/thousands then it might be a good call.
> 
> Use a 2ft fish tank or similar, 6-8" of dirt from the garden with a layer of leaf litter on top about 1-2" deep. Forget the cardboard, forget everything decor wise except perhaps some bark. Chuck in a few plants if wanted and a light bulb to heat. Use a heatpad on one side. Voila!
> 
> ...


Well I already have two species in there, though I'm not sure what each is classed as (lobsters:litter dwellers, and red runners:surface roaches?)


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