What eats grown dubia roaches and lives in a large exoterra?

[RedMountainHome]

Seriously, I want to know!

My panther chameleon, who I purchased hoping that he'd chow down some of my ever expanding dubia colony, has long since moved out of his 24x24x18 exoterra and into a huge custom enclosure. Plus, I've found that he will literally starve himself before deigning to eat roaches of any size or type.

That leaves me with a big empty exoterra and a crap ton of roaches. I'm looking for ideas on something cool to fill it with, and I'd like your help!

PS - I have some really cool tarantulas who love dubias, but they eat so little that they make absolutely no difference to my dubia colony.

 

[Andee]

I am wondering if it's large enough to house a bearded dragon (not certain on that since I personally don't put bearded dragons in anything less than a 50 gallon breeder), leopard geckos will readily eat pretty much nothing but dubias as well (both need to be fed out of a bowl) skinks usually do too... but blue tongues wouldn't fit in there so maybe a smaller species like fire skinks, rainbow skinks, or smaller pink tongue species... there also could be some other species of geckos who will do well with it. Like cave geckos, or tropical species like cresties or day geckos. There are a shit ton of species out there. It just depends on how many you need eaten.

 

[Andee]

There are also species of frogs and toads.... omg I could keep going XD. You could also get jumping spiders or communal species of spiders or scorps. Wind scorpions or communal species of predatory beetles <3

 

[jamest0o0]

Was going to say pacman frogs

 

[RedMountainHome]

All good suggestions, thanks =) I don't know much about skinks, so I'll check into those species you mentioned.
I should've mentioned I'm looking for something that'll appreciate the 2 foot height of the cage, so pacmans leopards and beardies are out. I had a beardie and leopards way back when so I'm not real interested in getting those again, anyway. I also used to keep tons of different dart and tree frogs, but dubias aren't great for most of them. Communal spiders and scorpions.... Ehhhh, that sounds like a good way to get envenomated =D I know that's not a real word but come on!

 

[serenaj25]

crested gecko maybe? I don't know much about them but I've heard they are really cool and not that hard to care for

 

[Andee]

for something that might enjoy more verticle space or you might enjoy the enclosure you make for them as far as that goes you might want to lean more towards fire skinks and crocodile skinks. You could also think about doing a pygmy chameleon colony in there (just a thought ^^). As far as species of geckos, depending on what you specifically are looking for I could probably find it.... maybe a leachie could work for you? I don't remember their minimum requirements, but I think you are well within their realms. Or you might want to check out a possible cat eye geckos species? Those guys are always amazing in my opinion. I thought about breeding them for a bit.

And depending on the species of scorp you choose depend on the venom issues. There are very few species of communal spiders and I don't even know if they are available in captivity. I know a lot of communal predatory beetles (it's mostly just that they like living near others as long as there is plenty of room and hiding places) have issues breeding in captivity so they might be an interesting project. I have already found a lot of likely ways to do it successfully for them. Just haven't tried it yet. Wind and whip scorpion/spiders and generally non-venomous and harmless... though camel spiders (which are wind scorpions can be a pain in the ass and rather territorial at times).

 

[RedMountainHome]

A crestie or gargoyle might work, though they're not fully insectivorous..
I've always wanted to try Pygmy chams but I've never found a local place to buy them. I regularly hit the local reptile shows and they're never there, either.
I've also always wanted to try a female-only species of gecko, the ones that breeds without males, but I've never found them for sale either.
I did a search for predatory beetles but had a hard time sorting through the results due to my ignorance on the subject. What are some of the notable species?

 

[Andee]

there are probably some local species of predatory beetles near you actually, and you could go field hunting if you wanted. Almost everywhere has their own but... lemme check I think tiger beetles are the most well known.

Pygmies you would likely have to order online and same with most of the lesser known species of geckos.

Cresties and gargoyles are not purely insectivorous but they should have a 70% insect diet to fruit etc. In my opinion. I never fed mine the crested diet mix unless I had a pet sitter watch them. People feed them purely the premade diet because they want a reptile but don't want to feed insects or meat... and I just look at them and think... then don't get a reptile. Or get an iguana or other purely vegetarian species, like uromastyx. Anyway, I fed my cresties and other frugovorious species of day geckos, a fruit blend mix I made myself of over-ripened fruit and various other things and gave them honey. They need honey for the probiotics and other digestive enzymes in it etc.

 

[Andee]

I personally want a few warrior beetles as my predatory beetles in the beginning. I don't think anyone has ever successfully bred them though. But they are aggressive as hell toward prey and fast, so getting them to breed is just getting the conditions right and I think they live well in the same cage as long as you have plenty of room (and you do, one needs a minimum of 5 gallons I think). Of course most of the youtube videos that explain how to take care of them don't actually tell you a good way to do it.

 

[RedMountainHome]

For those of you still following along at home, I've hopefully found the answer to what eats dubia roaches... A female panther chameleon!

I've been looking for over a year to get my a*hole of a male panther, Toby, a girlfriend. He's the gorgeous beast in my profile pic. I haven't seen any female panthers for sale in that whole time so I'd given up, but today I lucked out at a local reptile show! The seller said she regularly eats roaches, and seeing as how she's almost as wide as she is long I believe she's got a good appetite on her.

She's about 6 months old and is already an "inviting" salmon pink color. I'm going to give her the weekend to get settled in, then try to introduce her to Toby the jerk. In the meantime, she'll be living in Toby's outdoor cage to soak up all this disgustingly hot sunshine we're getting here in North Carolina

Unfortunately my eye was also caught by a youngish pair of gargoyle geckos. I was really tempted to scoop the pair at $140, but figured I'd already blown enough money on the lady-friend for Toby plus a bag full of tarantulas. Plus, I didn't want to get in over my head with a bunch of new pets.

 

[RedMountainHome]

He's a jerk, and she's got no table manners... I'm hoping it'll be a match made in heaven!

 

[Andee]

She is very overweight from the looks of it... that's a bit worrying >.<

 

[RedMountainHome]

I guess my ignorance is showing, since I assumed being a cute lil chubber just meant she was healthy. Toby has always been such a picky eater that I never looked up OVERweight issues.
Since she eats so readily I'll need to learn what to limit her to. Would you help enlighten me?

 

[Andee]

Well the folds she shows on her skin when she bends are far thicker than just skin, it is fat. She has fatty cheek pads and casque pads. Some other places. How much does she eat in one sitting? And what feeders are you feeding her?

 

[RedMountainHome]

She is definitely a porker. I just got her this morning, so I'm not sure what she usually eats. She ate 3, .25-.5 inch roaches this afternoon (as you can see in the pic above) in one sitting before losing interest.

I've got to admit, it was really satisfying to have her eat right from my tongs. Toby's never been willing to do that, and believe you me I've TRIED!

 

[RedMountainHome]

Also, Andee, I've got to say THANKS! I appreciate all your responses, and the experience you're sharing

 

[Jaycee]

For some reason mine won't eat roaches either! Which is strange considering in Hawaii roaches are like ants, you would think something that lives wild on an island full of roaches would eat roaches... but no.

 

[Andee]

I would stay away from fattier foods for now, especially as you are trying to lessen the weight. Don't feed her more than 8 appropriately sized feeders a week. I would usually immediately reduce her to around 6 or so most of the time, but I usually reduce over-weight animals slowly because they will act like they are starving otherwise and can easily stress themselves out in many ways ^^

 

[RedMountainHome]

Thanks again, Andee. I realized I'm derailing my own thread with my previous post, so I created a new thread here: https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/possibly-overweight-female-panther-cute-pics.158329/