Roaches living together

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Loops117

Loops117

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Mar 13, 2016
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Location
South Lyon, Michigan
How are different species with living together?

I plan on doing a mix of mad. Hissing, and dubia for live bearing and constant food supply. Then Domino/Question mark as ornamental. The species list can be changed to accommodate everything else. They will be going in a vivarium that will eventually house a colony of ghost mantids. I'd also like to add other bugs if they're able to co-exist.

 
Lots of roaches have little care differences that make it unwise to keep them together, the hissers and the dubias may do fine kept together, but one may eventually out compete the other.

The domino and question mark roaches should not be kept together, they are in the same genus and they could hybridize, which is severely frowned upon in this hobby.

 
I will stick to one or the other when it comes to the domino and question mark (wasn't aware that would/could happen, nor did i know it was frowned upon). It seems like you're more educated on this subject, what would you do differently?

I want to keep a species that will colonize and stay strong without over ruling the tank. As well as survive some bug purges when it comes down to trimming the herd. Do roaches reproduce to the amount of food, and slow down on production if readily available food starts to decrease? Or will they keep reproducing till they die.

 
They won't slow down production unless things get bad enough you are having a lot of die off. If you try to underfeed them you will likely get some cannibalization from desperate ones. Most keepers simply cull a portion as needed. If you don't have any friends locally with reptiles that would like them you can always trade/sell your extras over the internet. There are always people looking for cheap roaches to feed off or start their own colonies.

 
Loops117 said:
I will stick to one or the other when it comes to the domino and question mark (wasn't aware that would/could happen, nor did i know it was frowned upon). It seems like you're more educated on this subject, what would you do differently?

I want to keep a species that will colonize and stay strong without over ruling the tank. As well as survive some bug purges when it comes down to trimming the herd. Do roaches reproduce to the amount of food, and slow down on production if readily available food starts to decrease? Or will they keep reproducing till they die.
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Personally I don't like keeping any two species communally, one could always out compete the other. Each species has different breeding rates, and those vary under different conditions, so you never know which species will come out on top. For that reason, and to prevent hybridization, I keep all my roach species separate for the most part.

They seem to keep on reproducing non stop, though if you start them out with a decent sized container there is seldom any need to upgrade enclosure sizes constantly. Pretty much any roach that is decently prolific can handle culling, it may even be beneficial depending on how many roaches are in the container. As females get old they stop having young, until then they'll keep on reproducing. Keep in mind that many live bearing roaches need fruits in their diet or the females will abort all their ootheca. 

Hope this helps! :)

 
I wasn't planning on adding less food, just want to make sure they won't continually breed until they have more family then food. I guess culling would work. With this particular vivarium setup, it'll have all different species of bugs, predator and prey. You think the mantids will play a big role in which species prevails? I'd like to get two species that are closely matched.

 
Loops117 said:
I wasn't planning on adding less food, just want to make sure they won't continually breed until they have more family then food. I guess culling would work. With this particular vivarium setup, it'll have all different species of bugs, predator and prey. You think the mantids will play a big role in which species prevails? I'd like to get two species that are closely matched.
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Well hissers and dubias would do well together, and you could put some Little Kenyan roaches in with them as well. The only thing I worry about is that the mantids may get stressed out from being continuously surrounded by food, especially food that could grow to be bulkier than the mantid itself! I don't think any predatory invertebrate would like that.

Also, if you have two different predatory species in one cage, one is going to eat the other. Predatory bugs that are the same species will even eat each other!

 
Loops, It sounds like you are trying to make like a self sustaining colony of bugs! Bugs living together in a little ecosystem in a tank.

I had the same idea and I was playing around with different concepts, but changed focus after a bit. 

I don't think many forum members  keep their bugs that way, but it must work because nature exists. Some of these things you might just have to do with trial and error.

maybe you should think about scale- make a really large tank (furniture-scale) to give the bugs room to live out their lives without being in each others face all the time. This would also let you make the terrarium really epic. Running water and fish? Turtles? Carnivorous plants? Flying bugs?

You could think about each species and what kind of environment it likes (mantids seem to like standing upside or sideways in brightly lit spots) and try to build a section of the terrarium for them.   That might give some leaky natural separation and prevent some of these stress issues.

The mantises will probably stand on any plants you have, and I bet roaches will play around in the dirt.

I'm just getting into this hobby too so I don't have much practical experience, but I think I get where you are coming from, and am excited about your project.  

Another ides I had was to build seperate rooms in your terrarium with little doors between them. So you have a "roach room" that has a door (operated from outside somehow) to the mantis room so you can feed them to the mantises

 
I do not recommend a predator and prey system with the prey being an omnivorous organism with the opportunistic tendencies to go for any available protein sources. In the case of mantis and roaches, you will find the tables will quickly turn as soon as the mantis molts and becomes vulnerable. There is a reason why it's recommended that you remove uneaten prey items when feeding with roaches and crickets. In order to make a system like this work, you will need a very large enclosure and far more organisms inside than a simple predator and prey complex.

 
This is the info i was looking for. I figured this would be the case, so i prolly won't go with any roaches, but mainly ground crew such as Spring tails, pills bugs, and worms.

 
If you intend on doing a enclosure with a system designed to be somewhat self-feeding, I recommend trying soldier flies. They will feed on decaying organic matter like old vegetables and other compostable materials and the flies will become prey and will not pose a threat to the mantises like invertebrates with chewing mouth parts. Pill bugs are relatively safe due to their tendency to stay at ground level, but avoid sow bugs as many of those will come out at night to climb in search of food--especially if the enclosure is humid. They can easily damage a recently molted mantis with their chewing mouth parts.

 

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