Colony Update!

[Augie]

As some of you guys know about 9 months ago I started with a naive colony of 12 males and 12 females. After a few weeks I realized this wasn't going to cut it so I increased the females by about 30 from a lady I met off Craigslist that was nice enough to include about 2 dozen or so nymphs of varying sizes. I also bought 100 small nymphs from some cool kid off eBay.

I will admit, I got a little impatient a few times and started feeding off the colony like a month or so after I got it, but after that put it on lockdown. Today I did a second cleaning of the tub, and wanted to give you guys the results of a really good hard count i did of the larger roaches in my colony. Hopefully it will help some of you that are new to having a colony understand the time and effort it takes to create a fully self-sustaining food source for your dragon!

As of today my breeder colony consists of 84 males, 95 females, and about 93 large nymphs that are close to adulthood. I say "about" because there were about 30 outside of that that still looked a little small that I didn't count at all, and I also left about 50 newborn nymphs along with that in there to keep the colony growing.

That's too many males, right? But before you judge can you believe for the last month I have been feeding my pacman frog almost exclusively adult males, and my dragon 3-4 males per week?

How many baby nymphs did I transfer over to the other bin? All I can say is, dear GOD, I have no idea. there were a lot. At first it looked like maybe 300-500, but when I poured them in I realized the sheer number of babies that they had produced within the last 2-3 months since the last cleaning. I was still in disbelief until I put a large carrot in there, and within minutes it was completely enveloped in baby nymphs. I should've taken a pic!

If you like, I can put another one in there tomorrow and take a pic, just so you can see.

 

[Vnuk1]

Sweet, I am starting mine this week. Just made about 6+ months worth of Gut Load for them. Ordered 100 medium sized from the Roach Cafe. Hopefully this will be the end of crickets for us. Good luck, take a few pictures of the nymphs eating.

Sent from my fingertips...

 

[Germ]

take a few pictures of the nymphs eating.

Click anyplace on my signature area & checkout the vids on my website, of my roaches being fed & being fed off to my dragons .

 

[Vnuk1]

I just put a strip of packaging tape around the top of the container, will that be enough or does it need to be wider? Trying to have this all set up by the time they arrive.

Sent from my fingertips...

 

[Germ]

One will generally do the trick, but I found that with one, the adults could stack, one or nymphs crawling over the other, clearing a 2" wide band, so to be on the safe side I went double wide & have had absolutely no escapee issues in over 9 years.

 

[Vnuk1]

I have wrinkles as it pretty tough to get it around without them, will that be a problem?

Sent from my fingertips...

 

[Germ]

Yes, wrinkles give them a surface to cling to, the whole point of the packing tape, is to have a smooth surface, too slippery to cling to &/or climb on & over. It is not the easiest undertaking to apply it wrinkle free, but it can & must be done or the purpose is defeated. Smaller Nymphs are very light & given any kind of surface texture, they WILL climb it.

Even in a glass enclosure, the nymphs & even some of the larger juveniles will be able to climb the silicone, so the top 3-4" of the silicone in the corners should also be taped or smeared with something slippery like a very thin layer of Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline), which also could be used around the top 3" perimeter of the colony bin instead of packing tape, but this method has a tendency to be a tad messy.

 

[Vnuk1]

I'll just throw a 10lb weight on it..

Sent from my fingertips...

 

[Germ]

When I put the Packing tape on, I use one piece for each side of the bin, I do not try to go around the corners in one piece. Once I get to the corner, I let the tape go wild for 3" or so past the corner, let it go where it will, keeping it smooth. I do this on both ends of each side, overlapping at the corners.

 

[Vnuk1]

I went and did it again going vertical this time, worked much better.

Sent from my fingertips...

 

[Augie]

I wanted to add something else about the layer of duct tape - make sure it's smooth on the top and bottom as well! I think one reason Germ "lets it go wild" around the corners is because if you don't, it can create very tiny creases on the edges. This is bad because as the nymphs crawl up to the tape (and trust me, they will), they will get stuck and die on the open, sticky part of the edge. Just something else to pay mind to!

How do I know this? One time while cleaning, I threw all the babies in there and noticed a dark spot on one of the taped corners. There were three babies crammed in there! I managed to save two, but one was stuck on there and when I pulled him off, let's just say that part of him was content to stay where he already was.