Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am not sure how, possibly from peat moss or the dust that king worms come in, but my cage has roaches. I saw one about a month ago and thought it was an isolated incident. Then last night I noticed that there were about 3 in the worm bowl. (We bought one of those that the worms cant get out of) Anyone else had this problem? How do I rid the cage of them without making the lizards sick? My enclosure is pretty big, 8' wide, 4' deep & 7' tall with 30 gallon black pond liner with water and pump filtration system so it will be a real hassle to take everything out. To complicate things, my female is laying eggs as we speak. Help...

Are they the big roaches or just something fro the US. I would think that your dragons would eat them. Other than tear the whole thing down and clean it I'm not sure whether I can help you there.

Well, when i had an iguana along time ago i remember putting meal worms in his cage and some time later i found roaches in the substrate....turned out that the meal worms are beetle larvae...LoL........i dont think the beetles will be a problem but if they manage to survive and breed u might have a problem..LoL.....unless u dont mind them around =/

hee, you big bunch of sillies!

if you have been feeding king mealworms, they transform into pupae that are white and wiggle if you touch them in a freaky and alarming fashion. now, your lizards will love them i mean it LOOOOVE them. they then turn into big ole black beetles (sometimes with red legs) that look quite roachlike.

my lizards catch them and munch them, but if you distress them too much they smell like antiseptic and the lizards wont go near them. mine love hunting the bugs.

money saving tip: get a plastic box and put in a bit of cork bark and a screwed up piece of wet tissue (to keep them alive) and shove all the bugs in it (with a lid). they will lay eggs int the corkbark and in a few weeks you will have lots of baby king mealies.

if you dont want your worms to pupate, just put them in the fridge. it doesnt kill them but slows the metabolism and so they stay in the larval stage longer.

best wishes guys.
Rachie.
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Hey. Thanks for the speedy responses. I found one crawling on the wall Saturday. If they would stay in the cage for the lizards to eat I guess that would be ok, but I cant have these things going to my kitchen. I dont know what they are but they are roach like. I lifted up the carpet and took a quick pic of one and I am attaching it to this post. They seem to have some sort of stripe on their head. Gross! Is it a beetle? I will also attach a pic of the enclosure. Any help is greatly appreciated.

wow what a lovely viv

you obviously have a different strain of mealworm to me (not surprising as most people on this forum are american) but yeah they are the beetle (just with longer antennae). put them in a pot and get the most out of them. if it is consolation, they mean your viv is nice and warm and moist. i had them all over my flat too until i made a new vivarium and had a total cleanout. just make sure you dont leave the mealworm pot open or take anything out of the viv without checking if beetles are on it. also close the door when you handle your lizards.
just one of those things i guess. feed them as much as they will eat and remove the rest to avoid them getting loose and pupating in the viv works but stops them hunting. put the worms in the fridge!

I have to disappoint you: That is not a beetle, its a roach. Definitely! And its not one of the nice feeder roach...its a pest species (Blatta, I guess).
Sorry for that.
With respect to your viv: Nice and big, but I would add a fake rock or bark backwall to provide extra climbing surfaces and help the lizards to feel secure. Also I would add much more branches and provide significantly brighter lights (metal halides are a must IMHO).

Best regards

Ingo

Make a safe trap: Get a small Tupperware container and make a small hole that the lizard can’t get into and put some NONTOXIC (the kind used to catch mice) sticky fly type paper near the opening and a dab of wet cat food at the other end and you have a roach motel. If you want to get fancy and not use the sticky stuff you can make a funnel and glue it in a hole like a fish trap. Good luck. I hope the roaches don’t mess with the eggs!

Thanks again to everyone for their helpful advice and speedy responses.

I guess they came from the peat moss I bought for her eggs. Ironically, she dug alot in there this time but did not lay there. I found eggs all over the enclosure. Even one in the water! We did not keep them.

Good to see you are still around the forums Ingo. A teardown is in order for sure. We have 2 powersuns (not pictured because they had burned out and we were waiting on the new ones to get here) and a flourescent and a heat lamp as it is getting cooler this time of year and they are by a window. We try to keep the temp in the livingroom 75 but that still isnt quite warm enough for them. I need to go buy some supplies to redecorate the cage. I sm sure the plants can be washed but the carpert and padding will have to go. I will have to see what I am up against when I take it apart. She always climbs the hanging baskets in the back (he is too heavy so it is a good way for her to escape him) and he usually sticks to the bamboo. I have considered a wall, but am worried about the high jumps they make to the water and broken bones. Also, we are concerned that they may try to jump on the lights and get burned or hurt. We do have about 1 foot of unused space at the top because of this. Any thoughts anyone? Pimp my viv?

The enclosure is pretty cool. My brother built it. The bottom is one piece, the walls are 5 pieces plus a sliding door and the top is a single piece. It is modular so that if we ever for some unforseen reason have to move it out of the livingroom, we can. Also we have put it on a piece of plywood that is on about 6 of those moving discs so we can slide it away from the wall in case of -heaven forbid- a leak. It is hella heavy.

It does look kinda messy now because when they eat they sling the mice and wet calcium dust goes everywhere. Ill take care of that during the remodel.

Thanks again for all the responses.

Grab all you can , wok them up in canola oil put them in Jello mix , refridge and hand out as Halloween treats !

Sorry - but that is a roach.

I breed mealworms, king mealworms and four species of roach, and I'm not mistaken!

Try using sticky baited roach traps, as long as you position them so that the lizards can't get stuck.

Cheers,
Mark.