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Last Updated: 4/26/08
Introduction and Feeder Roaches
Animals that Eat Roaches
Roach Setups
Feeding and Watering
Breeding
Maintenance
My Roaches and Photos
Books and Links
This page is under construction since I just got my first roaches!
This page is for information on keeping roaches to feed to other animals or as pets themselves. I do not cover those who wish to kill off roaches that have invaded their homes. The roaches of which I speak are tropical species, most of whom cannot fly, jump, or climb well. These species are not "pests." They do not carry diseases. They do not normally bite. They do not make any noise (except as a result of moving around) with the exception of hissing cockroaches. They stink a lot less than crickets and do not die off as easily (my crickets get some sort of fly parasites that eat them).
Most tropical roaches need heat, like to be in the dark, and will live 1 to 2 years once they are adults. The babies, or nymphs, already have the roach shape when born (no pupae phase) but their coloration often changes with each molt as they grow.
The following are some of the animals that will eat big roaches.
Reptiles:
Large aquatic turtles like snapping turtles, large tortoises, sailfin lizards, basilisks, water dragons, and other huge
lizards.
Smaller roaches are also eaten by all the animals that I list that eat crickets on my cricket page.
Tropical roaches need heat. I have an undertank heater and a fixture with a 60 W ceramic heat emitter over my 10 gallon glass aquarium with roaches. The warmer the roaches are, the more they will reproduce. They like it hot. I am not sure at what temperature they will start to die. Most roaches like it in the 80's at least somewhere in their setup.
Roaches can be kept in aquariums, storage tubs, plastic buckets, etc. There should be ventilation but they should not be able to escape. Some people keep them with a substrate such as reptile bark or reptile bedding with Eucalyptus leaves or aspen. Others do not use a substrate. Put in paper towel and toilet paper rolls and egg crates for them to spread out and hide in.
Foods that I offer my roaches:
Water:
To give roaches water, I soak and lightly wring out paper towels. In addition, I put in some of the gel water stuff made for crickets, water crystals, and/or cricket water pillows (have gel in them). They also get moisture from fruits and vegetables. Things like grapes and cucumbers have a lot of water in them.
Some roaches lay eggs while others are live bearers. I have live bearers and first found a baby on 3/8/06. I refer you to the links for information. Most roach species are not readily sexable.
I have noticed that when I go into my "office" in the evening after it is dark which is where the roach tank is, they are sometimes having what I would call a spaz. When I come in, it sounds like running water. The normally slow and quiet roaches are running all around really fast and interacting with each other. All their movement makes a loud rustling sound. I assume this is breeding behavior. I seem to see some quick matings but nothing more than a second or two between any two roaches. But they are definitely feeling each other up with their antennae.
Since I am just starting with them, I do not have a routine yet but plan on cleaning their tank out about once a month. Sifting babies out of the wood chips may take a while. I have yet to do it so we will see.
On 2/16/06, I got roaches for my lizard, Einstein. I got 40 full adult Eublaberus distanti or the six spotted roach which grow 1.5 to 2 inches long. I also got about a dozen Eublaberus prosticus of various ages which also grow to 1.5 to 2 inches although the ones I got were smaller. They are also called orange head roaches. I put two E. prosticus in my lizard's tank when I got them. She ate one. The other one ate her fruit and now lives in her log. The next morning, I put in one of the huge E. distanti. Einy tried to eat it and even licked it for a moment but it was too fast. Now, Einy eyes the roach as it cruises around her home. I do not know how long they will stay buddies. Well, when I came home from work, her new friend was drowned in Einy's pool. I put the body next to Einy. In honor of her best friend, she ate his body.
Orange head roaches are a bit more prone to eating the wings off of each other and eating vulnerable invertebrates than some other species. Both the species that I have do not fly or climb.
Einstein is still egg bound as of 3/10/06 and not eating. A vet visit did not fix her problem. So, she is not eating all those roaches. On 3/8/06, when cleaning the roach's food dish, I almost through out a little bug until I realized it was my first baby roach! He was about 4 mm long.
As of 6/9/06, Einstein has not eaten any more roaches! I put the orange head roaches in with her. They even crawl on her, and she ignores them! Einstein has laid her eggs but she does not want roaches! The six spotted roaches have had a ton of babies now but when I cleaned the cage out on 6/3/06, I found a lot of dead ones. I think the babies cannot get to the food and water easily enough so I moved them to their own small cage. Of course, I do not know what I am going to do with all these roaches! When the baby roaches are larger, my small turtle can eat them but he cannot eat the adults.
The ants found the roach tank in late June, 2006. There are hundreds of ants all over the roaches' food. I tried everything. On 7/6/06, I added a green anole (read about Fourmi the anole) to hopefully eat some ants. So far, it has not worked. The roaches and anole get along fine and ignore each other.
Update 1/22/07: Fourmi is still doing great with the roaches. The 40 six spotted roaches are now down to 14. Only one was eaten by Einstein. The rest have mostly died from old age (and a few that drowned in Fourmi's water). There are also about 7 adolescent six spotted roaches in there that I moved from the unheated baby tank. The adults have stopped reproducing (they are too old now) but I have a few hundred of their babies that are kept stunted (because there is no heat) in a two gallon cage. I feel bad about that but what do I do with them all since none of my animals will eat them? One person expressed concern that the roaches would harm my anole but he is perfectly fine. They get along great and do not bother each other. Fourmi might eat some of their babies although I have not seen that.
