Ideas on how to clean roach enclosure
- Thread starter eelnoob
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2007
- Messages
- 182
Ugh!
I don't keep lobsters or any other roach that can climb, so cleaning my enclosures is easy.
Oh wait, I lied I do have Hissers but they are slow and give me no trouble.
I would create a second environment that's all clean and ready and tip the roaches into it.
Shake out any egg crate or other "furniture" pieces and then tip again until you have them all transferred.
The other thing you can do (I sometimes do this with my Lateralis) is clean around them, but that is not nearly as thorough and more of an in-between cleanings thing.
Make sure you have bugstop on the fresh container and that you wipe it off the original one (at least one corner) before starting the tippings.
Good Luck!
-Brad
I don't keep lobsters or any other roach that can climb, so cleaning my enclosures is easy.
Oh wait, I lied I do have Hissers but they are slow and give me no trouble.
I would create a second environment that's all clean and ready and tip the roaches into it.
Shake out any egg crate or other "furniture" pieces and then tip again until you have them all transferred.
The other thing you can do (I sometimes do this with my Lateralis) is clean around them, but that is not nearly as thorough and more of an in-between cleanings thing.
Make sure you have bugstop on the fresh container and that you wipe it off the original one (at least one corner) before starting the tippings.
Good Luck!
-Brad
I live in Atlanta where it is very hot and humid. I have lobster escapees all the time and have never had them survive to become pests.
I even came home from work one day to find my dog had managed to flip their tub completely over! Most of them just kinda stayed huddled together and I was able to get the majority back in. Still, I bet 100 or so got away. For the next month or two I would find them, usually in small groups, under boxes and clothes and such. Then I started to find them dead.
I think I've had my colony for at least 6 years and I've never cleaned them! There is about 3.5" of roach poop in there! I kept thinking about how to separate them from their poop, but could never quite think of a good way.
One thing I thought about doing was moving all the adults and larger subs to a new enclosure, and them moving the others as they grew larger. I'm probably just not diligent enough to not end up with two colonies, and that wouldn't make my wife happy!
I wonder if roach poop makes a good fertilizer?
I even came home from work one day to find my dog had managed to flip their tub completely over! Most of them just kinda stayed huddled together and I was able to get the majority back in. Still, I bet 100 or so got away. For the next month or two I would find them, usually in small groups, under boxes and clothes and such. Then I started to find them dead.
I think I've had my colony for at least 6 years and I've never cleaned them! There is about 3.5" of roach poop in there! I kept thinking about how to separate them from their poop, but could never quite think of a good way.
One thing I thought about doing was moving all the adults and larger subs to a new enclosure, and them moving the others as they grew larger. I'm probably just not diligent enough to not end up with two colonies, and that wouldn't make my wife happy!
I wonder if roach poop makes a good fertilizer?
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Messages
- 650
If you wanted to get serious about it you could carefully dump the enclosure into the bathtub (drain plug in), then go clean the container. If they are a climbing species you could put a ring of vaseline around the tub to keep 'em in. Then have fun picking each roach up and putting it back in. I'd make doubly sure there are no nymphs hiding anywhere before you pull the plug and rinse out the tub.
Bit of a chore but it's an option.....
Bit of a chore but it's an option.....
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2002
- Messages
- 1,224
I use this kitchen thing that is used to drain pasta (dont know the english word for it).
It works wonders! You just have to find the right one so that the newborns dont pass through the holes.
Oh and I did use the B.dubia frass to fertilise my flower pots
It works wonders! You just have to find the right one so that the newborns dont pass through the holes.
Oh and I did use the B.dubia frass to fertilise my flower pots
Oh and I did use the B.dubia frass to fertilise my flower pots
yea when I was cleaning out my dubia and discoid enclosure I was thinking about doing that too
how are they flowers doing