# What is the trick to keeping water in your roach colony?



## Kathy (Jun 7, 2010)

I just can't figure that out.  If it is too big, they drown in the water, then I have it small, but it evaporates really fast and they get thirsty.  Too tall and the small ones can't climb it.....What do you guys use for water dishes?  I keep reading on here about the cricket gel things, but it sounds like they are not good for the t's because of the high calcium level.  Any suggestions?


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## xhexdx (Jun 7, 2010)

If you use a low water dish with aquarium stones in it, they can climb back out if they fall in.

If you feed them stuff like oranges and other juicy fruits (har har), you can pretty much eliminate a water dish altogether.


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## Travis K (Jun 7, 2010)

I don't use water dishes for my roaches.


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## Kathy (Jun 7, 2010)

Travis, so what do you do?  I will try the idea with rocks.


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## moose35 (Jun 7, 2010)

fruit kathy.......fruit

or just plain water crystals with nothing added to them

             moose


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## Galapoheros (Jun 7, 2010)

No water dish here either.  They get enough through fruits and veggies, sometimes if I have the water bottle in my hand I will spray everything down in there.  ..dahh, you beat me moose!


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## moose35 (Jun 7, 2010)

haha your too slow Gala.

i also do what todd does with the spray bottle
if i remember i spray them down real good every once i a while

           moose


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## matthias (Jun 7, 2010)

since no one else asked, what kind of roaches?

Some need a little more moisture in the environment, some are just fine with fruit.

All of my have water crystals. (I'll occasionally squeeze some oranges over the crystals and they go nuts).
But they keep event he babies from drowning and don't dry out too quickly.


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## Kathy (Jun 7, 2010)

I have b. lats.  These water crystals, where do you buy them?  I only see gel type things at the pet stores around here.  I would like to go that route but I guess I am not sure what you are talking about.


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## arachnochicken (Jun 7, 2010)

Kathy I have the same roaches you do and in the year or so that I've had them I have never once given them water or water crystals . As mentioned above they get enough from the fruits and veggies they are given . I mostly feed mine oranges and they have been thriving on them just fine .


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## moose35 (Jun 7, 2010)

http://watergelcrystals.com/order-crystals.htm

-or-
you can google water crystals

the ones you find for plants are the same stuff but cheaper

but i don't use them.  just fruit and an occasional spraying

        moose


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## Kathy (Jun 7, 2010)

The thing with fruit is that I've tried that and by the next morning it just stinks so gross, but I haven't tried oranges.  I will try that too.  Thanks all.


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## Falk (Jun 7, 2010)

You dont need water crystals, just give them wet fruits like oranges.
I have had huge colonies of _Therea olegrandjeani, Blaptica dubia, Gyna lurida, Gromphadorina portentosa_ and i have never used water crystals


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## BakuBak (Jun 7, 2010)

easy way to suply watter (beside  fruits) is to make a holl in kinder surprize   toy container , put inside  a spong and  fill it with woter  till the spong soak all ,  ( part of spong must to be outside   the holl little bit ) 

 then you  glue it to the side of container and  roches drings from the spong


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## andy375hh (Jun 7, 2010)

Use Water crystals, I take a Deli cup and cut holes big enough for the roaches to climb in and out of fill it with water crystals there ya go. I put a top on it also so the crystals dont dry out so fast this lasts almost a week, I do it for Lats, Dubia's and Hissers.


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## Falk (Jun 7, 2010)

BakuBak said:


> easy way to suply watter (beside  fruits) is to make a holl in kinder surprize   toy container , put inside  a spong and  fill it with woter  till the spong soak all ,  ( part of spong must to be outside   the holl little bit )
> 
> then you  glue it to the side of container and  roches drings from the spong



Yeah and make a bacteria colony to


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## Kathy (Jun 7, 2010)

I just ordered some water crystals from the site Moose gave me.    And I will get some oranges tomorrow.  Might as well do both.  I have been feeding them cat food and oatmeal mainly.


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## Galapoheros (Jun 7, 2010)

Kathy said:


> I have b. lats.  These water crystals, where do you buy them?  I only see gel type things at the pet stores around here.  I would like to go that route but I guess I am not sure what you are talking about.


They will easily get by if you put something in there they will eat in a day.  They can go several days without eating anything.  Sometimes I put a quarter of a potato in the containers.  The don't seem to like it a whole lot but it is a source of moisture when they want it and slow to rot, typical tuber!


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## Falk (Jun 7, 2010)

andy375hh said:


> Use Water crystals, I take a Deli cup and cut holes big enough for the roaches to climb in and out of fill it with water crystals there ya go. I put a top on it also so the crystals dont dry out so fast this lasts almost a week, I do it for Lats, Dubia's and Hissers.


Totaly unnecessary if you use oranges


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## presurcukr (Jun 7, 2010)

I use watermelon and oranges


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## Crysta (Jun 7, 2010)

hmm

when I had my roach colony. Lobsters, b. lateralis and my few hissers I just used oranges and pieces of apples, and sometimes grapes. These should NOT stink up your enclosure. 

If it does stink it up you've put too much in there, do not have enough ventilation, or they must be making contact of something soft in the enclosure, that induces mold upon several hours of contact.

I saw you had typed that you're using oatmeal, try to get a flat piece of plastic with no ledge so the young can climb up, and to put the fruits and veggies on. This will prevent mold and smelliness of the fruit/oatmeal/cardboard contact. 