On 3/3/07, there were only three of the orange headed roaches left in a three gallon plastic cage. They had not done well because, unlike the six spotted roaches, they did not have heat. I decided to put these last three into my sailfin lizard's cage. Einstein looked interested but did not eat them. There is one adult who was running all over the cage like crazy, probably ecstatic to have heat, and two juveniles. They will either do better (good for them), or Einstein will eat them (good for her). If I had left them in the cage, they would not have lived much longer. The remaining six spotted roaches seem fine. Some of the babies I got are now getting almost as big as the parents but still have juvenile coloration. By 3/10/07, when I cleaned out Einy's tank, I only found one of the orange headed roaches left, and it could not walk despite appearing physically okay. I assume the other two were eaten. So, NOW Einy wants to eat some!
On 4/11/07, I moved my roaches and anole to a 20 gallon tank which is set up more naturally (and more for the anole). I counted the roaches. There are only 6 adults, 11 sub-adults, and 103 baby (from a two gallon plastic container they were in) six-spotted roaches left. You can read about the tank renovation and see a photo of the set up tank on my tank redo page.
When I cleaned out their cage on 5/28/07, there was only 1 live adult, 11 sub-adults, and just 6 babies! I do not know if the adult roaches, the anoles, or even the crickets ate the babies. Some dead adults were found but no dead babies.
A week later, that last original adult died. As of 6/28/07, I rarely see roaches in the tank except some of the sub-adults hide under the food dish.
On 7/8/07, my mother got a hermit crab who joined the other animals in the 20 gallon tank. The anoles and roaches get along fine. The roaches stay hidden in the substrate.
When I cleaned out the cage on 7/22/07, there were 11 sub-adults and 3 smaller ones. Half of the smaller ones died but the others are doing well.
When I cleaned out the tank on 9/16/07, there were 7 adults, 5 sub-adults, and 2 small ones. That means that none have died. Seven of the sub-adults molted into the final adult pattern. Soon, I may have to deal with babies again.
When I cleaned the cage on 11/11/07, there were 11 adults and 3 sub-adults left. None have died.
When I cleaned the cage on 1/6/08, there were 11 adults, 3 sub-adults, and 13 babies! So, none have died and now this next generation is breeding. I am a great-grandroach!
I cleaned the cage on 3/2/08 and found 12 adults, 2 sub-adults, and about 10 babies (they did not sit still to count!). So, none of the adults had died. One of them escaped behind the washing machine (first ever escape) but he was on the floor in the morning about three days later, and I put him back in to the tank. He was lethargic; I do not know if he will recover as he is still lethargic a week later. He looked okay but my kitten may have beat him up.
When I cleaned the tank on 4/22/08, I found 12 adults, 1 sub-adult, and about 20 babies of all sizes (too many to bother counting). Only the previously mentioned single adult roach has died among the larger ones.
Photos of My Roaches:
Photos are listed from oldest to newest.
A bunch of E. prosticus of
various ages. There is one that just molted so it is white. There are three orange-headed adults
and many nymphs. The photo was taken on 2/18/06.
Two E. distanti on
2/18/06.
One E. distanti in the food dish
on 2/18/06.
On 6/3/06, I cleaned out the big roach tank. Here are two photos of them in a holding bowl.
My 38? adult E. distanti
A close up of the same E.
distanti
I took this photo of the many baby roaches I now have on 11/18/06. These are baby E.
distanti.
There are tons of them. Can you count them for me?
Baby roaches
Underside of dead six-spotted roach - 4/7/07. Somebody bit off a part of his rear.
I moved the roaches to a 20 gallon tank on 4/11/07. You can read more about that on the tank redo page. Here are photos from that day.
20 Gallon Tank
Waterfall
20 gallon tank on 7/11/07. The photos is out of focus but shows the tank.
On 7/22/07, I took these photos of the 20 gallon tank before and after I cleaned it and set up a
hermit crab section.
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Before Photos:
The left side of the 20 gallon tank - includes
the waterfall.
The right side of the 20 gallon tank -
includes Herman's box of sand and Fourmi (the anole) clinging to the glass at the top
Entire 20 gallon tank
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During Cleaning:
Roaches - 11 sub-adults and three smaller
ones.
Sub-adult roach - close-up from last
photo.
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After Photos:
20 gallon tank - with new hermit crab
section on the right.
The right side of the 20 gallon tank - the
hermit crab section. Herman can be seen in the back of the photo.
The left side of the 20 gallon tank - on the
right at the top, one of the anoles can be seen; on the right at the bottom is Herman.
Here is a photo of the 20 gallon tank from 1/13/08.
20 gallon tank
This is the book that I have which is not sold at amazon (I checked):
Allpet Roaches by McMonigle and Willis, Elytra & Antenna, 2000, ISBN 0-
9719129-1-2.
I ordered my roaches and the above book from this site which I highly recommend. They also
have care sheets and tons of information. They have a large selection of roach species:
Blaberus.com
Here are some other sites that sell roaches and have information.
Big Apple Herpetological - sell a number of
species of roach
Allpet Roaches
Ronald's Roaches - sells a few
species
Topline Roaches - sells a few species
Bruce's Feeder Roaches - sells a
few species
Tropical Roaches as Pets - information
Here are some roach photos from the National Zoo that I took on
9/14/07:
Madagascar hissing
cockroach
A colony of roaches - I forgot to
write down the species name but it was not one I have had before.
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Copyright 1997-2008 Robyn Rhudy
