Red Runner ootheca hatching

[juanbaltasar]

Hello everyone, I recently got a little colony of red runners and wanted to know which are the best temperature and humidity conditions to keep the oothecas in

 

[jbooth]

I'll let you know if mine hatch how this works. I'm going for high 80s on both. Moist paper towel on bottom, ooths in container sitting on that so they aren't wet themselves. I put the first few ooths in this and just left the rest in the colony. Only been a week or 2.

 

[juanbaltasar]

That will be nice, i'm keeping them the same way as you, so I hope it works

 

[l4nsky]

80-82°F and anywhere from 60%‐80% RH. DON'T keep them wet. A bowl of water crystals in a tub should be more than adequate to keep the RH in that range. I've kept my colony pretty much everyway you can and I've never had a problem getting them to reproduce. For the longest time, I just simply kept them on dry substrate with eggcrate. Now, I've come full circle and I'm back to keeping them barebottom, but I do pull the ootheca and I put them in a smaller container with substrate to hatch so I always have pinheads.

Old setup with substrate


New setup as barebottom with pinhead hatchery.


Colony before a recent split (thats a 10g aquarium in the background for scale )

 

[curtisgiganteus]

80-82°F and anywhere from 60%‐80% RH. DON'T keep them wet. A bowl of water crystals in a tub should be more than adequate to keep the RH in that range. I've kept my colony pretty much everyway you can and I've never had a problem getting them to reproduce. For the longest time, I just simply kept them on dry substrate with eggcrate. Now, I've come full circle and I'm back to keeping them barebottom, but I do pull the ootheca and I put them in a smaller container with substrate to hatch so I always have pinheads.

Old setup with substrate
View attachment 434924

New setup as barebottom with pinhead hatchery.
View attachment 434926

Colony before a recent split (thats a 10g aquarium in the background for scale )
View attachment 434925

Damn, and I’m having trouble with dubia

 

[l4nsky]

Damn, and I’m having trouble with dubia

Yeah, have those too. No issues with them either lol.

 

[juanbaltasar]

When females lay the ootheca this are already fertilized right? Or they are externally fertilized by a male?

 

[ThatsUnpossible]

They're already fertilised. Mine aren't breeding right now because I've turned their heating off, but I never did anything special with the ooths, just left them in there and let them get on with it. I don't know if I lost any ooths doing it that way, but there were more than enough hatching for me. I've only got 3 T's tho so don't need many.

I also just leave water crystals. They get an occasional treat of fruit, but that keeps them moist enough. I think I had the temp about 83f when they were breeding.

They do take a while to hatch, IIRC it's a couple of weeks or so, if that's wrong somebody please correct me.

 

[jbooth]

Yeah so far more than that. I heard up to a month or so. And I thought they were only supposed to lay 1 or 2 a month... These definitely didn't get the memo. I kinda hope they don't all hatch lol. They're everywhere

 

[jbooth]

I just realized the few I put aside got moldy, so I'm waiting on the ones in the colony. I gave them a half inch of substrate yesterday to help keep a bit of humidity. I'm right at 3 weeks now, maybe a hair less for the ones in colony. I'm sure they'll be fine I only need an ooth a month lol, and there's got to be 30 in there.

 

[curtisgiganteus]

Yeah, have those too. No issues with them either lol.
View attachment 434937

How do you keep them?

 

[l4nsky]

How do you keep them?

The same, although I don't separate out pinheads and I did start keeping them a few degrees cooler to curb breeding a bit. I'll feed off all life stages of lateralis, but I typically only feed off adult male and larger juvenile dubia.

 

[ThatsUnpossible]

I just realized the few I put aside got moldy, so I'm waiting on the ones in the colony. I gave them a half inch of substrate yesterday to help keep a bit of humidity. I'm right at 3 weeks now, maybe a hair less for the ones in colony. I'm sure they'll be fine I only need an ooth a month lol, and there's got to be 30 in there.

Yeah, I couldn't remember exactly how long, but I remember thinking they weren't going to hatch it took so long. Then suddenly tiny roaches appeared, the babies are actually quite cute - they're so little