IMO the water crystals are just a waste of time, they are just water with no nutrients, and by feeding fruits you get the hydration they need and the extra 'omph' of nutrition.


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## Kathy (Jun 7, 2010)

Good info and suggestion centipede, thanks!


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## Matt K (Jun 7, 2010)

I just pour water right on them and thier eggcartons once a week- same for the dozens of other roaches I keep.  Do a search for my posts in this department and you can see photos.


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## J Morningstar (Jun 8, 2010)

a shallow water dish with pebbles is fine as everyone has said and yes..again wettter foods will also suffice. Also there should be some condensation somewhere and they will drink that as well.


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## Stylopidae (Jun 9, 2010)

When I used to keep roaches, I'd put apples in there once a week. It took a ten gallon about 15 minutes to eat an entire apple completely and there wouldn't be any problems with smell (other than the colony itself).

Other fruits such as bananas and oranges will work as a substitute.


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## Crysta (Jun 9, 2010)

oh wow!! how many roaches where in that ten gallon???? lol


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## Rex Libris (Jun 12, 2010)

A not-so-old beekeeper's trick for watering is to use a bunch of plastic beads instead of pebbles -- enough to cover the surface of the water with floating beads. The bees can alight on them and drink through the gaps between beads. This is a scheme to allow you to give your bees a five-gallon bucket of water so you don't need to fill it again every day. 9mm pony beads are cheap and more than adequate for bees, but I imagine large roaches might need bigger beads to keep from sinking, and ways to climb in and out of the container.


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## gvfarns (Jul 12, 2010)

andy375hh said:


> Use Water crystals, I take a Deli cup and cut holes big enough for the roaches to climb in and out of fill it with water crystals there ya go. I put a top on it also so the crystals dont dry out so fast this lasts almost a week, I do it for Lats, Dubia's and Hissers.


Can you take a quick picture of how you do this?  It sounds like a really good idea.  I get annoyed with the evaporation of my crystals.  The holes must be very close to the ground, though, if the nymphs are to reach the crystals.  At least for lateralis nymphs.

I assume the roaches still poop on the crystals just as much as ever, right?  that's a very disgusting thing and I'd be interested in a solution to that.


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## recluse (Jul 13, 2010)

I dont use crystals myself but...................

You can also make your own water crystals. See below.

How to make moisture munchies.


2 Tablespoons of Agar Agar powder or Agar Agar flakes (You can purchase Agar Agar at 
most health food stores) 

2 1/2 Cups of water 

Mix together and bring to a boil and boil approx 2 minutes, Pour liquid into a shallow 
cake pan and let set in refridgerator for 10-15 minutes. After it's set you can draw a 
knife through the gel and cut it into small pieces or Lg blocks. Transfer the pieces 
into a plastic container, cover and store in the refridgerator. For serving to your 
bugs put a pile of moisture munchies on a plastic margarine container lid. 

This gel will not disintegrate into a mound of water even when kept at high 
temperatures within cricket cages. 

Feed the moisture munchies to anything that requires water such as crickets, 
superbeetles, mealybeetles, superworms, roaches, ect. They all seem to love the stuff. 
You can eat the munchies yourself too.  

This is not my recipe (just a disclaimer)


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## thebugfreak (Jul 14, 2010)

i dont know if anyone mentioned this, but you can use water crystals. or like what everyone said, use fruit that has a lot of water or fluid like oranges or watermelons. but they might get messy to clean up.


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## gvfarns (Jul 14, 2010)

recluse said:


> I dont use crystals myself but...................
> 
> You can also make your own water crystals. See below.
> 
> ...


For some reason I thought this was looked at before and has the problem that the agar agar can mold or grow bacteria (I might be misremembering, though).  Crystals get nasty enough after roaches poo on them and that starts decaying.  

I also suspect the crystals are cheaper.  At watergelcrystals.com a pound of them is $15.50 at the moment with free shipping.  A pound of dry crystals makes a large quantity of water gel.  I am not finding a cheap place to get agar agar at the moment.


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## elportoed (Jul 14, 2010)

I use fruits and veggies.  Sometimes I put water with small quantity of chicken mash, they eat it all up in a few hours.

I also remember reading a thread where agar was used and it gets moldy quickly.  Agar is organic, some kind of processed seaweed.

As far as water crystal goes, this is cheaper but you have to buy 2 lbs.  A pound make like 16 gal.

http://www.watersorb.com/prices.htm


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## gvfarns (Jul 14, 2010)

You can buy as little as a half pound here

http://watergelcrystals.com/order-crystals.htm

It's the same stuff, right?  I guess I don't know that for sure.

Edit: Sorry I misunderstood the previous post.  Yes that site is cheaper if you are ok with 2 pounds.  Good call.


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## recluse (Jul 15, 2010)

gvfarns said:


> For some reason I thought this was looked at before and has the problem that the agar agar can mold or grow bacteria (I might be misremembering, though).  Crystals get nasty enough after roaches poo on them and that starts decaying.
> 
> I also suspect the crystals are cheaper.  At watergelcrystals.com a pound of them is $15.50 at the moment with free shipping.  A pound of dry crystals makes a large quantity of water gel.  I am not finding a cheap place to get agar agar at the moment.


Yes, I posted the same recipe on roachforum.com and a search of the threads will bring up the discussion. Not saying it is good or bad, just saying it is an option. We all know that with roach colonies cleanliness and unwanted pests are sometimes an issue.


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## LeilaNami (Jul 15, 2010)

I just spray everything in the tank as well.


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