Young Merulanella sp. Red Diablo

A photo I grabbed when I still had some younger Merulanella sp. Red Diablo, find it pretty cool how the color develops as they age!

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I am super jealous of your isopods! I’d consider investing in some of the species I love that are high in price, but I’m just not confident enough in my skills as an isopod keeper yet.

One thing that majorly concerns me is the potential for colony failure as a result of a lack of genetic diversity, if I only purchase 5-10 isopods and only from a single breeder. Have you found that to be a problem, or am I over-thinking it? I also worry about there not being as much info out there regarding care of the uncommon species.

I have my eye on several Merulanella species, they are just so darn cool! The Ember Bee is still at the top of my list, with the M. bicolorata a close second. But I also definitely have my eye on the Dark Knight and Quadcolor Black & White. Not to mention all the pods outside of Merulanella!

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Stunning isopods! I’m jealous of the isopods you have too!

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Some isopods definitely do better and as far as the merulanella stuff they are just too new to really get a feel for how they will be especially in a larger colony with numbers.

For instance purple giant are very very slow breeders most colonies dwindle (including mine went from 6 to 15 to 1 now after 2 years of keeping my colony. (It could be brood size as well I notice like broods of less than 6 , could be just my colony). Where as soil I notice many babies. But soil is very similar to purple giant besides the color and they breed like crazy have hundreds of them only started with 8-10 I think as well.

So if you do get something newish and keeping is a challenge then I would definitely not blame yourself (I was driving myself crazy) but it’s just the nature of the beast! Hopefully more people can offer their data as these rare isopods become more available.

Another instance is Amber Fire Fly , the normal color phase seems to not do as well as the light color phase. My light color phase are breeding even quicker than rubber duckies, this could be cause they aren’t from the same environment and require different parameters or they need more time to breed yet they look so similar (normal color phase and light color phase)

Even what I am saying could be wrong and that’s the beauty of it! It’s just what I’ve personally experienced, might be different for someone with different parameters and maybe even where they live and humidity, elevation and a bunch of stuff.

LCF

LCF

Normal color phase

Soil

PG

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I always like “roly pollies” but never known much about them. Are these pets? Or breeder colonies for clean up crews etc.? I just bought some dwarf whites for my bioactive scorpion enclosure. I did do some reading on them and i know some species are bad for scorpions when they molt because the isopods have a tendency to eat the scorpion i guess because they are more protein seeking. I have no idea where my dwarf white are now im sure they burrowed somewhere.

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