Dubia Set-Up?

[wheresstimpy]

Hey everybody, well as im sure many of you have, i have become tired of crickets... they stink, their expensive, they dont live long, and i keep finding them in my apartment(grrr). SOOOOoooo i want to try out the whole dubia thing, but i wanted some advise on how to keep them so they will reproduce.
I have a 20"(l)x10"(w)x12"(h) glass terrarium with a screen top i want to keep them in. Should i buy one of those reptile heat pad thing to keep them warm? Tell me the best set up! Thanks for your help!

 

[dodolah]

have you checked this link?
http://www.blapticadubia.com/dubiainfo.html

I share the frustration you have with crix; I just want to share that I found it quite impossible to not use crix at all. Once in a while, your cham will crave for crix again (provided that your cham loves dubia. Some cham -like my veiled- just blatantly refuse them).

 

[wheresstimpy]

have you checked this link?
http://www.blapticadubia.com/dubiainfo.html

I share the frustration you have with crix; I just want to share that I found it quite impossible to not use crix at all. Once in a while, your cham will crave for crix again (provided that your cham loves dubia. Some cham -like my veiled- just blatantly refuse them).

thanks for the link, well my chams are on cricket strike for now so i figured i would mix it up...

 

[Sara270]

Depends where you live and where you are going to house them, but yes, I would use some sort of heating device (tape or pad or something).

Ideal temperature range is the higher end of a 75--95 degrees Fahrenheit range. They will not breed below 68F.

 

[KevinA]

I'm just using a rubbermaide sweater box about 20x12x12 with the smallest zoomed heat pad and they are getting out of control.

I could probably set you up with a starter colony if you wanted to pick them up. Im down the 101 in Calabasas.

 

[telkins08]

im in orange county and ive been readin up about raising my own dubia. i would be interested in a starter colony also how much would that be?

 

[sttines]

Roaches need quite a bit of heat to reproduce and you will need a lot of them to have a sustainable colony. If you are tired of crickets and planning to do away with them, you will need to do away with the keeping of chameleons. The roaches will not multiply fast enough and it is essential to have the greatest variety for your prey options. Crickets do not smell if you keep the bins clean and that will usually require cleaning thoroughly 3x weekly. They will eat just about anything so are easy to gutload. Also, crickets MOVE and that will always catch the eye of the chameleon over a roach.

Chameleons are a lot of work and as nice as shortcuts are, keeping insects clean and plentiful and VARIED is just one of the things that makes up a lot of this work. Switching to roaches exclusively? Add it up in 6 months and tell me how expensive those crickets really were.

 

[SoCaliSon]

Roaches need quite a bit of heat to reproduce and you will need a lot of them to have a sustainable colony. If you are tired of crickets and planning to do away with them, you will need to do away with the keeping of chameleons. The roaches will not multiply fast enough and it is essential to have the greatest variety for your prey options. Crickets do not smell if you keep the bins clean and that will usually require cleaning thoroughly 3x weekly. They will eat just about anything so are easy to gutload. Also, crickets MOVE and that will always catch the eye of the chameleon over a roach.

Chameleons are a lot of work and as nice as shortcuts are, keeping insects clean and plentiful and VARIED is just one of the things that makes up a lot of this work. Switching to roaches exclusively? Add it up in 6 months and tell me how expensive those crickets really were.

I have to disagree with parts of your statement. I keep several Chams... and I have not had a cricket in my house for over 6 months. Gutloaded Supers, Silkies, Hornworms, and Dubias.... This is what I feed and it provides plenty of Variety and all the nutritional value they need. That and with that menu I never have a prob getting them to eat.

 

[sttines]

I have to disagree with parts of your statement. I keep several Chams... and I have not had a cricket in my house for over 6 months. Gutloaded Supers, Silkies, Hornworms, and Dubias.... This is what I feed and it provides plenty of Variety and all the nutritional value they need. That and with that menu I never have a prob getting them to eat.

You must be reading my past posts because I said nothing in this one about crickets getting out but have said that before. You are to be commended for not having any escapees in that long of a time period. When you have almost 50 cages in your house, and using the variety that you've listed( which is what I use also) then I am prone to lean towards the opinion that one will have bugs get loose. There is no way around it. I do not get angry over debates here, even if I come across as such. But I do speak my mind.

My response was a round about way of saying this; I am bothered at the more than occasional post asking," Can I JUST do this? or Can I do away with that or Isn't THIS sufficient?" Novices excluded, there is no lazy or easy way to keep these animals. Chameleons are a lot of work and there are few that want to admit it. There is so much "stuff" one has to keep around and so many things to tend to on a daily basis and there are equally as many people who think that it's not really that much work but it is. It is a labor of love that I have put my soul into since 1997 and I will never tell anyone that it is anything that can be considered a pasttime. It can be rewarding but most times requires a person to give it their all. I have seen several posts in the last month about people bothered by crickets; the noise, the smell, cost. etc. People do not give gredit to the cricket as a feeder. Yes, I use and gutload everything you've mentioned. It is essential to have all of these insects going at all times but crickets cannot be discounted completely. It robs your chameleon of a good food source. Roaches, were one to want to use exclusively, will need to be kept in the thousands to have colonies that will replenish themselves and I have not seen colonies in those quantities that are cheaper in cost than crickets. Roaches are work, too. In fact all insects are work. Sometimes more than the chameleons themselves.

