So I see there isn’t much on isopods here, so I wanted to get the ball rolling!
Show me your isopods, and tell me something about them. I’m new and wanna do a little learning.
My isopods are currently all in bioactive vivariums and tracking their wellbeing has been a little more challenging than expected.
Dairy cow for tax, not mine
We have a number of different isopod colonies, and our dairy cow colony looks like it will be the first to produce enough for us to start selling cultures. We also just got in some feather millipedes, which are brand new to us.
Do you have pictures of the millipedes? Also how do you successfully get your isopods to grow in population?
I’ll get some pics of the millipedes tonight. Isopods will reproduce as long as they have enough space, proper substrate, food, temperature and humidity. Some of the more advanced species require specific minerals as well.
Oh that’s interesting! I was told that some soil and coco fibre/orchid bark were fine, what do you recommend?
We use Josh’s Frogs’ isopod substrate. It’s easier to buy the premix.
They’re all amazing, I’ve never seen millipedes like that. Where are they local to? And do you breed your own colonies?
Feather millipedes are native to Southeast Asia and the US. The species in the photo is from the Southeastern US. We just got the feather millipede colony and only 3-4 of the individuals are adults, so it will be a little while before we have offspring. I really do hope they reproduce, because they have fascinating paternal care of the offspring.
This is our most expensive and newest isopod. These guys require limestone.
We just noticed babies in the culture!
Those guys are fascinating! Where do you source them? I’ve found a few cultures for sale on ebay but I’m not sure if it’s reliable
All of our isopods have been purchased in person at shows so that we can inspect the culture and avoid shipping charges. We purchased our millipedes from a seller of faunaclassifieds and had them shipped. They were expertly packed and shipped via USPS 2-day. After this most recent online purchase, we are now comfortable purchasing inverts that are packed for 2-day air. Sources we recommend include Red’s Bugs and Josh’s Frogs.
We hope to sell our first cultures in a few months. We have a lot of baby isopods we are raising up for sale.
What species is the first pic and where did you acquire them? Would really like to purchase some myself
Interesting, I’m not sure there are many expos near by that I’ll be able to attend, (I’m in the UK) to pick up a good culture. I’ll see if I can find breeders nearby haha
The first picture is of feather millipedes, species is Brachycybe lecontii. Acquired from Samson Braden. He goes by DeadInTheBasement on faunaclassifieds.
Sunday I bought some springtails and isopods to get some colonies started. Nothing fancy, just something basic to get into isopod cultures. I got springtails, dwarf white isopods, and orange powder isopods. They’re easy beginner species and don’t require anything fancy, just substrate and decaying organic matter.
The first picture is the 6qt tubs I’m keeping them in, the next picture is my isopod colony, the third picture is my powder orange colony.
These are some pictures of my springtails, they were hard to get pictures of as they’re small, quick, and there’s not that many in the tub and they hate light.
These are my dwarf white isopods.
Orange powder isopodsIsopods in my bioactive, I think the first picture is a blue powder isopod and the second picture is blue powder isopods on the outside and a dwarf white isopod is in the middle.
zebra isopods. We also have the orangish and the plain gray as well. Only had them a few months so not sure what to expect. We have a ball python in there with them now but she’s coming out Of the tank and it’s just going to be for bugs n plants👍
Do they require anything special, or do they just need substrate and food? What do you give them for food? I’m hoping to get some zebra isopods coming up except unfortunately all of the expos have been canceled and I don’t want to have to pay for shipping.
