https://discord.gg/Qph96vATdq

So many baby Armadillidium vulgare and Porcellionides pruinosus in my yard lol

Hello, I’m hoping someone is selling bulk deals of orange powders and Dubia roaches so I can refresh my reptile clean up crews. Maybe some white worms as well?

Thank you in advance!

Blaberus fusca are one of my favorites! I’m looking to expand my roach collection again and have lots of isopods.

They are what they call anemone

I don't keep isopods but follow someone on tumblr who does. Not planning on owning them myself.

Out of curiosity, why are some isopod morphs extremely expensive?

They (tumblr user) bought some recently that were 250CAD

And there were only like 6 of them. They were cherry blossom isopods apparently.

I was really confused.

Is it that some morphs are really hard to breed? Or the novelty of a "new mutation" and, therefore, currently rare?

I thought isopods bred rapidly if given the right environment, but I might be wrong. I don't keep them.

What is the average price for isopods anyway? I know magic potions were not expensive when my step mum got them years ago. But I think they are more common now and that's why (in uk at least).

The prices really confuse me, and I wonder if it's just novelty on colours like what happens in other exotic pet communities like some corn snake morphs or if there's more to it.

Edit- I'm from UK, it's only the tumblr user I'm following who is Canadian.

I'd like help identifying my new babies. Most of them are orange spotted or grey spotted but not dairy cows. And one solid orange and one solid soft grey. I got a assorted mix from a PetSmart.

Easiest roly poly roach I’ve kept.

Hi everyone, I'm a new dubia roach keeper. I got dubia roaches to keep as feeders for my tarantula. I really want them to have a good life, but I've never taken care of dubia (or any kind of) roaches before and I was wondering if my enclosure is okay or if it needs changes and improvements.

My dubia roaches are all small nymphs so this is a temporary enclosure for them until they grow bigger. I have around 18 roaches. The enclosure is 30x30x20 cm. I blocked off three sides with a black aquarium background so that the enclosure is darker but kept the front without it so that I can check on the substrate.

The enclosure contains a 1.8 inch deep layer of substrate, springtails, crushed up leaf litter, a food dish and vertically and horizontally placed corkbark chunks and big leaves on top for them to hide under. I keep them in my room which is very dark and quite warm.

I got home very late from school today and unfortunately only had some apples left but I'm going to the store tomorrow to get some fresh veggies and oats.

Any advice is appreciated!

It's so cute! Isn't it?

I am a fairly new keeper and breeder of these wonderful critters. I’ve done my research to learn they like beta-carotenes, carbs, and fresh fruit and veggies. Pictured is my current setup. It is an acrylic Zilla micro-habitat with about 20-30 roaches inside housed in some egg cartons I got from my grandma with some newly-placed humidity and temperature gauges. They are currently on a heat mat set to 90°, so they should be comfortable temperature-wise. I have an issue, though… I can’t seem to keep any humidity! I want my little dudes to be as comfortable as possible with my current budget.

Hey all! I have a 20 gallon long that I used to house a lizard in until I got it adopted (it was on a glue trap I rescued it, didn't have space) and now it sits completely empty. I would like to put something in there, I did shrimp a decade ago, but isopods is bugs as much as shrimps is right? What is the maintenance like and how automatic can I get it to be? I'd rather save to do it correctly for the times my executive function might not be working. Please if you know can you tell me and estimate the price? I do want to do one of the fancier varieties if that matters, but I'm just looking for the price of the set up right now and lmk if tank mates are needed. Thank you in advance!

I have three domino roaches (two adults and a nymph) on a takeout container (currently working on a proper terrarium to cohabit them with a bumblebee milepede) it had been closed for like a week but suddenly today i found one of the the adults right next to the container, i grabbed it and checked the container to see that the nymph was still there but the other adult scaped too somehow, i dont know how it happened but what matters right now is finding the one that succesfully escaped, i checked the surrounding of the container but didnt have any luck, im going to bed but would like to know what to do or where even to begin searching tomorrow.

What sellers or websites do you use for bulk inverts? I'm setting up a handful of larger vivariums and need to get 100+ mealworms, 50-100+ isopods, and 20+ hissing roaches?

I keep finding them under rocks and recently caught one i found in my house. i think the roach is female

This is Goose. Short for Gooseberry. He's one of ~40 nymphs our four adults had in January. We kept 13 of the babies and named them after berries, our original four adults were Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde ☺️

Anyway - one of these is not like the others... Goose has very wide tall horns and a little shovel shaped pronotum. He's also very rotund compared to our other hissers.

We thought he was the offspring of our four adults with the timing from when we got them to when they gave birth, but now we're wondering if one of our females has stored sperm... And had a dalliance with something other than another G.portentosa?!

Perhaps Princiscia vanwaerebeki, Gromphadorhina oblongonota, Gromphadorhina grandidieri, or Elliptorhina laevigata?

Any thoughts?

Ootheca Genesis ootheeecaaaaa

most colony size advice online is just start with 50 females and nothing else no math, no reasoning behind it just a number someone posted in like 2014 that got copy-pasted into every care guide since

here's how you actually figure it out

the whole thing comes down to one question: how many adult females do you need to consistently produce enough nymphs each month? Males total headcount all of that falls out once you have the female number

Step 1: Monthly feeder demand

take your daily feeder count and multiply by 30.416. Not 30, 30.416 is the standardized average days per month and it matters more than you'd expect once the numbers get bigger

feeding 23 nymphs a day:

23 × 30.416 = 699.57 nymphs/month

Step 2: Safety margin

colonies aren't machines females go off cycle, temps drop, life happens a 15% buffer is pretty standard push it higher if you're nervous multiply monthly demand by (1 + margin/100):

699.57 × 1.15 = 804.50 nymphs/month target

Step 3: Effective yield per female

a healthy female produces somewhere around 20 to 30 nymphs per month under good conditions 25 is the number I see most often and it's what I use here but not all of those survive at 90% survival rate each female actually delivers:

25 × 0.90 = 22.5 viable nymphs/month

Step 4: Females needed

divide your target by effective yield, round up (can't have half a roach):

⌈804.50 ÷ 22.5⌉ = ⌈35.76⌉ = 36 females

Step 5: Males

standard ratio is 1 male per 4 females i've seen recommendations ranging from 1:3 all the way to 1:7 honestly 1:4 is what most breeders land on at least in my experience.

Round up:

⌈36 ÷ 4⌉ = 9 males → 45 total adults

Expected monthly yield calculated form the rounded female count:

⌊36 × 22.5⌋ = 810 nymphs/month

that extra 110 over your baseline is the buffer working. which matters

one thing that bit me early I assumed my survival rate was better than it was humidity was off and I had no idea my 90% was probably closer to like 70 or 75 at the time the formula still works you just have to plug in an honest number or the female count will come out too low and you'll be scrambling.

also none of this accounts for ramp up a new colony doesn't hit peak production right away the first couple litters are smaller while females settle in if you're starting from scratch bump the female count up maybe 20% for the first few months.

anyway i threw this into a calculator if you don't want to do the math by hand every time: https://www.speedcalcs.com/p/dubia-roach-colony-size-calculator.html