Hissers are smelly...

[aggie08]

Anyone have a good recommendation to get rid of the roach odor? :? It's pretty stinky!

 

[LayneNugget]

i think mine smell delightful, heh.

giving them fresh fruits and veggies helps to cover up odors, i find.

 

[aggie08]

I've got fresh fruit and veggies in there and it's pretty stinky! I don't want to spray anything around them as it might harm them. Any other ideas?

 

[jbrd]

clean out the enclosure there in or add pill bugs to help with the clean up.

 

[JohnxII]

Stay away from green vegs, and provide excessive ventilation. Even so, they do have a slight odor, but nowhere as smelly as crickets or "pest" roaches.

 

[cacoseraph]

the only time my hisser colony has a bad smell to me is when there is a deader in there. without fail, i can find the stinky culprit, remove the corpse, and go back to normal decent smelling goodness

 

[aggie08]

Pillbugs eh? They really help alot?

 

[Snipes]

i dont have experience with roaches, but i find that with crickets i cut down on the smell by having lots of oatmeal in there. It covered up the smell for like two months.

 

[jbrd]

I put oatmeal in with my hisser's and they never even touched them? :?

 

[Scorpiove]

This might sound nuts but after I got the pesky slow moving mite infestation my enclosure stays clean. All the poop disappears on its own, and so does any un-eaten food items. I've tried to prevent these mites so many times but they also invaded my emp scorp enclosure. I thought they were going to harm my roaches and scorps but I noticed they never get on them. They stay in the substrat only. I might find one that accidently got on a roach but it isn't hooked on like one of those parasitic mites would be. So besides the unsightly white mites in the enclosure I have no smell except for the pete moss and whatever current food items I have in the cage.

 

[OldHag]

Could you be feeding them too much?? Rotton food? I only feed mine once a week.. if that. Granted I keep dry stuff like fishfood or cat food in at all times. And some cricket crystals for water.
But only once a week do I put in fresh wet vegetable matter, and then only as much as the colony can eat in one night.
That may be mean, but they thrive! and as casoceraph says, it could also be a dead one! Dang dead ones smell SO bad!!
I wouldnt suggest pillbugs in with roaches. Unless theyre a species of roach you need to keep some moist peatmoss in with. The pillbugs will just die with out the moisture.

 

[jbrd]

how do you keep your pillbugs with your roaches?

 

[aggie08]

I tried to stick some pillbugs in there, they all died though. And even if they ate the roach doo-doo wouldn't they have some of their own??

 

[jbrd]

I think the pill bugs would need some sort of moist substrate to stay alive?