# How to: Clean a roach enclosure...Blaberus/Blaptica edition



## Stylopidae (Jun 9, 2008)

Awhile ago, I posted a How To thread on cleaning a roach enclosure. It's a good read, and I'd recommend reading it all the way through before continuing with this post...I will be referring to it because this is simply a modified version of that article.

It was a good general method for cleaning out a _N. cinerea_ or lobster roach colony, but one of the criticisms of the article (a valid one, I might add) is that this method would not be effective for some of the more popular feeder species.

Lobster roaches are popular feeders. They breed very fast and the adults are less prone to burrowing than other popular feeders such as _Blaberus_ and _Blaptica_ species. The nymphs usually hang out on the surface of the substrate...rarely venturing below the first centimeter or so of substrate as far as I can tell.

_Blaberus_ and _Blaptica_, by contrast, are large species that grow and breed very slowly when compared to lobster roaches. It took about 6 months for my lobster roach colony to grow to the point where I could reliably use them as feeders. It took about a year for my _Blaberus_ and _Blaptica_ to do the same (although, I will point out that I started with about 200 adult lobsters and with this colony, I started out with about a quarter of that).

When you take the substrate out of a lobster roach colony, you aren't really losing much. Much of what you do lose, you can easily replace using the method described in the article I hyperlinked to.

However, since _Blaptica_ and _Blaberus_ species are much more prone to burrowing, this method will be less effective. Also, since most of the nymphs more prone to burrowing and less prone to climbing you will lose a significant amount of nymphs if you completely discard all the substrate as I do with lobster roaches.

Furthermore, one needs to take into account _why_ the tank needs cleaning. There are two reasons.

First, death. Death is a part of a roach colony...and I'm not just talking about the ones that are eaten. When one cares for a large amount of animals, you will experience many deaths. Some get diseased, like the individual discussed in the following paragraphs, some have moulting problems, and some just die for idiopathic reasons.

However, if you practice good husbandry, the roaches breed much faster than they die. This is good because you get feeders, but it also contributes to the unavoidable background death rate. A small percentage of roaches will die unavoidably, but a small percentage for a large number of roaches is vastly larger than a small percentage of a small number of roaches.

The second reason you clean the substrate is for precautionary measures. A part of every house's microfauna are grain mites (think _Vashta Nerada_) and although they normally subsist in small numbers, under the right conditions they can explode.

If you want to see what this looks like, look at this post from when I was young and stupid. 

In a one sentence summary without pop-culture references nobody will get, you want to keep up on maintenance to prevent your room from smelling like crap and to keep microfauna in check. Simple as that. 

After removing all furnishings and detaching the roaches (again, I refer you to the original article), give each and every piece of furnishing a good sniff. Discard anything which smells particularly bad. You want to do this while you still have your sense of smell...no matter what type of protection (discussed later) you wear, you will lose your sense of smell for about half the day or so.

The first thing you're going to want to do is to spot-clean, begin by looking for diseased roaches (usually moving sluggishly on the top of the substrate) and invaders while you pick out the deaders.









I'm going to go off on a seemingly random tangent (which is why this is highlighted in green) and discuss disease in the role of roach colonies. This individual is suffering from something which is deemed 'the black death'. It causes roaches to turn a red color, become black, smell very bad and then die.

If you see any roaches with these characteristics or which otherwise look unhealthy, discard them along with the dead specimens.

Roach diseases aren't well studied, and for me this comes and goes and is never a major issue. This was the only roach in my colony which was suffering from this disease.

For more info on roach diseases, go here

The second reason I bring this up is because of invaders.







If you raise lobster roaches, you will find them in your other colonies from time to time. This is unavoidable. However, they are a bit of a pest species because they do not 'play well' with others. Due to their comparably fast reproductive rate and incredibly voracious feeding manner, it's possible for them to take over your colony by out-competing your other roaches.







Deal with them accordingly.

Do not transfer them back to their 'home colony' because they very well could be carrying some sort of pathogen which could then be transferred to your other colony. You want to avoid any possible cross-contamination. This is also why you don't transfer uneaten feeders back to your colony.

This is why I personally recommend keeping at least two species of feeders...you can't confuse them and it's just safer. Besides, every species has it's trade-offs. This helps to balance your feeders.

Now...this cage was cleaned outside. If you do this, keep an eye out for Tachnid flies and never turn your back. They're attracted by the smell of the roach frass and they're endoparasitoids. You don't want them laying eggs on your roaches while you're not looking.

