Feel this is a dumb question that probably has a dozen easy solutions, but I’m stumped. Watched a couple of videos, but those were for catching overpopulated insects and it’s too damn cold right now any, nothing even under the rocks.
For the first time in life I have roaches I cannot beat. Always been easy, clean well, lay down boric acid, rinse and repeat when the last round of babies gets loose. Done. These fuckers have plagued me for a couple of years now.
Got a pet chameleon for my birthday. First reptile! Started in on breeding crickets in another tank, but this is also a first and will take months.
See where I’m going with this?
My desk vivarium is rocking with roly polys and I just dropped 20 crickets. I’m feeding them store-bought bug food that I mix and freeze into chunks. I’m thinking I could bait the roach traps with that, but hell, anything should do, right?
Even if/when I run out of roaches, I need a way to harvest the bugs from the desk tank.
Ideas? Something they will crawl in easily, but can’t get back out?
No tips on catching live bugs, but if you’re in a apartment situation it’s possible roaches can come from neighboring apartments. (they can even swim up pipes into your sink apparently). I had an apartment where I did the same and I still had issues. I looked under my sink and saw a big hole around where the pipe went into the wall. I bought some foaming insulation and filled in that gap. After a couple days I never saw the fuckers again. So check for any avenues where they can be traveling between units.
If they live with you for a long while already, then they do not need any of the extra food in your trap. They have plenty.
Therefore you might be able to catch a few, but you can never get rid of them with your trap.
If you have a small plastic tub, like for a small count of super worms. Cut a “ramp”, three sided cut, into the lid. Put food or water in the tub and bury in the substrate up to the lid. The ramps, I put two of them, in the lid should be short of the bottom so the new residents can’t just climb out.
maybe look up videos of “rotary fly trap”. maybe you can make something like that for roaches. it’s a genius system of overlapping comb like structures under a transparent slowly rotating lid that basically works like an airlock, closing an outer room first, then opening an inner room, so there is no escape. it being transparent also fools the insects in thinking they are still in the open, even though it’s slowly closing above them
Jam (Jelly), honey, or beer is usually all you need to catch bugs.
Also, the pet store crickets are pathetic, tiny and malnourished. Love some advice on best practices!
If anyone has springtails to spare, I’ll gladly pay for them, shipped to NW Florida. Been wanting to get back into breeding those.
