Dubia Breeding advice please

[Ahzz1816]

Hello everyone I hope you are doing well and I am sorry that this is kind of a repost.

I have looked online and I know that to breed dubia's you want them about 80+ degrees and according to my breeder about 50-60% humidity. I only have 2 Tarantula's at the moment but with experience I hope to gain more. I am working myself up to a Poecilotheria metallica or Gooty Sapphire. Crickets in my area have become scarce, I have not gotten to a point where I ran out of food for my T's. I buy a lot of crickets at once and I buy the nutrition cubes, the loss of them is minimal but sometimes it is 2-3 weeks before a resupply and things get close. I read that the Dubia is just a better insect to feed to my T's so I wanted to start a colony. I ordered the colony and they came in just fine last week, before I dive in I want to say I understand this takes time but I have spent a few hundred on their setup at this point and I don't want to keep spending money aimlessly so I am seeking advice. When I bought the roaches I found a tutorial on Josh's frogs for their habitat and the only thing I changed was the plastic bin. I am using a glass aquarium instead. A few days after my colony came in the coconut husk substrate become riddled with mold and I had to remove it. I have seen polls and other things saying many people do not actually use substrate so I left it out but I am struggling with my temp and humidity levels. On my what I believe is a 20 gallon tank, I have a 50 gallon heating pad and a 30 gallon heating pad. The 50 gallon is on the side of the tank and the 30 is on the right side underneath with a few damp paper towels that do not have any dye. My humidity has been real low without the substrate and my cleaning crew died so I am waiting for a replacement that should arrive next week. ( I do hate how slow my breeder is to ship). I am really worried this colony is going to die or become infertile. My temps on the lowest egg carton inside is about 80-85 but outside and above it drops to around 70 I spray the egg cartons 2-3 times a day to try to get the humidity up and I put a humidifier on top of the tank so the mist is coming inside and I saran wrapped half the mesh lid to keep some heat and moisture in. This seems to be helping but I still cannot get the humidity very highit is usually between 20-30% by the time I get home from work but that was before the humidifier which I will be able to get a reading after work today. I have water crystals in a dish and I have dog kibble scattered around the cage. I have been feeding them bananas and oranges but the fruit seems to go untouched and I remove it after 24 hours. I am under the impression that these guys are good eaters but they do not even touch the bug brownie that was given to me by the breeder. With my replacement cleaner crew I have some roach chow coming and more bug brownie. I guess what I am looking for is any advice I am getting a better humidifier today so I do not need to refill every 4 hours and adding a 3rd 50 gallon heat pad which should be here tomorrow. The tank is in a dark corner of my house so I do not think that it would be light deterring them from eating I even put the fruit on the egg crates and under so that they do not have to look hard to find it. Any advice would be appreciated as I am kind of stressing about these guys I know it takes time for them to reproduce and I am patient that is not my concern I am just worried about giving them an optimal habitat so that they do indeed eventually reproduce so I can get away from the crickets.

 

[Konstantin Konstantinov]

Wow! You are well serious about it.
I think you are overthinking and overdoing it.
I keep all my feeders without substrate just kitchen rool on bottom with shallow dish water cristals (changed as needed) and shallow dish with cheap porridge oats as food(I dont use cat or dog food as that gets mites a lot faster) and they all do fine.I very very rarely give them some organic carrots if I remember now and then.No cleaning crews, no temperature or humidity monitoring too.I don't need my Dubias to breed as I use crickets as main feeder but they do when temps are up in warmer mounts.
My Ts are not too keen on dubias too.
Maybe try red runners instead as they breed faster and in my opinion are better feeder than Dubias.

 

[Malum Argenteum]

I think you are overthinking and overdoing it.

Agreed.

I breed mine in a plastic tub, full screen top, room humidity is ~40%, heat pad that covers 1/3 of the tub floor on a rheostat, room temp is on the warm side of comfortable, no substrate, feed commercial roach chow powder stuff and dry rat food (= dog food, pretty much) crumbles from the bottom of the bag, carrot ends and other veggie and sometimes fruit scraps for water. An orange on Christmas, if they've been good. No cleaning crew (that is you), and no hygrometers in the tub -- chasing numbers is a fool's errand, IME.

