i've owned dubias for about a year or so now and they've been reproducing great sometimes too fast leaving me with a lot of them. lately i've been noticing that they haven't been reproducing so much. i'd see some nymphs but not as much as i use too. only thing i see are adults and nymphs. anyway i can increase their reproduction speed? i usually give them constant temperature of 85F and use to give them fruits and veggies. maybe that's why because i haven't been giving them that? i use blended game bird feed which always worked fine for me in the past.
Tips on booming b dubias colony?
- Thread starter kev48584
- Start date
pyro fiend
Arachnoprince
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2013
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- 1,216
have you tried making the male female ratio more tollorable. my cousin had a small collony of like 200. and almost never fonud nymphs. and when i counted them he had 150.50 so the ratio was all wack. once i removed the males to a 1.3 ratio they took off.. i also noticed in one of my colonies if i do not weed out males they stop.. i had 2 collonies going one in a 10gal tote. one in a 29gal. the 10g i kept the males down to 3 or 4 for the 25ish females. and i would weed out the males every 3 months or so. i noticed by year 1. my 10g collony had grown 10x and my 29g was hardly producing right beside one another. my ratio also got pretty bad. when i transfered them to a 119ltr i only put in 10 males and all females [200+] in the same bin.. holy cow... too many nymphs... so i think the ratio maters a little bit..
as for fruits id say give them some anyways. at least table scraps. the first 8 months of having b dubias i did not care about giving them any fruits. just dry food and water crystals once a week. once when they got table scraps they started reproducing faster.. i use cheap cat food or hog chow that i use for my rats as dry food. and twice a week they get a fruit or veg..anything works i feed mine banana, collards, carrots, kale, squash[mine didnt care for it] , cucumbers, oranges, today they got some leftover watermelon from our 4th of july party.. went ape sh** on it too. just grab whatever is on sale or if you know someone with a garden it works well too.. personally i think next year im gona grow my roach food but thats only because i like gardens. its still cheap to buy the veg.. even potatoes work for most ppl..
to me i think its worth it plus you know your guttloading your food for your pets. after i seen my population expload i started to feel that just dry food and water gel once a week was almost as bad as feeding my geckos pet store crix =\
thats just my 2 cents tho..