This question comes up over and over, as I've mentioned before, it would really help adoption of the framework if such a very common use case most people will encounter is well understood through documentation and examples.

here is a recent example of trying to establish a "best practices" pattern: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/akka-user/_t1ER27Df78/NpHpzCPKGrYJ

using a separate dispatcher for the db representing router & routees sounds like a great (and necessary!) idea, good call.

older discussions:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/akka-user/4F0wQNnMHUE/h0T-ZzsxRFkJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/akka-user/EDKA2aTigho/NcTiJ6ZWggYJ