b. bolivensis
- Thread starter HepCatMoe
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
- Messages
- 1,407
I bought some of these from Dave Grimm and have been extremely pleased with them. Matter in fact i have been recommending them to everyone i know that feeds lobsters or crickets. I ordered a fair amount of various sized nymphs from Dave a couple months (or so?) ago, and they have taken off like crazy. For awhile i thought i would have to buy more but practically all of them are adults now. They are really neat looking roaches and make excellent feeders.
Heres the pros....
The only cons i can think of are....
As far as keeping them, i keep them in a 29 gallon glass setup with cork bark hide that i made (use nuts and bolts and some cork bark to make a apartment type deal for them) and some egg cartons for them. I keep a medium sized heat bulb on them and keep it on about 14 hours a day, then off at night.
I feed them once, twice, sometimes 3 times a week, depending on how lazy i am. I feed a main diet of dry cat food and oatmeal that is ground up, then supplement occasionally with fresh fruit or vegetables (they LOVE cantaloupe!). Keep the humidity slightly raised either by misting occasionally the sides of the setup, or better yet by buying that water jelly stuff and leaving a fresh large dish of it in with them at all times.
Remember when you feed to make sure it is something they can climb into to eat or drink, because they cannot climb smooth surfaces.
These are by far some awesome roaches, and even though i plan on eventually starting a dubia colony up, i will always keep these
.
Cheers,
Nate
Heres the pros....
- They do not climb or fly
- They reproduce quickly
- They are very meaty and the perfect size
- They are fairly slow and docile (compared to lobsters or crickets)
- They are not too expensive
- They do not smell AT ALL
- They eat very little for there size compared to lobsters
- They are easy to care for
The only cons i can think of are....
- They tend to burrow but come out of burrowing eventually to wander around, so your Ts will find them sooner or later
- They may be a bit to large for the smallest slings (i get around this by cutting them in half)
- They need heat (but not much of it) to reproduce at a decent rate
- They are so cool you might feel bad feeding them off and want to keep them as pets
As far as keeping them, i keep them in a 29 gallon glass setup with cork bark hide that i made (use nuts and bolts and some cork bark to make a apartment type deal for them) and some egg cartons for them. I keep a medium sized heat bulb on them and keep it on about 14 hours a day, then off at night.
I feed them once, twice, sometimes 3 times a week, depending on how lazy i am. I feed a main diet of dry cat food and oatmeal that is ground up, then supplement occasionally with fresh fruit or vegetables (they LOVE cantaloupe!). Keep the humidity slightly raised either by misting occasionally the sides of the setup, or better yet by buying that water jelly stuff and leaving a fresh large dish of it in with them at all times.
Remember when you feed to make sure it is something they can climb into to eat or drink, because they cannot climb smooth surfaces.
These are by far some awesome roaches, and even though i plan on eventually starting a dubia colony up, i will always keep these
.Cheers,
Nate
I posted this in another thread:
B. boliviensis are similar in size, colors, and rearing habits as B. discoidalis (discoids), B. fusca, B.parabolicus, B. atropos, and the jet black but otherwise similar B. craniifer. All are easy to keep and slightly bigger than B.dubia for all practical purposes.
I have all of the above in culture.
Visit: www.roachforum.com for lots of pics and info.
B. boliviensis are similar in size, colors, and rearing habits as B. discoidalis (discoids), B. fusca, B.parabolicus, B. atropos, and the jet black but otherwise similar B. craniifer. All are easy to keep and slightly bigger than B.dubia for all practical purposes.
I have all of the above in culture.
Visit: www.roachforum.com for lots of pics and info.
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
- Messages
- 1,407
You dont feed adults off anyways, you feed nymphs of various sizes.... so why does it matter?
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2004
- Messages
- 2,239
I agree. I think though the present species work ok, the tarantula hobby really needs a new sp.
sorta like lateralis but without the capacity to infest and a bit slower....
sorta like lateralis but without the capacity to infest and a bit slower....
This is just one stated preference. I, myself, like having a specie in which the adults are small enough to feed off. In my particular case to a few leopard geckos and some assassins. It is for this very reason, I tend to feed from my B. fumigata tanks than anything else.
Bolivensis seems more like dubia than lateralis to me. They even kinda look the same. I'm real interested in this thread as well since I just ordered some (also from Dave Grimm).
I'd like to know specifically how they compare to dubia. I have had dubia and the descriptions so far seem very much the same in many ways.
I totally agree that we could use some more small roaches a la lateralis but a bit slower and slightly less icky if possible. Actually live bearing would be a good thing too.
Adults are my first choice to feed off, they are going to be the first to die of old age and too many breeders will mean your colony is going to spiral out of control eventually. Having a feeder species that you can't feed off the adults isn't the best idea.
gvfarns,
Since you have dubia, just read/research about discoid and decide. Before dubia hit the scene, discoid were the preferred feeder roach. Since blaberus specie are very similar, reading how one particular "feeder" specie (discoid) compared to dubia should provide you enough information to decide.
