# Dubia Roaches escaping?



## jejton (Sep 3, 2006)

I have a small colony of dubia roaches in my basement ( which stays pretty warm most of the year ). The weather has been pretty warm and wet lately here and being that I am in a wooded area, my house is always full of bugs, most of which I dont mind since they dont get into the food. The only major problem is mosquitos. Anyways I have now twice killed what seems to be dubia roaches. Unfortunately I did not capture them alive for comparison but I am a little worried that I have some escapees. They are in a clear sterilite container as I read they arent supposed to be able to climb those walls. Is that not true? Another possibility ( if they are dubias ) is that I had a couple of escapees when moving in last summer that maybe laid eggs before winter which are now hatching. Either way its a crappy possibility. What do you all think ?


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

Don't mean to scare you, but there are hundreds for every one that you see.

Get some roach traps pronto.


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## jejton (Sep 3, 2006)

Sh!t!!!!


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## jejton (Sep 3, 2006)

but hey they arent confirmed dubias. can they crawl up the side of the clear smooth sterilites? i havent actually seen them do it.


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## xm41907 (Nov 26, 2007)

The myth of hundreds of roaches for every one that you see is not true. It could be Dubia but I am willing to bet it is the German cockroach, the most common house infesting species. They are fast reproducers so you should not let it go, but just because you've seen some does not mean your house is infested. Get you some roach bait, use the liquid stuff rather than the roach motel type, and apply it to cracks and crevices in the areas you've seen them. Don't use a lot, bait goes a long way. Also sticky traps might help. Key areas you should look for them are around bathroom pipe chases, under stoves/fridges, and kitchen cabinets.

Being that you've only caught two, I wouldn't be too concerned, it's very easy to bring stowaways home with you, however you do want to take some preventative measures to not let them get established.


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

My baby dubias did, so I used vaseline.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

My blatta lateralis used to escape a lot. They cannot climb sterilite tubs, but they can pile ontop of each other or get ontop a piece of paper towel / egg flat and squeeze through gaps. They are VERY good at squeezing through narrow gaps. I now keep my roaches in a ten gallon tank with a screen top and I keep some weight on the lid to prevent escapees. I have only had about 2 or 3 escapees in a year now, compared to two or three every week or so. :shock: Nasty!

While the adults are super hardy, the egg cases will not hatch unless they get sufficient moisture and warm temps. Brian Sexton says he's had them hatch out in cool vivariums, but low humidity will dessicate the egg cases quickly in my experience.

That scares me about live bearing roaches, which is why I use lateralis. However, blapticas are less invasive and calmer roaches.


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## jejton (Sep 3, 2006)

I went and applied a thick coat of vaseline around the container and for good measure did the same with my lobster roaches. I occasionally find one in the basement but they probably escaped from whatever cage they were fed into and dont worry me as they dont seem to do well outside their container. The one annoying thing about vaseline is that when it gets too warm it tends to slide down the side of the container.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

In my experience (as far as with lateralis), feeder roaches detest cool, dry conditions. All lateralis I have found were nearly dead. 

Yes, I have had the most escapes from roaches evading my bombina. They usually don't live long outside the cage. However, be warned that many roaches may evade your frogs (I found a several roaches hiding behind my background when I took their tank down) and live for a long time in your tank. I highly recommend that you behead or deleg roaches before feeding out to frogs to avoid this problem.

I put clear packing tape over the silicone in my ten gallon so roaches can't climb up the silicone strip holding the aquarium together. It's worth trying, but it probably won't work on lobsters.


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