Dubia colony

[Tortdad]

so I'm starting my own dubia colony....

I'm using some bio active substraight and need a clean up crew. What do you guys use besides pill bugs/Rollie pollies and where can I get them. I can find pill bugs in my backyard.

THe bottom of this bin is a mixture or a few inches thick of top soil, spag moss and oricad bark. I saw some videos hat said a moist substraight helps keep baby's hydrated and the clean up crew eats up the nasty stuff.

 

[Andee]

The babies generally stay hydrated in the frass etc. If it's dubia your keeping they will flourish in a colony with bare bottom and egg crate and the correct clean up crew for that.

 

[Tortdad]

@Andee

What clean up crew should I use?

 

[Tortdad]

Ive got 200 small dubia in there, tomorrow I get 200 medium and I placed 4 adult males and 10 adult females.


That should give me enough to feed off while the colony is getting started. If need bee I'll through a couple hundred more in along the way.

I put the 1/2 log and drift wood in there to help hold that egg crate in place. That food dish is depressed into the substraight to make it easy to get in and out of. Fresh greens and potatoes

 

[jamest0o0]

I like the cleaner beetles from @nick barta tons of lesser mealworms and beetles running around in my bins. They can take of an orange themselves in a few days lol

 

[Andee]

That egg crates will mold I can tell you that much and mold can wipe out a colony in 24 hours easy. And your colony size will not get you a successful colony to feed from for about a year. Idk who told you that is enough but they obviously don't know incubation time for dubia and nymphs growth even under the best for growth circumstances. I would chuck the potatoes too and use sweet potatoes or carrots instead.

 

[JoeDigiorgio]

It'll be hard to undo it now that they're in there but the dirt was a bad idea. It'll stay too moist and give you a lot of problems.

 

[Tortdad]

That egg crates will mold I can tell you that much and mold can wipe out a colony in 24 hours easy. And your colony size will not get you a successful colony to feed from for about a year. Idk who told you that is enough but they obviously don't know incubation time for dubia and nymphs growth even under the best for growth circumstances. I would chuck the potatoes too and use sweet potatoes or carrots instead.

So how many more should I add

 

[Andee]

Adults should be around a minimum of 20 males to 35 females.

 

[Tortdad]

Okay, I'll take the dirt out and add some more adults

 

[Tortdad]

I don't want a massive colony cuz I only got the 1
Cham and a couple turtles.

I have 4 males and 10 females. Would it be a decent ratio if I add 4 more males and 12 more females?

THat would be
8M
22F

I have a couple of my others ones that got too big for my Cham to eat so I'll have some more adults soon.

 

[jamest0o0]

I'd say you'd be fine with what you have. Your Cham is young eating a lot, maybe you'd have to replenish it a few times, but by 8-9 months his eating will slow down. My year old Cham has the equivalent of 3-4 large Dubia a week if that and he is still growing.

 

[Tortdad]

Ive always wondered if I'm giving mine enough each day. He seems healthy and has some good meat on him. Someone said 1 dubia is like 3-4 crickets so I give him 4 or 5 small/medium dubia a day. He eats most of them but a few make it to the bottom of the cage

 

[Tortdad]

I just told the lady I get mine from to give me 4 adult males and 12 females to add to the ones I got at the expo yesterday.

 

[Andee]

I agree with adding some, honestly you can always sell them off if needed to bearded dragon owners or leo owners. Even if they aren't a favorite of a lot of chams there are plenty of reptiles who love them. My Blue Tongue skink does as well. I mean the whole thing is the colony you were orginally planning on getting would not produce near enough babies to sustain you to save you money through his growth phase which is when you really need to save it. The size you have now should help.

 

[Tortdad]

I spent an hour sifting through dirt and I'm confident I found at least 90-95% of my dubia

Cleaned the bin and put them all back in

 

[Andee]

Definitely good, if you have any dry food that is roach friendly put it on the bottom in a very very thin layer. It will encourage growth and will be replace by the frass rather quickly and until then it will give something for the nymphs to burrow in.

 

[Tortdad]

So next question...

Should I take maybe 100 or so if these smaller ones and put them into my old smaller bin? Ive got 200 more 1/2" dubia I'm adding tomorrow.

I'm wondering if I should have all of them together or leave the adults alone in this big breeder bin I set up and use my old smaller one to feed our of... or just leave them all in the big bin like I have it now

@Matt Vanilla Gorilla @Andee @jamest0o0

 

[Tortdad]

Definitely good, if you have any dry food that is roach friendly put it on the bottom in a very very thin layer. It will encourage growth and will be replace by the frass rather quickly and until then it will give something for the nymphs to burrow in.

I have some dry fulkers cricket feed. Is that okay?

I can go buy Quaker Oats too

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Separating them is a good idea. You can feed them what ever works as long as you have them on a chameleon safe diet for a week or so before you feed them off!