I'm coming back at you for technically the second post in a single day.....WWWOOOOWWW......right? 😏 Usually I let a posts sit for a few days (much, much longer recently 😅) before typing up a new one, but the way I see it, more content is always better. Anyway, yeah, let's do this!!!
Isopods always seemed like the easiest things to keep for multitudes of people in the hobby, yet they were pretty much always the most finicky things besides mantids for me. This came for multiple reasons; the main being - using particularly mold-susceptible substrate, being overly mold conscious, and overventilating.
This particularly easy-molding substrate I speak of is coconut fiber; while the coconut fiber its self might not actually be very fungus-welcoming, it seems to commonly come in with a very annoying fungus that basically turns the whole substrate into a mat of strong-smelling, yellow-green dismay. It is also not nutritious in the slightest and so all signs pointed to me using "Nature's Care Really Good Compost" as my new base substrate for isopods, which I did. This compost soil is packed with nutrients from various composted materials and also molds in like actually zero situations. It is now used in conjunction with topsoil, cypress mulch, and perlite as my primary isopod substrate and is working spectacular.
Now I was also overconscious of certain molds such as the types that grow on dead leaves that are freshly-introduced into an enclosure. I've learned that, for the most part, molding is just a normal process for organic materials entering a new environment and that they are not detrimental to the isopods really in the slightest. Whenever my dead leaves would start molding, I'd immediately throw them out and so I'd end up going through many, many more leaves than I needed to and never reach a content state of mind with my setups.
This urge to get rid of the (benign) mold led to me often drastically increasing the ventilation in my enclosures and ultimately making them very unstable and easy to crash without constant care. Mind you, I never even did get the mold to dissipate completely. 😐
With new knowledge and confidence, I decided to take a plunge back into the isopod world a few months ago and nabbed a few species off of CaptiveIsopoda.com. This marvelous website is owned by isopod connoisseur and buddy of mine, Alan Grosse. 😊 Well he came through big time sending me a number of extras and with a total of 15 Armadillidum maculatum, 17 Armadilldium granulatum, and 15 Porcellio dilatatus, only 2 isopods arrived dead!
You may notice that I've tried culturing A.maculatum before, two times to be exact, and have failed on both occasions. These black and white beauties are looking much more stable in my collection this time around and I'm very happy to report that I already have mounds of babies!!! This is likely a combination of my perfected husbandry and an almost surely hardier strain of the species. I'm still keeping them in sort of a startup enclosure that I could definitely move them out of soon. It is a 64 oz. container with a considerable amount of pinholes around the top and a slightly moist mix of compost soil, topsoil, cypress mulch, and perlite for the substrate. It additionally has a clump of moist sphagnum moss in one of the corners for moisture regulation, a piece of egg crate for hiding purposes, and a little pile of dead leaves (when they aren't being completely decimated).
Pics down beloooww.
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| Adult A.maculatum |
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| Adult A.maculatum with youngsters |
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| Group of A.maculatum youngsters |
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| A.maculatum enclosure |
The Armadillidum granulatum are one of the newer additions to the list of isopods currently in U.S culture and came in at around the same time as many of the large European Porcellio did. These too come out of Europe and are particularly large for their genus (I'm almost certain they're the largest Armadillidium species being bred in the U.S). Along with the size, they sport a satisfyingly-textured exoskeleton, which makes them scream out for the common name "Granulated Isopod" or something similar. Not that common names matter that much anyway. 😛 Almost always being adorned with at least some nice, electric yellow highlights, they are also prime subjects for future high yellow morphs. I thought that I might not be able to breed the species after babies being non-existent for a while, but just about a week ago, I noticed a very good group of little spheres when removing rotten food.....YES. They like conditions identical to the zebras and so I have them set up in the exact same manner and will be skipping enclosure pics.
However, you can still find the rest down here!
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| A.granulatum adults |
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| A.granulatum baby |
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| A.granulatum baby next to a piece of the adults' frass for comparison |
The Porcellio dilatatus, also known as Giant Canyon Isopods, are another first for me like the granulatum. From what I understand, they are the largest species of isopod that you can find in the U.S on average, but Oniscus asellus can grow bigger. Their coloration ranges from a dark to light brown, with the shade of brown seeming to get darker as they grow (whether this is the rule or not for the species, I don't really know). While taking pics, I discovered that these carry a sticky substance on the bottom of the uropods similar to the way that some roaches carry it on their cerci. I pulled my hand away from an individuals after some got on me and a line of it connected to some particles of substrate and caused them to levitate in the air! I may have heard about this interesting feature that they possess before, but if I have, this served as a reminder. 😅 Curiously, this species likes burrowing a lot, which is a bit unusual for Porcellio. Due to this behavior, I wasn't aware that I had any young initially, but upon closer inspection, this was discovered not to be the case. I have these setup in a 6 qt. Sterilite container (which I should add a couple ventilation holes to soon) with a drier mix of compost soil, topsoil, cypress mulch, and perlite for the substrate. They have a handful of moist sphagnum moss in one of the corners for moisture regulation, a piece of bark for hiding, and a few dead leaves.
Pics comin' in.
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| P.dilatatus adults |
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| Younger P.dilatatus with adult |
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| Sticky substance from uropods of P.dilatatus (the floating pieces of substrate are the only proof I have in this pic) |
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| P.dilatatus enclosure |
Wooh, that was a long post! One in which I hope you all enjoyed. 😛 With that, you know what I've got to say next - goodbye!
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