Which roach species should I go with?

[Metalman2004]

Yeah I’ve never exactly understood those warnings. I’d hate to somehow get a bunch of cancerous roaches and Ts (I’m mostly joking). It seems that warning is slapped on just about anything thesd days so its hard to tell what should actually be worried about. With all the speculation of chemicals causing dks I figured it worth thinking about.

 

[Metalman2004]

Next questions. Substrate or no substrate? I’ve seen people recommend both. Which is better?

It seems 100 is the normal starter colony size and then it take 2-3 months to get good reproduction going. How many should I go with to start feeding from the colony immediately? 200? 300?

 

[Tortoise Tom]

Next questions. Substrate or no substrate? I’ve seen people recommend both. Which is better?
It seems 100 is the normal starter colony size and then it take 2-3 months to get good reproduction going. How many should I go with to start feeding from the colony immediately? 200? 300?

Substrate is not necessary and it would be a huge problem when its time to clean out the bin. I live in an extremely dry climate. Single digit humidity most of the year. I've had no problem with humidity for any of my roach species.

Here is some general info:
I've found that I get much better reproduction if I start with juveniles and let them do their last 2 or three molts into maturity in my enclosures.

100 is like none. The bin will feel empty for months. I'd start with many more if possible. There is an odd phenomenon with the math. Its exponential. I love running the numbers in my head. Depending on temp it takes lats 6-8 weeks to reach maturity. Then roughly 30 days from fertilization the females will drop egg cases. Each female can make an egg case about every 30 days and roughly 20 babies hatch from each egg case after about 20 days. I love this part: Say you get 100 nymphs to start with. Estimate 50% female. Give them two or three weeks to get settled and start making egg cases. Say you get 50 egg cases after the few weeks for them to all mature and one month after fertilization. 20 days later 1000 (50 egg cases x 20 babies each) babies hatch. Now you are roughly 8 weeks from when you started. Say half are female. 8 weeks later you've got 500 prego females that drop an egg case after 30 more days, and 20 days after that you get 10,000 new babies. This is the point at which it feels like your colony is working and producing. So at the 4 month mark, you'll recognize some progress, but prior to that it doesn't ever seem like much is happening. Then at that 7-8 month mark when generation 2 hatches, you feel like you've had an explosion of roaches and you are wondering how you'll get rid of all of them. Now here's the good part. Remember that this is all based on the first batch of 100 you got. A month after they began this process, they all laid another egg case. So this cycle of 1000 babies and then 10,000 babies keeps happening every month. So a month after that 10,000 baby point, you get another 10,000 and another 10,000 the month after that. Its mind boggling. I literally have 10s of thousands of all ages in my 18 gallon bins. Throughout all of this you can continually feed out the mature males and have no effect on the numbers of babies. You only need a few males per bin to get the job done and more will mature continuously if you feed out too many.

I hope all that made sense. To simplify:
6-8 weeks from hatching to maturity.
Fertilization happens the day they molt into maturity.
Egg case deposition about 30 days after fertilization.
Egg cases hatch after about 20 days.
About 20 babies per egg case.
Then repeat.

 

[Metalman2004]

Substrate is not necessary and it would be a huge problem when its time to clean out the bin. I live in an extremely dry climate. Single digit humidity most of the year. I've had no problem with humidity for any of my roach species.

Here is some general info:
I've found that I get much better reproduction if I start with juveniles and let them do their last 2 or three molts into maturity in my enclosures.

100 is like none. The bin will feel empty for months. I'd start with many more if possible. There is an odd phenomenon with the math. Its exponential. I love running the numbers in my head. Depending on temp it takes lats 6-8 weeks to reach maturity. Then roughly 30 days from fertilization the females will drop egg cases. Each female can make an egg case about every 30 days and roughly 20 babies hatch from each egg case after about 20 days. I love this part: Say you get 100 nymphs to start with. Estimate 50% female. Give them two or three weeks to get settled and start making egg cases. Say you get 50 egg cases after the few weeks for them to all mature and one month after fertilization. 20 days later 1000 (50 egg cases x 20 babies each) babies hatch. Now you are roughly 8 weeks from when you started. Say half are female. 8 weeks later you've got 500 prego females that drop an egg case after 30 more days, and 20 days after that you get 10,000 new babies. This is the point at which it feels like your colony is working and producing. So at the 4 month mark, you'll recognize some progress, but prior to that it doesn't ever seem like much is happening. Then at that 7-8 month mark when generation 2 hatches, you feel like you've had an explosion of roaches and you are wondering how you'll get rid of all of them. Now here's the good part. Remember that this is all based on the first batch of 100 you got. A month after they began this process, they all laid another egg case. So this cycle of 1000 babies and then 10,000 babies keeps happening every month. So a month after that 10,000 baby point, you get another 10,000 and another 10,000 the month after that. Its mind boggling. I literally have 10s of thousands of all ages in my 18 gallon bins. Throughout all of this you can continually feed out the mature males and have no effect on the numbers of babies. You only need a few males per bin to get the job done and more will mature continuously if you feed out too many.

I hope all that made sense. To simplify:
6-8 weeks from hatching to maturity.
Fertilization happens the day they molt into maturity.
Egg case deposition about 30 days after fertilization.
Egg cases hatch after about 20 days.
About 20 babies per egg case.
Then repeat.

I’d say that covers all the bases! Thanks!

Picked up the aluminum window mesh today. I’ll get some roaches ordered and finish putting together the enclosure!

 

[MICHAEL BIRCH]

I use discoids, they work pretty good for all but the smallest T's, but they also burow like bubia.