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About NRoach

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  • Birthday 10/08/1997

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  1. NRoach

    Oxyhaloa deusta?

    As far as this species goes, I actually keep them in a fairly dry enclosure because their frass, dead individuals, etc. become moldy really easily. They've done great with just a tiny piece of apple thrown in for moisture, and I've gone weeks without misting. Their enclosure has decent ventilation in the form of pinprick holes.
  2. NRoach

    Parthogenetic spp.

    Hey guys! I don't get on here as often as I used to, but I was finally able to sex the pathogenetically-produced nymphs of my P. americana. They're all female! Unfortunately, I was only able to sex 8 out of 10 because I had placed the nymphs with their mom in a large-ish tub, and 2 went missing. I purchased more P. americana from Roman, but I didn't have other tubs laying around. Before adding the new roaches, I removed the parthogenetically-produced nymphs and placed them into a small deli cup, where they've been living for the past few months. I think I may have misidentified them and their mother. The roaches that Roman sent me look a bit different than the mother. While Roman's stock has very clear markings on the light-colored pronota, mine is larger and has a darker, less defined pronotum pattern. Anyway, although I know that it's far from proof that P. "americana" produces clonal young, I think it's a possibility that it does. I can't wait for these girls to mature to see if they'll lay viable ootheca. I've read that parthogenesis can only occur for a few generations in this species. I'd like to see if that's true for these guys.
  3. NRoach

    Lesser mealworms- good or bad?

    I've reccommended lesser mealworms before, but I'm starting to dislike them just a tiny bit. In some of my colonies, they can be controlled by placing shallow bowls of water to drown them. In some of my other colonies, I cannot do this because the roaches will drown as well. I'm not sure why certain roach species avoid drowning better than others, but when the lesser mealworm colonies get large, they become a nuisance because they eat food meant for the roaches. Also, they're hard to remove manually because they're small, fairly quick, and will go into the substrate.
  4. They practically look the same, except that sometimes in hatched ootheca, a brownish membrane that seperated the eggs is visible outside the opening. Also, if you gently squeeze the ootheca from its ends, a hatched ootheca will easily open. Squeezing very gently won't harm the developing eggs, but of course, be careful. With genera that lay larger ootheca( not Therea spp.), such as Blatta, Periplaneta, etc., the empty eggcase make a hollow sound when lightly tapped with a metal spoon or when being bumped on a hard surface. Once you know the sound, you can easily distinguish unhatched and hatched ootheca.
  5. NRoach

    Missing Nymphs?

    While cannibalism is a possibility, I would imagine it does not happen often with Question Marks. Like hisserdude said, they're probably just hard to see because substrate clings onto them pretty well. Also, they'll often dig away from the area where they sense disturbances. Unless you threw them out while you were switching out their substrate, they climbed out because the enclosure walls got dirty, or they died and decomposed, I'm sure they're still in there.
  6. Thanks a lot for letting me know, Alan! Gotta go get me some.
  7. NRoach

    My cockroach tattoo

    I'm very jealous. That's a beautiful tattoo! I've been dabbling with the idea of a Blatta orientalis in a style similar to the flea in Robert Hooke's famous Micrographia.
  8. Meanwhile my Panchlora colony is crashing! Some folks have all the luck
  9. Thank you Krissim Klaw. Unfortunately, this colony is fairly old with most if not all of my males having died. Maybe a few of the females are carrying ootheca, but I think I'll try again some other time if they aren't. I might also just try Panchlora nivea next time to see if I have better luck with them.
  10. NRoach

    Unidentified Cariblatta sp.

    Cool looking guys! Thanks for sharing pictures.
  11. NRoach

    Dermestid beetles

    Haha sorry, I could have and should have been more clear. Roman is correct in that I meant pinned dead insects. I was trying to say that since pinned insects, which obviously are dead and thus make no attempt to escape, are sometimes eaten by Dermestids, I would think that ecdysing roaches, which are immobilized, and ootheca, which are stationary, may be at risk of getting eaten. Unfortunately, I'm not too well-versed in the biology of Dermestids, so maybe someone with much more knowledge can chime in. Personally, I wouldn't worry about having them in my roach enclosures unless I've seen them munching away at my live roaches and their eggs. Lesser mealworms will hollow out several dead Blatta orientalis to its exoskeleton within a few hours, but I've never seen them going after ootheca or living roaches. Maybe it's the same with the Dermestids you have.
  12. NRoach

    Dermestid beetles

    I've seen cleaner crews being sold that included Dermestids, so maybe you just got yourself some free help with reducing the amount of dead roaches. However, I'm not sure if they'll eat ootheca and live roaches or not, and it might depend on the particular species of Dermestids since I've heard of them damaging and destroying pinned insect collections.
  13. NRoach

    How best to learn to identify roaches

    When I first started keeping roaches, a lot of them, especially ones within the same genus, looked the same to me. Adults of some genera commonly available in the roach hobby such as Periplaneta, Pycnoscelus, Gyna, and Eublaberus are now easy for me to correctly ID to a species level most of the time. By looking at them over and over again, I quickly learned which characteristics belonged to which species. It's pretty easy once you know what to look for (coloration, pronotum pattern, size, habits, etc.). However, I still can't differentiate Blattella spp. (among many others) from one another
  14. Thanks for the reply, Doc. I'm wondering though, do they still need to have food constantly? I like to replace food daily because I don't like to give mold a chance to take hold.