Dubia roaches die off

Szush

New Member
Hi all,

Um... I don't have a cham. I've got a leopard gecko... I breed for him dubia roaches, I got a couple starter colonies to start from. At first I had 0 success, which was due to me mesing with them, but after I started buying mealies and leaving my dubias alone they bred. Very fast. Got around a 1000 babies now.

When I discovered the die off, I first opened their cage I was greeted by a horrible ammonia like smell. Last week I cleaned out 10ish (3 today) dead adults along with few sub adults. Some babies seem weak, they don't move fast when touched.

What I'm thinking: No problems, my brain is just fried and I imagine stuff or it's just natural selection at work as rest seems okay..

Some maybe useful info about the set up:

I use a germination pad as a heating source, and a cheap, but surprisingly very good thermostat. It was set at 37°C, temperature never reached it inside. But I guess it was warm enough for them to breed. I lowered it to 32.6 I think, today.

Feeding & Nutrition:

I did not feed them for a while to not disturb them. I feed them veggies and fruits they chew on, some citruses occasionally for vitamin C. I did give them some dry cat food, 60% proteins. But I read that even 24% is too high for them and could have caused a die off? I use the same food for my hissing roaches, and yet none of them are affected by this.


Not sure what to think.. Honestly, I am at loss.. I will want to order more of them, but I feel like I should know what happened and whether it's something wrong with them or I did something wrong which has caused them to die so I can prevent that.


I will appreciate anything at this point!


P.S.

Their lid is closed, so maybe no circulation is the problem? I will want to get rid of the lid at all and upgrade their heat source to a CHE and dimming stat for better heat output.

Here is the current set up, but in a wrong position.. for some reason:

20220212_161815524.jpg
 
The 24% protein thing is real. "cricket crack" original recipe(not extra tasty crispy) was 30%. Worked wonderful for crickets, had dubia die offs.

SO you can still use your 60% cat food, but it must be cut with 1/4 with ground alfalfa or something.

Also they tend to not due well without a substrate. So getting that first inch of dried frash is critical. A half inch of dirt/bran would work.

You also need to keep the humidity up. I have similar tub as yours, and only have a coffee can sized hole at the top to keep humidity over 50%.
 
Cricket crack lol.

I will do as you say. I use a tiny bit of wood shavings for hamsters, few mms maybe. Had them for a while, but nowhere near 1" of frass.

I'm really not sure what went wrong...

I haven't used any humidity on my dubias, yet they bred like rabbits..

Should I get more of them tho? I'm afraid of another die off or something.
 
I have discoids (similar to dubia) and keep them in a big tub with a couple of inches of organic soil mixed with coco coir and have springtails and dwarf white isopods to keep things clean. There’s no odor and if I overfeed, the clean up crew takes care of it. I aim to keep their temp around 32c, but it’s been cold so I doubt it’s up there. Honestly, I don’t measure temps or humidity. I keep the soil moist enough in at least one side for the clean up crew. For ventilation I’ve cut out several large panels in the lid and screened them. I provide them with some cork pieces I’ve arranged as a little ‘house’ and light leaf litter. I’ve kept my colony like this for a couple of years and the only ones that die are probably from old age.
 
I won't use humidity in my roach farm. I have been successful so far.

I still don't know what has caused the die off? Old age? But I won't know ever why some sub adults also died off and babies.
 
Dubias do not climb plastic or glass surfaces well at all. Not sure how deep your food dish is but they may not be able to get to it to actually eat. Cat food would be a hard pass way too high in protein and can cause a build up of uric acid.
 
Dubias do not climb plastic or glass surfaces well at all. Not sure how deep your food dish is but they may not be able to get to it to actually eat. Cat food would be a hard pass way too high in protein and can cause a build up of uric acid.
They do climb onto it very well actually.

Right.. So the cat food could have cause the die off? What about the weak babies though? They haven't touched the food.. Oh wait.. Adults have been taking out the pellets..
 
They do climb onto it very well actually.

Right.. So the cat food could have cause the die off? What about the weak babies though? They haven't touched the food.. Oh wait.. Adults have been taking out the pellets..

Babies normally eat adult frass...

Adults fed high protein will first store it as uric acid, just like we store excess fat as lipids. But once they are "full" odds are it just turns into high protein frass.
 
Okay.... So what could have possibly caused the die off? I wanna know that since I will have to order more..
 
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