Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[garysumpter]

Hi all.

I have had a nightmare day really. I will explain what has happened and see if you guys can shed any light as I am clueless.

In my reptile room I have three large Really Useful Boxes.

In the bottom one I put about 50 adult locusts, straw, egg laying glasses and egg carton. I fed them greens and grass. Box had a lid but was very well ventillated. The box was kept very dry and had a heatmat on one side.

In the next box is my lobster roach colony. Open top box, vaseline round the top edge. In the box is lots of egg cartons and a ceramic dish with some bug gel in. They are fed various fruits and veg as available. This colony started as 30 and i have tons of babies in there now.

The top box was a couple of bulk bags of adult brown crickets, egg cartons and eco earth substrate, also fed a varied diet. This box had no lid so no humidity.

Everything was fine on Friday and seemed ok yesterday too but I stayed at my other halfs last night.

When we came back here around 10 this morning, we were shocked to find ALL the locusts dead, every single one, about half the lobster roaches seemingly dead and most of the crickets dead.

All the locusts have been disposed of. I have salvaged the living crickets. I am also moving all the live lobsters to a new box.

A lot of the lobsters are on their backs kicking, unable to flip over. Now i havent seen that EVER being the case, if they are on their backs they can usually flip straight over.

So, to quote a popular term, WTF? I am completely gutted.

Let me stress a few things.

The locusts have been in that box for over a month, doing well, mating, laying etc.

The lobsters have been doing GREAT from day one and breeding really well.

The crickets, well I dont know, they were dying off, only had them a few weeks, maybe there was moisture in the eco earth that was causing problems despite their box being lidless?

The crickets and lobsters were fed some apple from morrisons as their last meal, the locusts had grass.

My parents were home and neither of them went into the room apart from to turn the lights off at night (so no air freshener sprayed or anything like that)

So I am wondering if any of you guys have had similar problems?

It has come as a total shock to us.

Thanks

Gary
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[Bri.]

Do you have a stat on the heat mat ?
Is the room in the house or an out-building ?

Could have been the heat mat going haywire, or not working at all (temps could have dropped down below the "compatible with insect life" mark).

Are you using bug gel or a garden gel product ? Some garden ones contain pesticides and/or fertiliser.

[garysumpter]

Hiya,

Bug gel, the 'proper' stuff.

Mat wasnt statted but is very small. The reptile room is warm anywy and its been this way for a month with n problems.

Even if the mat was huge and majorly overheated, only the locusts would really be affected.

I cam contacting the supplier of the locusts and crickets tomorrow as i THINK they lost a load recently, might be something similar....

Gary
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[Siebren]

Damm, that would certainly bumm me out too!

However, I must say this sounds a lot like an insecticide problem. I have had overheated roaches before, they tend to get very active, and then stop (as in remain inactive forever)
The spasms you mention are typical for insecticide problems. Is there anything you might have done that could have caused this?(Remember that any anti-mite chemicals are also very effective against other invertabrates)

Keep us posted, I am curious to know if you can find the cause.

Cheers,
Siebren

[garysumpter]

I hope to have an update, but no there is NOTHING.

My snakes and chameleons were all very close by so it goes without saying that everything is done in there very carefully.

Gary
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[penfold]

insecticide on fruit and veg my guess
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1.1albino boas 1.5hogg islands 0.1dbl het sunglow 1.0 salmon hypo 0.1 anery boa 1.0jungle carpet1.1kalatoa dwarf retics 1.1black bloods1.1guyana red tail1.1san fransisco garter1.2applegate gophers1.3 yemens.columbian red tail1.1hermans.

[garysumpter]

Penfold,

Well you would think, but the locusts didnt have any fruit, just a handful of grass.

Thats why its confusing.

Gary
_________________
Need a website? 8 years experience, GREAT rates for reptile keepers, currently designing several reptile websites. Also graphic design, hosting and marketing services.

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[mark_w]

This does sound like a strange one; in my experience roaches can be survive extremely hot conditions, well into the 100's F, and it doesn't sound like overheating to me. Are you 100% sure that somebody didn't either spray some aerosol or other around, or add some additional food?
If not, maybe you have a contaminated batch of the bug gel or even the egg trays? Are you sure the grass was 'clean' and none of it got into the other containers?

Cheers,
Mark.

[penfold]

i had a batch of giant stick insects the other year which were doing fine they were fed of the same tree for months one day after i fed them they were all laying on there backs twitching the only thing we could think of was that maybe a farmer down the road had sprayed his crop with insecticide and maybe it got caught on the wind and affected the tree
_________________
1.1albino boas 1.5hogg islands 0.1dbl het sunglow 1.0 salmon hypo 0.1 anery boa 1.0jungle carpet1.1kalatoa dwarf retics 1.1black bloods1.1guyana red tail1.1san fransisco garter1.2applegate gophers1.3 yemens.columbian red tail1.1hermans.

[garysumpter]

Well, I have basically scrapped the lot.

However I loved breeding roaches so I am now looking to get a load of lobster roaches together ASAP as Id live to really push breeding them and forget the crix and locusts.

Anyone have any they would ship?

Many Thanks

Gary
_________________
Need a website? 8 years experience, GREAT rates for reptile keepers, currently designing several reptile websites. Also graphic design, hosting and marketing services.

http://www.sitewonders.co.uk
gary@sitewonders.co.uk