Evening All.
Just some thing interesting I have noticed with my roaches.

Since I have had my roaches I have been keeping my roaches on substrate and egg trays.
Some of the roaches seem to thrive on the substrate where other species seems not to like it to much.

The thoughts have been there, roaches in the wild live underground, in grass, under rocks, under fallen leaves and the list goes on and on where one can find roaches.
But substrate has it cons as allot of people will tell you, it is hard to find the babies and when you have to clean it out it takes some time to sift through the substrate.
Then there are the pros, your container does not stink, the poo becomes part of the substrate, and you can add some Isopods to the mix and they keep the substrate clean.

I have seen a couple of species of roach thrive on substrate and bark, but the best or the biggest growth rate in my roaches are the Blaptica dubia on substrate with bark.

At the moment I have two containers, 45L and 65L that have B dubia colonies in, the one is kept on newspaper and egg trays, the other is kept on substrate and bark.
the substrate and bark colony is growing faster than the egg tray colony, it has almost doubled in the few months I have had them like this.
They have the same amount of mature females and males, I divided all the roaches in half so every container has more or less the same amount of roaches.

Both colonies are feed the same food and at the same time, both have the same temps both are kept exactly the same, the only difference in the two colonies is the substrate, the substrate is kept moist to dry.
The Egg tray colony gets sprayed every week just to give them some extra moisture on top of there water soaked vegetables.

So just attaching some pictures of the two setups.

Egg tray colony


Substrate and bark colony

Very interesting I will defiantly be trying it out, thanks for the info.

Now I know some bark is a no-no to use and has been mentioned on this forum. Any issues using Bloekom tree bark?

Thanks Cascade. I think I will try bark and subtrate out. Thanks for the detailed post.

@echodive - If I am correct bloekom is a specie of the eucalyptus genus.
Eucalyptus spp. contain high levels of phenolics and terpenoids which can be toxic.

It also why there are no smaller plants or trees in the plantations because their leaves form a toxic barrier that prevents other plants from germinating and growing. (I learned that in the documentary called 'Home' about out planet earth - I really good watch BTW).

I wouldn't use bloekom bark. I think Cascade is using Pine, it is commonly most places. I would perhaps try that and just check for mold.

Thanks for that info. See now I learned something useful. I will have to go look in my garden what I can use. The trouble is I do not know half the trees in my garden's names. :blush: Ask me about gadgets, but not the trees outside.

Awesome info :woohoo:

So far I have only stuck to egg trays and cant complain at all. I started a new colony around the 1st Dec and when I got back from holiday it was baby boom galore... Cant believe how many there are now its insane.