How Many Dubia to get.

Hi I have 9 T's and was wondering how many dubia roaches to get. I have a small colony of 30/10.

soulreaver said:

Hi I have 9 T's and was wondering how many dubia roaches to get. I have a small colony of 30/10.

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slings? adults? what does 30/10 mean?

Jones0911 said:

slings? adults? what does 30/10 mean?

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I'm assuming the 30/10 means he has 30 females and 10 males right now. What size are the T's you want to feed?

Get A LOT of dubias, unless you're planning to use a lot of crickets too. Dubias don't reproduce all that fast.

Yes 30 Females 10 Male's and I am feeding T's 4 inches and over.

I would get a mixed size starter colony of 150 or more.

Don't feed off your dubias for a while to build your numbers. I started with 7 females and 2 males back in Feb/March, and I'm currently up to around 300-400. So in 5 months, you'll probably have somewhere around 1500-1700 (rough estimate) assuming your setup is ideal.

I only skim off of mine right now, I feed probably 80% crickets, and 20% roaches. Down the line I'll probably even it out more, especially since my T collection is about to surpass 30.

keep in mind adult dubia can get up to 2", and the larger nymphs are well over 1-1.5" and meatier than crickets. you wouldn't want to feed the same amount/frequency of dubia as crickets, so you can get by with a much smaller number of roaches. with only 9 T's to feed, your colony will probably outgrow your food needs in short order.

it does take a little longer to get the colony started, but once it gets going, look out! i have no idea how many dubia are in my colony, but its a ton, easily in the hundreds, and between my 5 T's, my bearded dragon and my skink (who eat a lot more dubia than the T's), i still can't keep the population growth in check. what i do is, when the numbers starting getting too large, i unplug the heaters for a while. dubia need heat and humidity to breed, so removing the heat will slow down or stop the breeding and allow my numbers to come down to more reasonable levels.

Well Thank you for all the info. My Dubia are already starting to take off I have a breeding and feeding tub. Im not sure how many I have in the feeding tub but it looks to be a nice bit. I just wanted to know if I should get more female to male or no.

soulreaver said:

Well Thank you for all the info. My Dubia are already starting to take off I have a breeding and feeding tub. Im not sure how many I have in the feeding tub but it looks to be a nice bit. I just wanted to know if I should get more female to male or no.

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The more females, the faster the explosion. Just remember to add adult 1 male for every 3 to 4 adult females. That's the ratio I try to keep, never more than 4:1. That way if a male dies off, there isn't a lot of potentially wasted breeding.