Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've just ordered 50 mixed size blaptica dubia roaches to start a colony for feeders for my tarantulas.

Since they can't climb, I'm wondering what is a good type of dish to use for holding the water crystals and food? I've got some 4" orange clay/terra cotta plant dishes that I was going to use, but I'm wondering if the extremely poor non-climbing dubia will have trouble with them?

Dubia are poor climbers so they can't climb smooth surfaces but I think they would still be able to climb the terra cotta just fine because it has some texture . They can climb painted siding easily. =) I had a mishap and had them crawling all over the walls in my reptile room. Luckily the room is totally self contained so they didnt go anywhere. The wife would have killed me. =) Sorry to babble, they should work. I usually use butter dish lids myself, to me they work great.... Jon
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1.1.1 breeding pair blue tongue skinks w/ juv. offspring
1.0.0 Juv. Albino Bullfrog
0.0.2 Giant Pixie Frog (one juv. and one adult)
1.1.0 Clawed frogs
1.1.0 Albino Clawed frogs
0.0.1 Superlight juv Sulcatta
0.0.2 Fly river turtles
0.0.2 Savannah Monitors (one pastel)
0.2.0 juv pastel Columbian boas
1.1.0 monster pink pastel columbian boas
1.2.0 Hypo Hog boas
1.0.0 Hypo boa
1.1.0 Hypo boa babies, Poss. DH sunglow
0.2.0 Hypo poss. DH sunglow
1.0.0 Coral albino boa (my baby)
and
1.2.0 Pomeranians (the wifes babies)

Thanks. I found out when I got them that they aren't quite as "non climbing as I had read.

I first put them in a nice opaque grey sterilite 10 gal tub and they could climb right up the walls. So I had to move them to a glass 10 gal tank, which I also liberally lined with petroleum jelly just in case.

The clay saucers seem to work fine as well, but I have some egg crate going up onto the dishes as well to help them get on and off.

Now just to wait for babies. I need the smallest ones for some of my spiderlings. They seem to be very good hiders though, and I almost never see ANY of them, even in the dark with the tank sides covered in black posterboard.

seems very wierd to me, are you sure you have b dubia? or maybe even mutts? My dubia are infact poor climbers and they shouldnt be able to climb the sterilite unless it is textured. I have mine in a large black sterilite tub I bought from WM and they cannot get out. My prob came from my construction. I took the container and cut a huge whole out of the lid and glued screen to it. Well, I had a brain fart and placed a radio on top of it while I was cleaing my snakes and it collapsed the screen in, which I didnt find out about till about midnight, but only on one end, so they had a ramp to get out of their enclosure. I had thousands of babies and adults running around my reptile room. Luckily the room is a back porch convert and it is sealed off from the inside and I pretty much made it sealed of to the out. I was out there for hours catching them all again. thank god for apples....... Which brings me to another reason for my questioning of species. My dubia are tame and will come out in daylight instantly to eat their food with me standing their, especially fruits as their treat/water. They prefer the night but dont seem to be that skittish. Although, I think it has something to do with safety in numbers and competition. I think my numbers are 5000 plus right about now So they all come out in droves to eat/drink without hesitation. In smaller numbers, they may be more scared to come out in fear of being picked off but not sure..... How many did you end up getting and what's the size ratio roughly?
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1.1.1 breeding pair blue tongue skinks w/ juv. offspring
1.0.0 Juv. Albino Bullfrog
0.0.2 Giant Pixie Frog (one juv. and one adult)
1.1.0 Clawed frogs
1.1.0 Albino Clawed frogs
0.0.1 Superlight juv Sulcatta
0.0.2 Fly river turtles
0.0.2 Savannah Monitors (one pastel)
0.2.0 juv pastel Columbian boas
1.1.0 monster pink pastel columbian boas
1.2.0 Hypo Hog boas
1.0.0 Hypo boa
1.1.0 Hypo boa babies, Poss. DH sunglow
0.2.0 Hypo poss. DH sunglow
1.0.0 Coral albino boa (my baby)
and
1.2.0 Pomeranians (the wifes babies)

They're definitely b. dubia, I trust the source and I've compared them to pictures, but I only have 50 mixed sizes with maybe 1 or 2 trios of full adults. They're a bit dwarfed I guess in the 10 gal with a good pile of egg trays.

The sterilite I tried first didn't seem very textured to me, but it was enough for a few of them to scoot around and right to the top of it before I moved them.

I noticed when I went in there yesterday that they all seem to hang out directly on the heat mat, which is a small UTH set to about 95. But it only seems to heat the glass and doesn't appear to do much for the ambient temps, which are around 78-80.

The egg trays are over the heat mat to try to keep in as much heat as possible so perhaps that's why I rarely see them out when I go in the tank (which has only been a couple times in the week since I got them)