I'm not 100% sure if they would or not...but it's just a good idea to keep tabs on them if you do any sort of roach maintenance outside. I had about half a dozen or so venture into my garage while I was cleaning the colony.


Okay...back to the subject at hand.







Dead roaches. Pick them up as you see them while cleaning the colony out. They don't seem to crawl somewhere and die like dogs tend to do.







This is what the colony should look like when you're done removing the furnishings.

And start picking them out.

One of the things you're going to notice is that the nymphs like to dine on the dead adults. I use 19% protein dogfood and as you can see from this string of pictures, it's quite common. Nothing to worry about because it's completely normal.







Rather gruesome game of peek-and-boo:































You might even find your roaches have a sick sense of humor, like in the picture above. Actually, that's anthromorphization...roaches don't think things are funny. But I think the picture above is interesting for whatever reason.

Again...another random tangent, but this one is actually pertinent to the subject at hand. Just pick the deaders up and put them in a bag. There will be nymphs inside a few of them. Don't pick apart each and every one to 'rescue' the nymphs because that will take a very, very long time and turn something which should take two hours max into a day-long ordeal.

Here's what it should look like when you're done:







About half a Wal*Mart bag full of roaches that I intend to use as fertilizer:







Here's the part that sucks. And by sucks I mean:







If you think I look miserable in that picture, I am. This is the worst part of cleaning a roach colony...and you will need protective gear because roach frass contains a chemical called chitin.

Chitin is found in the cell walls of fungi and thus the immune system responds quite well to this particular chemical. Dust mites and mould spores are both chitin covered...so if you're allergic to dust mites or mould, it's an especially good idea to wear a mask when doing maintenance. Roach colonies also seem to sensitize people over time, so wearing a mask during maintenance is definitely not a bad idea.

And here's why: Because you _will_ inhale dust.

Anyways...we'll get back to this later.

Before the next part, you need to remove about a quarter of the substrate. This will keep the substrate from getting too deep and building up moisture. Moisture leads to grain mite infestation. Moisture in the substrate is bad.

This also helps to remove loose food particles in the soil...another thing which will help contribute to grain mites. Undigested grains tend to help them get established much easier in my experience.

Sort through the separated substrate to remove any roaches over an inch long. You want to rescue bugs which are closest to reproductive age to help the colony rebound.

You don't want to spend your time rescuing nymphs you can barely see. It's impractical and your colony will eventually rebound to it's former numbers without your help. To try to rescue all the nymphs in your colony whenever you clean would simply be impractical because of logistics. Many will die. I try to remove a quarter of the substrate so only about 25-50% of the nymphs in the colony will die, based on the area of the colony and assuming everyone's equally distributed.

If you save the adults, this will make the colony rebound faster. This is less important for lobster roaches due to their small size and quicker reproductive rates.

The second reason I only remove part of the substrate is because I've determined that substrate is essential for a healthy _Blaberus_ or _Blaptica_ colony and breeding will slow down significantly without it.

Lobsters don't seem to care one way or the other.

After you're done with this, seal the bag and toss it in the freezer to kill the remaining nymphs. Proper disposal of un-needed feeders is a part of good husbandry. If you want to make some money, you can also sell the discarded substrate as it will make the perfect starter colony for your fellow arachnid keepers.

Under no circumstances should you _ever_ dump substrate containing live animals outside. Ever.

Another good idea is to learn to differentiate between corpses hollowed out by nymphs and shedskins.

Insects shed parts of their trachea...and this is what those white things pointing towards my wrist are in this picture.







They look like antennae, but they're not. Shedskins are also thinner and weaker than hollowed out corpses. Think crispy VS crunchy.

I don't care about the shedskins, but I do care about the corpses. Get as many of those as you can.







Sift until you're certian that no more corpses (or diseased specimens) are present.

This should be the end result:

Half a Wal*Mart bag full of dead roaches:







Pretty impressive, eh?

The bag on the left is the substrate.

Then, replace the furnishings and place everything else in the freezer:












And you're done.

This should work for people with larger colonies, as well. If you have a larger colony, remove a larger percentage of the substrate to save time if you wish but remember to remove the deaders and foul-smelling furnishings.


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## Brian S (Jun 9, 2008)

Bravo Joe!! That's a good read!


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## Moltar (Jun 9, 2008)

Thanks for posting that. It was very useful and informative. It may be getting near time to do this for my dubia colony.


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## Stylopidae (Jun 9, 2008)

Thanks for the props, guys.

Hope this helps those who keep larger non-climbing roaches.

I welcome any criticisms, as well. I do plan on submitting this as an article soon.