The best way to simplify your chameleon keeping is to autiomate your lighting and watering system with timers. Cleaning cages cannot be automated. Keeping insects fed properly and kept CLEAN cannot be automated. No ifs or buts. Want it easier, move your chameleons outside for the warmer months and use an outdoors automated watering system. That's even easier.

So socali, I'm not preaching to you but to all those who plan on telling us that they want to take the shortcut of those horrible, smelly, noisy, crickets. I know there are those who will try to do things their own way just to see what happens. Those same chameleons who seem tired of crickets also will get tired of roaches, silkworms, hornworms, flies. They can be stubborn animals and variety is a must, including the lowly cricket.

 

[SoCaliSon]

First I want to say I agree with almost everything you are saying. I think you misread my post, or I did not make it clear that when I said I haven't had a cricket in my house for over 6 months... I meant not even as a feeder. I hate crickets.... I have bred them and used them as a part of the diet for my herps for extended periods of time in the past... but found them a terrible nuisance. The only part of your statement I really disagreed with was this...

If you are tired of crickets and planning to do away with them, you will need to do away with the keeping of chameleons.

I have never worked with a cham that will ONLY eat crickets. As a matter of fact in my experience most any cham will go nuts for anything in "worm" form. And that list alone I believe can have a great amount of nutritional variety.

I have completely taken crickets out of my chams diets..and have everybody eating happy and healthy with Roaches and a variety of worms.

 

[summoner12]

Dubia are very simple to setup and get going if you can leave them alone. The first couple of months they'll need to be left alone to breed and grow. Once you get them established you'll never have to worry about having enough.

I would FIRST advise you to buy some or barrow some from a local keeper. Your chams may not like them and if you purchased roaches you'll then be stuck with roaches ya don't need.

Here was my first setup. As you can see I didn't have many to start. This is a 10 gallon tank from Petco for like 12 bucks. A rubbermaid will work just as well. I now keep my Dubia in a 20g long fish tank from petco. It is covered like you see in the last photo.

Feeding.....

 

[sttines]

No worries. I takes a lot to really offend me. If you manage to NOT use crickets, it's good for you if you hate them, however, I can see so many newcomers reading this and thinking they can do the same thing. There are always chameleons with favorites and non favorites. I have had chams that will not eat that certain thing. I've had them that hate crickets or hate roaches or hate something. Superworms seem to be the one thing everyone likes but a chameleon who won't eat that one thing for a number of years will one day decide they want it if presented.

When silkworms got popular so many years ago, they were looked upon as the saviour of the feeder problems, yet I have had many chameleons who will not and never or have never eaten even one, same with roaches, flies, hornworms, crickets, etc. I promote variety but you have mentioned having that and I encourage all to have the widest variety possible.

 

[summoner12]

Thank you for your encouragement. I think people can decide to keep whatever bugs they want.

I don't know why you are blabbing about how people should keep bugs for chams or the history of silk worms. The topic here is how to keep DUBIA... not rid ourselves of crickets.

No worries. I takes a lot to really offend me. If you manage to NOT use crickets, it's good for you if you hate them, however, I can see so many newcomers reading this and thinking they can do the same thing. There are always chameleons with favorites and non favorites. I have had chams that will not eat that certain thing. I've had them that hate crickets or hate roaches or hate something. Superworms seem to be the one thing everyone likes but a chameleon who won't eat that one thing for a number of years will one day decide they want it if presented.

When silkworms got popular so many years ago, they were looked upon as the saviour of the feeder problems, yet I have had many chameleons who will not and never or have never eaten even one, same with roaches, flies, hornworms, crickets, etc. I promote variety but you have mentioned having that and I encourage all to have the widest variety possible.

 

[KevinA]

I think as summoner said to leave them completely alone for the first few months except for feeding is good advice. At first I was always peeking in to see if there were any nymphs, and was pissed cause I didn't see any. I stopped snooping on them and low and behold after a few months there was an explosion of roaches

 

[summoner12]

I think as summoner said to leave them completely alone for the first few months except for feeding is good advice. At first I was always peeking in to see if there were any nymphs, and was pissed cause I didn't see any. I stopped snooping on them and low and behold after a few months there was an explosion of roaches

yes... just like us they like privacy when doing the deed.....

A high protein diet is good to develop the colony... but once you start to feed take them off the protein and start a gut load that is better for your chameleon. I give them Cricket Crack as my gut load of choice.