Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I wonder if the roaches only suck out the water or do they actually eat the crystals? If they do consume the crystals, will that be bad for my leos?

Also, at what size do roaches (orange-spotted) begin to develop wings? I have around 50 of them at the moment, but they all look pretty much the same to me...

Here's a picture of my setup:

I have the dry food under the smaller piece of egg-crate. Its a mixture of puppy food, various cereals, grains and seeds, and also bee pollen; all grinded into powder form. Is that good enough?

I am assuming the crystals you are talking about are polyacrylamide copolymer. This is the stuff used in cricket hydrating and gut loading products sold in ready to use form. If you want to save money, you can buy this stuff as a dry crystal for about $17/2 pounds or $33/5 pounds. Only a couple of capfuls make a gallon of the stuff so 5 pounds is potentially a lifetime supply. Go to www.digahole.com and buy the Sta-Moist.
Jim

If you want to know about roaches, go back thru the postings and read James Tu's posts. He has a web site also, but I don't remember the address.

DeMak

Set-up looks fine although to most I would recommend the egg crates not so tall. They will eat the water crytals and this is the same stuff crickets eat. There is one problem with this, when crickets or roaches eat this it will fill them up and keep them from eating other better food items. Water crystals are great for when your out of town or just a little for extra hydrations. They should mainly be eating apples, carrots, and dry food. I prefer coy food over cat or dog food. Be careful with grain based stuff because that can lead to mites.
James
www.blaberus.com

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NOPE, they are Macropanesthia rhinoceros or Litter bugs, or rhino roaches. They are from Australia. They can live up to 10 years and are the largest roach in the world. Years ago when I bought my first roaches for feeders I never imagined this, but they are pretty cool.
James
www.blaberus.com

WOW those are really cool. I saw your ad the other day and you mentioned these roaches in it (pricey little boogers LOL). I went to your site to try to see a pic of them but didn't find any, glad you posted one here

James www.blaberus.com

Assuming you didn't put your wedding ring on a five year old, Those things are huge! How big are they?

DeMak

P. S. Don't tell my wife!

Yeah, that is my lovely hand. There are other roaches that can get as long, but nothing close to the width or body mass as these beast. Also it's very hard to find an insect that can survive ten years. I don't have any pics of the website because my web guy (my dad) is so busy I'm just hoping he can update my pricing this week. I do have more pictures of the two year olds and adults on my other computer. These are so expensive because these are the first ones brought into the US in years and they are extremely rare and hard to get. (like everything else rare from Australia)
There are so many cool species in Europe but they are very hard to find and even harder to get.
James
www.blaberus.com

Roaches take time to grow and the more you watch it seems the slower they grow. At good temp od 80-95F it should take them 3-5 months to go from babies to adults. During this time they will molt 7 times. So you will not see winged males till there last molt. However you can flip them over and sex them. Males will have a much shorter last segment with a V shape, and females have a longer segment. I personally do not sex roaches before I sell them becasue I just don't have enough time. When raising like sizes males will mature faster so if the first 5 or so are males do get to worried. Once they do mature mating happens very soon after and 30-45 days later your first babies arrive. It takes several months (6-9) to build a colony. With that said many people selling online bought a 100 or so from me and now produce thousands for re-sale. Just give them time and you'll be set.
James
www.blaberus.com

np