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## Scott C. (Jun 9, 2008)

Nicely done Joe...

Though I don't agree with any of this:



Cheshire said:


> You don't want to spend your time rescuing nymphs you can barely see..... It's stupid and naive to try to rescue all the nymphs in your colony whenever you clean. Many will die.


Mainly because, I _do_ want to spend time rescuing nymphs, I am not too stupid, barely naive, and I prefer a few deaths to many.

That said, It's merely a matter of preference, and takes nothing away from your write, though I must say that the words 'stupid', and 'naive', perhaps add something you might not want to it  

I have one question... Why is it unavoidable for you to keep lobster roaches out of your other bins? Not criticism, I've never kept lobsters and am in no position...

Cheers,
Scott


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## Travis K (Jun 9, 2008)

*What The ????*

LOL, good job Joe, but I can't believe some people would need to be told how to perform roach maintenance.  Well no actually I can.  When I do my colony which is freaking huge right now. I get a tall trash can with a liner in it for live roaches with a few egg crates for them to hold onto.  I also get anther liner for old egg crates, dead roaches, and pieces of what ever.  It takes me about 1-2 hours to separate the the large roaches from the crates and litter.  After which I have frass and various roaches.  All the frass with roaches is either put back into the newly washed 50 gallon tub or partially sold with dubia starter colonies.  I would guess I lose 1-3% of my nymphs:? ?

After the the tub is cleaned and the old sifted frass is back in I arrange the egg crates and then add the almost 10lbs. of live roaches back in.


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## testdasi (Jun 9, 2008)

A few questions:
1. I thought you don't need a substrate for dubia roaches. I read a lot and no article I read says you need a substrate for dubia roaches; some even discourage it all together. So if you don't have a substrate, how do you clean the colony? Just pick out the dead roaches?

2. Some articles mention that dubia nymphs tend to play death when disturbed. How do you differentiate between a real death and a fake death?

Thanks.


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## Cirith Ungol (Jun 9, 2008)

Nice post!


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## inverts (Jun 9, 2008)

Very informative, the step-by-step photos were a nice touch also.


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## Lorgakor (Jun 9, 2008)

Good lord, how can you do that with your bare hands? Ewww it just makes me shudder thinking about it! I use latex gloves to even pick roaches out to feed to my spiders. Good post though. But I agree with Scott, I would spend the time to pick out all the nymphs. I just can't kill things needlessly.


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## Travis K (Jun 9, 2008)

testdasi said:


> A few questions:
> 1. I thought you don't need a substrate for dubia roaches. I read a lot and no article I read says you need a substrate for dubia roaches; some even discourage it all together. So if you don't have a substrate, how do you clean the colony? Just pick out the dead roaches?
> 
> 2. Some articles mention that dubia nymphs tend to play death when disturbed. How do you differentiate between a real death and a fake death?
> ...


1. subrates is one thing.  Roach poo, AKA frass is another.  the frss is IMO needed ffor the nymphs to have lower mortality

2. it is not hard to tell the difference, it is really very easy, my 5 and 6 year old girls can do it just fine.


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## testdasi (Jun 9, 2008)

> 1. subrates is one thing. Roach poo, AKA frass is another. the frss is IMO needed ffor the nymphs to have lower mortality


You kinda confused me. So what are we cleaning out? I know you don't clean out the frass (at least that's what I understand from your previous post) but the original poster mentioned cleaning out the substrate which I believe is not needed for dubia roaches. So I'm wondering what I have to look for and/or to clean if there is no substrate. That's my question.



> 2. it is not hard to tell the difference, it is really very easy, my 5 and 6 year old girls can do it just fine.


I know your daughters can do it. but how? I can look at the nymphs and easily guess if it's really dead or not. Like if it's not moving, it's dead. What I need to know is that if I pick up this roach that is intact but does not move, how do I know/test for sure that it's dead? Like Lorgakor and Scott, I at the very least want to make a faithful attempt to prevent unnecessary death, even if it's just a dubia roach.


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## Stylopidae (Jun 10, 2008)

Scott C. said:


> Mainly because, I _do_ want to spend time rescuing nymphs, I am not too stupid, barely naive, and I prefer a few deaths to many.
> 
> That said, It's merely a matter of preference, and takes nothing away from your write, though I must say that the words 'stupid', and 'naive', perhaps add something you might not want to it
> 
> ...


I apologize for that. I wrote this through teared-up eyes just after I cleaned...I tend to get a bit blunt when I'm sick. I changed the offending section.

You're 100% right, though. Some people also sell the frass (see below).

