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- Dec 22, 2004
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Just went through my incubator and checked out all different types of oothecas I found there to see which ones are in what state.
Thus I'll here compile a list of Ootheca colour and appearance and what's going on with them. The incubator is moist and warm, thus some limited mould appears, but it's only a thick paste like yellow kind, not the kind of normal bushy mould. There are more than enough springtails in the incubator which eat all but living roaches, oothecas or that aforementioned type of mould.
Oothecas may be dirty, thus try to see what colour the ootheca itself is.
Ootheca (colour may differ between different incubator setups, moisture is a big factor in the list below):
- Clean, shiny (almost moist looking) deep red, plump: Newly layed, viable
- Clean, semi-shiny, deep red, plump: a few days old, viable
- Deep red, plump: some week/weeks old, viable (Same colour for oothecas from which roaches have recently hatched)
- Mould on the seam: empty (post-hatching), damaged or failed to open, dead
- Very dark red i.e. near brown: empty (old post-hatching), rot, dead
- Dark brown to near black: rot, dead
- Caved in: dried up, dead (a single tiny dent might not do anything on an ootheca, but if one entire side is dented or the sides next to the seam are dented it's dead.)
- Open seam: (may be very hard to see, a papery noise and it's weight is a dead give-away though), post-hatching.
Thus I'll here compile a list of Ootheca colour and appearance and what's going on with them. The incubator is moist and warm, thus some limited mould appears, but it's only a thick paste like yellow kind, not the kind of normal bushy mould. There are more than enough springtails in the incubator which eat all but living roaches, oothecas or that aforementioned type of mould.
Oothecas may be dirty, thus try to see what colour the ootheca itself is.
Ootheca (colour may differ between different incubator setups, moisture is a big factor in the list below):
- Clean, shiny (almost moist looking) deep red, plump: Newly layed, viable
- Clean, semi-shiny, deep red, plump: a few days old, viable
- Deep red, plump: some week/weeks old, viable (Same colour for oothecas from which roaches have recently hatched)
- Mould on the seam: empty (post-hatching), damaged or failed to open, dead
- Very dark red i.e. near brown: empty (old post-hatching), rot, dead
- Dark brown to near black: rot, dead
- Caved in: dried up, dead (a single tiny dent might not do anything on an ootheca, but if one entire side is dented or the sides next to the seam are dented it's dead.)
- Open seam: (may be very hard to see, a papery noise and it's weight is a dead give-away though), post-hatching.