Thank you for considering a new pet roach! The two species we have are large and slow moving, so they are handable and not likely to escape!
A roach can live up to two years. Your new roach is a large juvenile or young adult and may live up to 18 months.
These roaches aren’t picky eaters. Your new buddy needs vegetables, oteprin, and calcium, and most people have everything they need somewhere in their home already. They will happily eat small bits of your leftovers, any pet food you already have, cereal, and vegetable cast offs, like broccoli stems, you weren’t going to eat, anyway. For calcium, all you need is a clean crushed eggshell or chicken bone. Your individual roach may not like a particular thing, and that’s ok, we don’t like everything either. Always feed small amounts with the edible part exposed, for example, a crushed bean instead of a whole one.
Your pet roach will also come with a bioactive component, so make sure you transfer the dirt into his new home! You will have a brand new colony of dwarf white isopods ready and willing to clean up any food your roach leaves behind, within reason. You should still remove large rejected food items. Do not spot clean the calcium! Both your isopods and your roach need it, but they eat it slowly.
Roaches are surprisingly clean. As detritivores, they are part of the earth’s clean up crew. Their waste, called frass, is one of the best fertilizers in the world.
Roaches don’t need a light source or even a heat source in most homes. They need a place to hide, a source of water, and darkness.
Cave roaches tend to drink off the side of their enclosure or other vertical surfaces, so make sure to spray the enclosure before bed at least twice a week. You need at least a 2.5 gallon arboreal tank. Cave roaches are particularly adverse to light and are most active at night. If you want to observe it’s natural behavior, use a red light. They go about their roachy business in the dark.
Hissing cockroaches will drink readily from small bowls or other water features. You need at least a 2.5 gallon terrestrial tank The males exhibit guarding behaviors and will stand in the highest point in their enclosure and hiss. Make sure they have a place to make a stand! Hissers can tolerate high temperatures, so if you want to give them a warm spot, that will only make them more active. They are active both night and day. Consider a red light for maximum observation.