started a dubia roach colony. water gel?

[beardedALAN]

i just started a dubia colony. I put 500 assorted in a rubbermaid tote with egg flats. Today i got the water crystal gel stuff in the mail. I made about half a liter and just put it in. they don't appear to be interested in it yet. IT's been about 30 mins and i see none on top of it. is this normal? do they drink very often? Plenty of them are feeding on oats. thank you

R

 

[Augie]

Do you have any fruit/veg in there? If so, they'll go for that first and skip the crystals if they aren't thirsty anymore. I give mine so many fruits and veggies the crystals actually dry out. I just mist them every few days to reactivate the crystals.

If you dont have that stuff in there, you may just be missing them use it. I would recommend keeping them in there, as you want to make sure your roaches are always hydrated. How long have you had the colony?

 

[Augie]

Just realized something - do you feed or plan on feeding directly from that colony to your dragon? If so, I'd recommend going with something other than oats. Check out this care sheet that's stickied in this forum: http://amazingly-wildfeederz.webs.com/caresheet . It's awesome! I used that in combination with the BD nutrition guide to feed my roaches (http://www.beautifuldragons.com/Nutrition.html).

Congrats on getting a colony, by the way. You're gonna love having it!!! Sometimes I catch myself caring for my roaches almost as much as my dragon and pacman.

 

[beardedALAN]

I plan on ha.ving a seperate bin to gutload the roaches i feed my leopard geckos and my beardie mojo. I've had it for a week

 

[Augie]

Cool, sounds like youre set up pretty well! If you aren't using a lot of fruits and veggies, I'd just eyeball the crystals every couple days to see if they are decreasing in number. I don't have as many as you, but I can say they swarm the food, but I have only seen maybe 2-3 times since I've gotten them any roaches in the water tub at all.

Funny thing, they seem to like removing the Cheerios and dog food from the dry tub.