What is the trick to keeping water in your roach colony?

[Crysta]

hmm

when I had my roach colony. Lobsters, b. lateralis and my few hissers I just used oranges and pieces of apples, and sometimes grapes. These should NOT stink up your enclosure.

If it does stink it up you've put too much in there, do not have enough ventilation, or they must be making contact of something soft in the enclosure, that induces mold upon several hours of contact.

I saw you had typed that you're using oatmeal, try to get a flat piece of plastic with no ledge so the young can climb up, and to put the fruits and veggies on. This will prevent mold and smelliness of the fruit/oatmeal/cardboard contact.

IMO the water crystals are just a waste of time, they are just water with no nutrients, and by feeding fruits you get the hydration they need and the extra 'omph' of nutrition.

 

[Kathy]

Good info and suggestion centipede, thanks!

 

[Matt K]

I just pour water right on them and thier eggcartons once a week- same for the dozens of other roaches I keep. Do a search for my posts in this department and you can see photos.

 

[J Morningstar]

a shallow water dish with pebbles is fine as everyone has said and yes..again wettter foods will also suffice. Also there should be some condensation somewhere and they will drink that as well.

 

[Stylopidae]

When I used to keep roaches, I'd put apples in there once a week. It took a ten gallon about 15 minutes to eat an entire apple completely and there wouldn't be any problems with smell (other than the colony itself).

Other fruits such as bananas and oranges will work as a substitute.

 

[Crysta]

oh wow!! how many roaches where in that ten gallon???? lol

 

[Rex Libris]

A not-so-old beekeeper's trick for watering is to use a bunch of plastic beads instead of pebbles -- enough to cover the surface of the water with floating beads. The bees can alight on them and drink through the gaps between beads. This is a scheme to allow you to give your bees a five-gallon bucket of water so you don't need to fill it again every day. 9mm pony beads are cheap and more than adequate for bees, but I imagine large roaches might need bigger beads to keep from sinking, and ways to climb in and out of the container.

 

[gvfarns]

Use Water crystals, I take a Deli cup and cut holes big enough for the roaches to climb in and out of fill it with water crystals there ya go. I put a top on it also so the crystals dont dry out so fast this lasts almost a week, I do it for Lats, Dubia's and Hissers.

Can you take a quick picture of how you do this? It sounds like a really good idea. I get annoyed with the evaporation of my crystals. The holes must be very close to the ground, though, if the nymphs are to reach the crystals. At least for lateralis nymphs.

I assume the roaches still poop on the crystals just as much as ever, right? that's a very disgusting thing and I'd be interested in a solution to that.

 

[recluse]

I dont use crystals myself but...................

You can also make your own water crystals. See below.

How to make moisture munchies.


2 Tablespoons of Agar Agar powder or Agar Agar flakes (You can purchase Agar Agar at
most health food stores)

2 1/2 Cups of water

Mix together and bring to a boil and boil approx 2 minutes, Pour liquid into a shallow
cake pan and let set in refridgerator for 10-15 minutes. After it's set you can draw a
knife through the gel and cut it into small pieces or Lg blocks. Transfer the pieces
into a plastic container, cover and store in the refridgerator. For serving to your
bugs put a pile of moisture munchies on a plastic margarine container lid.

This gel will not disintegrate into a mound of water even when kept at high
temperatures within cricket cages.

Feed the moisture munchies to anything that requires water such as crickets,
superbeetles, mealybeetles, superworms, roaches, ect. They all seem to love the stuff.
You can eat the munchies yourself too.

This is not my recipe (just a disclaimer)

 

[thebugfreak]

i dont know if anyone mentioned this, but you can use water crystals. or like what everyone said, use fruit that has a lot of water or fluid like oranges or watermelons. but they might get messy to clean up.

 

[gvfarns]

I dont use crystals myself but...................

You can also make your own water crystals. See below.

How to make moisture munchies.


2 Tablespoons of Agar Agar powder or Agar Agar flakes (You can purchase Agar Agar at
most health food stores)

2 1/2 Cups of water

Mix together and bring to a boil and boil approx 2 minutes, Pour liquid into a shallow
cake pan and let set in refridgerator for 10-15 minutes. After it's set you can draw a
knife through the gel and cut it into small pieces or Lg blocks. Transfer the pieces
into a plastic container, cover and store in the refridgerator. For serving to your
bugs put a pile of moisture munchies on a plastic margarine container lid.

This gel will not disintegrate into a mound of water even when kept at high
temperatures within cricket cages.

Feed the moisture munchies to anything that requires water such as crickets,
superbeetles, mealybeetles, superworms, roaches, ect. They all seem to love the stuff.
You can eat the munchies yourself too.

This is not my recipe (just a disclaimer)

For some reason I thought this was looked at before and has the problem that the agar agar can mold or grow bacteria (I might be misremembering, though). Crystals get nasty enough after roaches poo on them and that starts decaying.

I also suspect the crystals are cheaper. At watergelcrystals.com a pound of them is $15.50 at the moment with free shipping. A pound of dry crystals makes a large quantity of water gel. I am not finding a cheap place to get agar agar at the moment.

 

[elportoed]

I use fruits and veggies. Sometimes I put water with small quantity of chicken mash, they eat it all up in a few hours.

I also remember reading a thread where agar was used and it gets moldy quickly. Agar is organic, some kind of processed seaweed.

As far as water crystal goes, this is cheaper but you have to buy 2 lbs. A pound make like 16 gal.

http://www.watersorb.com/prices.htm

 

[gvfarns]

You can buy as little as a half pound here

http://watergelcrystals.com/order-crystals.htm

It's the same stuff, right? I guess I don't know that for sure.

Edit: Sorry I misunderstood the previous post. Yes that site is cheaper if you are ok with 2 pounds. Good call.

 

[recluse]

For some reason I thought this was looked at before and has the problem that the agar agar can mold or grow bacteria (I might be misremembering, though). Crystals get nasty enough after roaches poo on them and that starts decaying.

I also suspect the crystals are cheaper. At watergelcrystals.com a pound of them is $15.50 at the moment with free shipping. A pound of dry crystals makes a large quantity of water gel. I am not finding a cheap place to get agar agar at the moment.

Yes, I posted the same recipe on roachforum.com and a search of the threads will bring up the discussion. Not saying it is good or bad, just saying it is an option. We all know that with roach colonies cleanliness and unwanted pests are sometimes an issue.

 

[LeilaNami]

I just spray everything in the tank as well.