Red runner issue ?

[Thomas5824]

I bought about 50 red runners in May and housed them in a plastic box with holes on top and egg crates, as it seems that everyone is doing this. They were actually in a closet, outside in a garden during summer and I moved them inside just last month because temperature were dropping very low. I gave them pesticide free oranges, tomatoes, carrots, lemons, an eggplant and also cat food. Recently I gave them a non pesticide-free orange and clementine, because the shop was nearer and I never heard anyone mention that I should give them pesticide free food, so I gave it a try. (maybe you can tell me what you think about this) I dont know if that's just the temperature or if they are sick but females seem to lay a lot less ootheca than when I got them.

Enough for context here is the "issue" I just encountered :

Now that their box is inside the house I can actually watch them regularly, and earlier today I saw a female that I thought was laying an ootheca but it was actually some sort of white jelly, took her a few minutes to drop it all and as soon she finished doing it she just ate the whole thing. I dont know if that's normal or should I be worried ? I can't really afford to loose the colony as I have a 3 or 4 cm long grammostola pulchripes, it would take a long time for a colony to regrow nymphs large enough to feed her.

 

[Thomas5824]

Little update on my case ... :
I have started to regularly find dead females (females only) in the box, what could this come from ? they are kept at around 20°C, with a half of an orange and cat foods to eat freely. Males and nymphs do not seem affected by this so what should I do ?

 

[Bob Lee]

20°C

That sounds quite low, try raising it by a couple C

 

[Thomas5824]

Thanks for your answer Bob. I'll get them a small heater this week end. I also considered, since I never fed any adults to my tarantula (she's still a juvenile), could they be dying from old age ? I got my lateralis last year and they were already matured. But I'm not really sure since it's not even the biggest females dying...

 

[SonsofArachne]

Actually they won't breed under 25 c. And if you can get them up to 30 c that would be even better.

 

[Colorado Ts]

I started a colony of B. lateralis about 3 or 4 months ago. I started with 100 roaches of various sizes, in a tub that is about ~38 liters capacity. I'll call it LARGE tub with solid sides. The colony container is not clear and it is dark inside.

I put an adjustable reptile heating mat under the container and set it so that the internal temperature of the container was 90 - 93 degrees F. It doesn't heat the entire container, but there are areas in the bottom that maintain a nice even temperature. As long as I have areas that are above 90 degrees the roaches can breed. If the temperature is below 90 degrees, breeding is greatly diminished and stops. If the temperature gets too much below 60 degrees the roaches will go into torpor and start dying...which is great if any of them escape, I don't really need to worry about infestations.

I leaned egg crate in the container with sections of cardboard between to keep the egg crate from slipping together and crushing the roaches. For a substrate I initially used dry aspen wood shavings at a depth of 1.5 to 2 inches. In the lid of the container I used a hole drill bit and cut 9 holes, nicely spaced, that are 2"s in diameter. I then used silicon glue and window screen to seal the holes so that the roaches could not escape.

I feed the roaches on ground up organic non-medicated Chick Feed in one dish, Koi pond pellets, and flake fish food in another dish, and I give them a 1/4 of an orange every couple of days. I also give them 1 leaf of Romaine lettuce each night before I head home. I started feeding the colony the orange slices once I solved my major problem discussed below. After a month or so, I noticed LOTS and LOTS babies running every where in the colony. I would say that oranges seem to promote breeding.

The roaches will reduce a leaf of Romaine lettuce to just a shriveled vein in 1 night, and it takes them about 2 or 3 days to completely consume a 1/4 of an orange. They leave behind a perfectly hollowed out orange slice; actually pretty cool.

For water, I have a dish that has a pile of water crystals, that I top off with a bit of water each day.

Problems: When I first started my colony, I noticed that the roaches were eating nicely and would moult regularly, then die off as they reached adulthood. I was having a high mortality of mostly females and some males. I originally thought that I had received roaches that were heavily inbred, as high adult mortality is a symptom of heavy inbreeding. So I ordered another 150 roaches from a different vender.

My problem continued, so I began researching the needs of roaches and I found a discussion concerning humidity requirements for roach colonies. I live in a dry climate. In the winter it gets really dry, to where you will have dry itchy skin, my wife constantly trying to rub lotion on me (its irritating). So I completely emptied out my colony boxes, cleaned the container and replaced the wood shavings with damp coco fibre. I now add 100mls of water to the substrate once a week on Fridays. I just added water before I found this thread.

At present my colony is exploding. I checked the colony over earlier this week and I was taken a bit aback by the numbers, now I'm a bit concerned that my colony might be too successful.

I'm pretty sure that my B. lateralis roaches were just to dry and were not able to moult at the larger sizes. The humidity was too low for them as they got larger and approached breeding size. The females tended to be the ones more affected than the males by the low humidity.

I know that a lot of people are able to raise roach colonies with NO substrate, but my local humidity in the winter is just too low. Humidity is a bit higher during the summer months, maybe in summer I could.

I hope this helps.

 

[Thomas5824]

Thanks a lot for you answer. I measured the temperature inside my container yesterday and it was around 25°C, with condensation everywhere, probably due to not enough ventilation. I will add moist substrate anyway and update my case in the coming weeks.