Lobster roaches tend to get everywhere. You have the occasional escapee who then ventures looking for food. More often than not, they find another colony as opposed to their original colony and get inside of it. I'm guessing this one slipped through an opening by the hinge of the colony's lid when it was a nymph and grew to that point once inside.

I have no idea how that one got in...I just know that he did and that I had nothing to do to it.



Travis K said:


> LOL, good job Joe, but I can't believe some people would need to be told how to perform roach maintenance.  Well no actually I can.


These articles are mainly meant for first-time roachers. Cleaning a roach colony seems like a daunting task to those who don't own a colony and a step-by-step walkthrough will help to ease their minds.



> When I do my colony which is freaking huge right now. I get a tall trash can with a liner in it for live roaches with a few egg crates for them to hold onto.  I also get anther liner for old egg crates, dead roaches, and pieces of what ever.  It takes me about 1-2 hours to separate the the large roaches from the crates and litter.  After which I have frass and various roaches.  All the frass with roaches is either put back into the newly washed 50 gallon tub or partially sold with dubia starter colonies.  I would guess I lose 1-3% of my nymphs:? ?
> 
> After the the tub is cleaned and the old sifted frass is back in I arrange the egg crates and then add the almost 10lbs. of live roaches back in.


Selling the colonies is also an option...no doubt about it. However, I wanted to show the 'proper' way to dispose of un-needed cockroaches. We have far too many people who release unwanted pets into the wild.

Either way, the point of removing some of the substrate is to control it's depth and to prevent a buildup of moisture.

You don't actually need to wash out the container you keep them in. Just wipe off the sides occasionally with a dry rag to prevent a buildup of dust or frass that would allow nymphs to get a foothold. Mostly, you want to keep the colony from getting a grain mite outbreak or smelling up your house.

I've edited the essay to include a comment about selling the frass.

These are the two edits I desperately wanted to address. I will be back later tonight to answer more questions.

As I said...this is just a rough-write up. I wanted to submit it to the rigors of 'peer-review' by my fellow arachnid keepers before I wrote the article that I'm going to attempt to publish.


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## Travis K (Jun 10, 2008)

Joe it is cool to see your picture.  I must say you are not at all like I pictured you in my mind.


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## Stylopidae (Jun 10, 2008)

testdasi said:


> A few questions:
> 1. I thought you don't need a substrate for dubia roaches. I read a lot and no article I read says you need a substrate for dubia roaches; some even discourage it all together. So if you don't have a substrate, how do you clean the colony? Just pick out the dead roaches?


I definitely recommend a substrate for _B. dubia_. They love to burrow to hide. As I said in the article, after I put substrate in there, my births skyrocketed.

I'd reccomend doing a search on cockroaches (search under "roach colonies" or "Blaptica dubia") or check this article out.

There are as many methods of keeping roaches as there roachers themselves. Everybody does something a bit different that works for them. I'm no exception.

They require proper food, water and heat. As long as you supply these, you're kosher.



> 2. Some articles mention that dubia nymphs tend to play death when disturbed. How do you differentiate between a real death and a fake death?
> 
> Thanks.


The answer to this is actually easier than you realize. Dead roaches tend to dry out very, very quickly. The dead nymphs will be lighter and harder (or crunchy) when compared to the live ones.

It's very difficult to describe this concept in writing. The second you pick up a dead nymph, you'll know it's kicked the bucket.



Lorgakor said:


> Good lord, how can you do that with your bare hands? Ewww it just makes me shudder thinking about it! I use latex gloves to even pick roaches out to feed to my spiders. Good post though. But I agree with Scott, I would spend the time to pick out all the nymphs. I just can't kill things needlessly.


I was only able to do that with my bare hands because I didn't realize the extent of my roach allergy.

My hands still itch.

And Scott (as I said before) is 100% correct. 



Travis K said:


> 1. subrates is one thing.  Roach poo, AKA frass is another.  the frss is IMO needed ffor the nymphs to have lower mortality.


I'm going to add to this.

The roaches create their own substrate. However, some people (including myself) put the roaches in with cocobark (Bed-a-beast et.al).

I would also second the notion that frass is essential for a healthy colony.




testdasi said:


> You kinda confused me. So what are we cleaning out? I know you don't clean out the frass (at least that's what I understand from your previous post) but the original poster mentioned cleaning out the substrate which I believe is not needed for dubia roaches. So I'm wondering what I have to look for and/or to clean if there is no substrate. That's my question.


When you clean out the roach colony, you're cleaning out dead adults and large nymphs as well as a bit of frass.