Roaches can thermoregulate -- they'll go near the heat pad if they're cold. If they're always on it, turn it warmer; if they're avoiding it, turn it down a little.

 

[Ahzz1816]

My Ts are not too keen on dubias too.
Maybe try red runners instead as they breed faster and in my opinion are better feeder than Dubias.

Thank you both for putting my mind at ease. I have been sadly reading this about the Dubia's but I can't see a need to have both breeds for the 2 tarantulas I have now. If something happens to this colony I may switch or if my T's don't seem to like them I may as well. I know I do tend to go down a hole and I get strung out about things that most people probably would not and I tend to get myself worked up and stressed out over the small things.

 

[rosenkrieger]

I prefer red runners for my T's because the dubias tend to burrow really quick. I have a colony of both and I've been using the red runners for my T's and the dubias for my Leopard Gecko (got a dish that I can put them in that they can't escape and burrow into the substrate).

 

[Ahzz1816]

I prefer red runners for my T's because the dubias tend to burrow really quick. I have a colony of both and I've been using the red runners for my T's and the dubias for my Leopard Gecko (got a dish that I can put them in that they can't escape and burrow into the substrate).

I just don't want to get rid of my Dubia's yet. I put a lot of time and effort into these guys and I do not have another animal to feed them to. I want a bearded dragon so maybe this can be an excuse to get one lol

 

[rosenkrieger]

I just don't want to get rid of my Dubia's yet. I put a lot of time and effort into these guys and I do not have another animal to feed them to. I want a bearded dragon so maybe this can be an excuse to get one lol

Yeah, I was in the same boat with my dubias, too. I just got frustrated trying to feed arboreals and fossorials with a roach that almost immediately burrowed. I ended up finding a small local source of red runners, but kept my dubias just for the hell of it. When I got the gecko, I was glad I did.

 

[vicareux]

Here's my experience so far. I've never looked into these guides and put much effort into tracking everything. I just made their little bucket enclosure and the breeding is just kinda happening.

I keep my colony in a bucket with 1 inch of moist cocofiber (i never ever seemed to have mold issues with coco fiber. Even moistened like in my dubia enclosure.) and cottonwood bark for them to hide inbetween,instead of regular egg carton. They are kind of fascinating to me so i want to give them a little nicer way of living than just egg cartons.
I just kinda keep them there and they breed without effort,without monitoring of humidity or temperature (I do keep my room quite hot,so i guess that helps a lot).
But i think the most important thing when it comes to dubia breeding - patience,space and number of adults you start off with.

Patience - they flee all around their enclosure when i even touch it,let alone flash my light to it. This may distrupt any breeding between male and a female or just give them stress which may impact breeding frequency. So i just let them be and check on them every few days when i offer new food.
Space - I like to provide them with big enough space so each specimen could have its own little corner of the enclosure if it wants to separate to give birth or just chill there.
Number of adults - No explaination needed. I started off with 1 male and 3 adult females,and the rest of the colony were just larger nymphs. I had all 3 females give birth a few months later,and in the meanwhile the larger nymphs emerged into adults,which will spark greater numbers in the next couple of months.

With my simple way of keeping them,i've never had a single death so far.

Also,for the feeding,the trick ive found to work 90% of the time is to put the dubia upside down in the tarantula enclosure. As the dubia tries to right itself back up,that causes enough vibration and gives enough time for the tarantula to pounce on it.

 

[DiscoidsNHissers]

I think you might be overdoing it on the humidity, I've had dubias thrive as low as 30% (trust me, we were trying to GET RID of our dubia supply and they just kept breeding). If you're worried about water, add fruits or a bowl of water crystals. Most important thing (which I have learned with discoids, hissers, and every other roach species) is to leave them be, give them enough places to HIDE, and babies will appear when you least expect them. Namely when you clean out the cage and look through the substrate and go "HEY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?" at about fifty babies that were burrowing in there.