Basically, just google the many threads of Discoid vs Dubia.
Since you have dubia, just read/research about discoid and decide. Before dubia hit the scene, discoid were the preferred feeder roach. Since blaberus specie are very similar, reading how one particular "feeder" specie (discoid) compared to dubia should provide you enough information to decide.
Basically, just google the many threads of Discoid vs Dubia.
Well I got some. Pretty neat little roaches. They are a bit faster moving (slightly ickier I think) and more bold than dubia so far. Pretty big too. I don't have many T's that can munch the adults.
Of course that's not new info for this thread, so here's a picture.
Of course that's not new info for this thread, so here's a picture.
Regarding whether they are too big for normal tarantulas, I have done a few experiments now.
I threw an adult in with my adult A geniculata and it was mince meat immediately. I threw an adult in with my adult B albopilosum and it struck a few times before finally deciding to eat it, now it's munching down. I have a B vagans that's extremely prey aggressive. That one pounced an adult but grabbed the back near the head and didn't get penetration. They have been battling now for like an hour. Very spectacular. Though in the future I won't throw adults in there. My adult G aureostriata followed an adult around for a bit but finally decided to just accept its new tankmate.
I threw a juvenile in with my A "new river" and it immediately borrowed away. We'll see what happens there. I guess juveniles dig.
These roaches are really active...they attract a lot of attention. My T's love them, but they are large and not exactly soft bodied.
So there's an anecdote for anyone interested in this species of roach.
I threw an adult in with my adult A geniculata and it was mince meat immediately. I threw an adult in with my adult B albopilosum and it struck a few times before finally deciding to eat it, now it's munching down. I have a B vagans that's extremely prey aggressive. That one pounced an adult but grabbed the back near the head and didn't get penetration. They have been battling now for like an hour. Very spectacular. Though in the future I won't throw adults in there. My adult G aureostriata followed an adult around for a bit but finally decided to just accept its new tankmate.
I threw a juvenile in with my A "new river" and it immediately borrowed away. We'll see what happens there. I guess juveniles dig.
These roaches are really active...they attract a lot of attention. My T's love them, but they are large and not exactly soft bodied.
So there's an anecdote for anyone interested in this species of roach.
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2005
- Messages
- 150
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2004
- Messages
- 2,239
Actually, I think dubia are a step down from discoids as far as tarantula acceptance goes. I've found tarantulas to pound adult discoids/other Blaberus much more readily than dubia females(dubia males, on the other hand, and feeders par excellence for large T's esp. since they don't burrow much).
I can agree with this after having fed both to my T's now. Nymphs of both species are not very good feeders because they burrow like heck. But the adult bolivensis run around for a long time and don't seem very frightened of the T's, wheras dubia are much more cautious and slow moving in my opinion.
As a feeder bolivensis is much better than dubia IMO. They are the only Blaberus I'm familiar with. Although, how does one know what gender they are?
The descriptions I've read make bolivensis seem very much like what I hear about discoids. Can anyone who's had both tell us of any significant (non-cosmetic) differences between these two species?
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2005
- Messages
- 1,407
HUH??? You can feed off the adults... but obviously you will feed more nymphs than adults to keep your breeding population up as high as possible. The adults live for quite some time. Its not that hard to track your adult count compared to nymph count and figure out things from there. Feeding off adults to my larger Ts alone would mean i was feeding off 15 adults per week or two...
I do not quite understand what you mean about spiraling out of control if you do not feed adults off? Obviously feed off some of your males here and there... but still either way you look at it unless you have a very large colony setup you are still going to want to feed off mostly nymphs.
If im wrong in this ideology please by all means educate me.
Cheers,
Nate
Not sure what you don't understand, it's pretty simple. If the species of roach you are keeping is too big for your predators, you will end up with too many breeders, and you will eventually end up with way too many roaches. It's nice you have big tarantulas to take care of that for you but I don't, I only have a couple of those and they aren't that big yet. That's why I said I would like a smaller species of roach, not sure why that bothers you, not everybody has the same type of collection as you. My collection consists of mostly scorpions and other bugs that take prey from 1-1.5", thus I never get to feed off adults, and I ended up having well over 2k roaches in my colony (because I was never able to feed off any adults, beginning to see a pattern here? too many adults, too many babies, too many roaches). Sure you can feed off the males but that will do nothing for your overpopulation problem, one male can service quite a few females in a week or two, and I'm pretty sure the females only need to breed once to have multiple broods.
So in my case, yes you are wrong, hope I clarified everything well enough for you. Have you only been keeping roaches for a couple months or something? Once you've been keeping them for years you will understand.
Edit: Edited it to make it a little nicer.