Roaches crap a lot. This crap builds up over time and accumulates. It's thought that this stuff contains bacteria which are essential for the nymphs to digest food (cockroaches, like humans have endosymbiotic bacteria) and this frass is thought to help seed their digestive tract with these bacteria.

The frass is the substrate in this case. If you feel the need to continually clean it out (which I'd very strongly reccomend against), just look for the dead adults and nymphs.

However, if you cleaned often enough to keep the tank free of frass you'd probably stress your colony out to the point where it wouldn't breed.



Travis K said:


> Joe it is cool to see your picture.  I must say you are not at all like I pictured you in my mind.


If there's one thing that I've learned here on the interwebnet, it's not to assume what people look like.

Seriously...the person who you think might be the most misguided chick on the site might also be one of the most attractive. It seriously sucks.

Here's what I look like without the facemask:



Cheshire said:


>


And believe me...I'm _dead_ sexy.


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## dtknow (Jun 11, 2008)

I'm surprised at the number of dead adults in your cultures(the lobster ones)...how often do you feed? I tend to try to pick adults that based on coloration are older. Any roaches that appear in the slightest way unfit(slow movement, twizzled feelers, I catch and flip it over easy) goes to feed something besides a tarantula. Also I have mealworms in the substrate which may contribute alot to it. They seem to make quick work of any dead adults...and the majority of them can them be removed as pupa. I recently sold off the majority of my colony(save some nymphs in the substrate) and the substrate is mainly frass mixed with fruit cores. On the other hand...your colonies must be massive so health inspections must be basically impossible.

I wonder if the frass could be placed into a mesh bag with holes big enough for the nymphs to burrow through? Plan is that they eventually burrow out of the substrate into a container below(you could probably put some food and lure them out)


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## Stylopidae (Jun 11, 2008)

dtknow said:


> I'm surprised at the number of dead adults in your cultures(the lobster ones)...how often do you feed? I tend to try to pick adults that based on coloration are older. Any roaches that appear in the slightest way unfit(slow movement, twizzled feelers, I catch and flip it over easy) goes to feed something besides a tarantula. Also I have mealworms in the substrate which may contribute alot to it. They seem to make quick work of any dead adults...and the majority of them can them be removed as pupa. I recently sold off the majority of my colony(save some nymphs in the substrate) and the substrate is mainly frass mixed with fruit cores. On the other hand...your colonies must be massive so health inspections must be basically impossible.


I do not have mealworms or anything like that in there, so that could be it.

I also do things with my roaches a bit more differently than most people around here. I do not have a constant supply of water in with the roaches, and the only water I give my colonies is an entire apple once or twice a week. I also keep these guys in a 10 gallon tank...a space of about half the size most people keep these types of colonies in.

12 hour schooldays, a job and a daughter as well as other things take their toll on my free time.

However, I do feed from the colony on a weekly basis without any sign of depletion. Many of the roaches you see in the pictures are actually alive and most of them are burrowed under the substrate.

I should also mention that this is the first time I've cleaned this colony in about 2 (maybe 3) years...same with the lobster roach cleaning thread above.

So it's possible I have a higher mortality rate, it might also just look that way due to the small size of my colonies, it's possible that the mealworms keep your colonies free of deaders and it's possible that you do maintenance more often than I do.



> I wonder if the frass could be placed into a mesh bag with holes big enough for the nymphs to burrow through? Plan is that they eventually burrow out of the substrate into a container below(you could probably put some food and lure them out)


I've tried this, and it doesn't work as well as you would think.

For the adults, it works great. For the nymphs, it doesn't work that well. Don't know why.

A colander helps, though.


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## Travis K (Jun 11, 2008)

*Joe!*

Clean your appartment! !, not your roaches!


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## Rochelle (Jun 11, 2008)

Excellent thread! :clap: 
I don't do it _exactly_ the same; but close enough...lol.  
Great read and thanks for taking the time to post it! 

Now, please tell me why this is in the T. questions and discussions?


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## nabeln (Feb 20, 2018)

Wow! I know this is an old post, however... I have been keeping B. dubia for a couple years now (Just a small colony of a couple hundred or so) as feeders for the reptiles I work with. Someone here joked about why a post about cleaning should be written... well I learned something new! I have probably been keeping that tank too clean! I didn't know that the frass was likely important for the nymphs! Interesting. I will also be adding some substrate for the roaches here in about 30 min! Poor guys have been living on egg cartons - I thought it was better because it made cleaning easier. Silly me  Thank you so much for this post!


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