I learned the mold lesson right away. Since the enclosures are so humid, I have been putting the little fish food and calcium cricket food powder on the lids of tiny containers lol. It’s working well so far and the isopods seem to like it. Also, the isopods in the culture I got from you are making babies! 😍
Ive been watching cut strawberry tops very closely. They absolutely love it but they want it more dehydrated. They wont touch a fresh cut, but a day two piece gets absolutely mauled by them. I sun dry em a bit now.
Honestly mold is a pain in a smaller enclosure. BUT in my big box with isos, millipedes and springtails, mold just never happens - it literally gets eaten up first (I have tested it by putting in strawberries with a few moldy ones, where the mouldy ones got eaten first). I end up using this big box as my compost bin and it sits there for weeks without issue. I wouldn't recommend it as a default feeding method though, I needed over a year to gain enough balance for this bin to work like that.
I have an unintentional dairy cow colony because I got them not realizing they're not a good clean up crew for land snails. My main goal is that the little buddies don't go hungry. I can't help but fill up their little bowl with bug bites or fish flakes or iso chow (in addition to lots of leaf litter and wood in the bin...plus veggies once a week or so). I've also got dwarf whites in there and so far so good after about 2ish years.
I’m starting making a compost bin/isopod habitat with isopods I found near my chicken coop, I hope I do a good job taking care of those little guys! They started to thrive where I found them and put debris to feed them originally!
I tend to feed my pods the offcuts from my aquarium plants, though they can barely work through the frogbit at the rate it grows in my tank lol, thankfully I have a very healthy springtail popualtion in the tank that keep the mold down
Great video!!!! Also I think there are instances where a mild mite population can be healthy for your enclosure, but people just tend to see mites as icky.
Great video Rus! Over feeding is a big issue for me when I begin new isopod enclosures as there is a smaller population and less established microorganisms. In my large Porcellio laevis enclosure, it seems that however much I feed, it’ll always be gone in hours 😂 I’ve luckily never had problems with mites in my isopod enclosures but one time I oversee my springtails and somehow a bunch of mites just showed up overnight?
Really useful, thanks Rus! Most of the mould issues I’ve had have been to do with the leaf litter. Any that I’ve gathered in autumn has usually been fine but any from later in the year has had a real tendency to fluff up within a couple of days of being introduced. I guess after the leaves have been dead a while more spores attach and start working on them so I’m going to be doing all my collecting early this winter! I always bake anything I collect as despite careful sorting a young native centipede got into my ember bee tub last year 🫣 Had the odd problems with starter colonies but to be honest none of my isopods have payed much attention to fresh fruit or veg so haven’t had many issues with that🤷♀️ they just stick to leaf litter and love sturgeon pellets and dried fish and shrimp!
Do you know if pomegranate skins or rinds are alright for isopods? It's a pretty dry type of compost, less strawberry and more like an orange peel, and the inner area (which i think is called rind) is easy enough to flake into sandy pieces that it makes my hands gritty while cutting poms until I wash my hands off. I dont have isopods yet but I thought it could be good for them and not wasteful, because I can't throw pom pieces outside for the wild rabbits. 🤔
@@Aquarimax thanks! I always try my best not to buy things that have pesticides in them because more things use chlormequat as a pesticide nowadays, which is a pesticide that causes reproductive issues and developmental problems in embryos. General Mills, Kelloggs, Quaker, Cheerios, Nature Valley - a bunch of oat based cereals, snacks, and such all got recalled recently because of dangerously high levels of the pesticide in their products. I have a friend who was using oats for mealworm culturing, and all of her mealworms died and she couldn't figure out if it was the temperature she had them at - and I'm willing to bet it was the oats. I'm letting you know in case it's relevant for you too!
A few days back, some type of mites appeared on my zebras enclosure. They were all over my Isopods, covering about half of their back. Today I found 4 zebras dead, there are 4 remaining... I removed them and put them in an other enclosure. These mites killed them, and they were feasting on them afterwards. I've never seen this before.
I was doing fine feeding too much, well not that over just looking by the amounts of the colony and there is no mold (since i had springtail in it) but the problem is there are some maggots, like gnats larvae and it's kinda annoying but salt water is going to kill them anyway
Thank you for the video!! I do have fruit flies in a couple of my enclosures... Not all... I feed all my isopods the same foods, same schedules and notice the fruit flies have begun showing up. I normally kill them or swing my lid across the top of the enclosure to blow them out. Most the food is gone within 2-3 days. I've learned the only way to figure out what my isopods like to eat is by trying out different things. Come to find out they don't all eat the same stuff and when it sits, it molds. Spring tails don't always eat all the mold either so to fight that I always put my food on the dry side of the bin with the a ventilation hole above the food. That has stopped 99% of mold issues. Can't figure out exactly how to get rid of the flies but I haven't seen them very long. I hope if I calm the feeding down, they go away. Thanks again for the video. I really appreciate it. ❤
You may be having fungus gnat issues rather than fruit flies. These can be controlled with Mosquito Bits, and I use a Katchy trap and a Cape Sundew to reduce their numbers
I learned the mold lesson right away. Since the enclosures are so humid, I have been putting the little fish food and calcium cricket food powder on the lids of tiny containers lol. It’s working well so far and the isopods seem to like it. Also, the isopods in the culture I got from you are making babies! 😍
Ive been watching cut strawberry tops very closely. They absolutely love it but they want it more dehydrated. They wont touch a fresh cut, but a day two piece gets absolutely mauled by them. I sun dry em a bit now.
Honestly mold is a pain in a smaller enclosure. BUT in my big box with isos, millipedes and springtails, mold just never happens - it literally gets eaten up first (I have tested it by putting in strawberries with a few moldy ones, where the mouldy ones got eaten first). I end up using this big box as my compost bin and it sits there for weeks without issue. I wouldn't recommend it as a default feeding method though, I needed over a year to gain enough balance for this bin to work like that.
I have an unintentional dairy cow colony because I got them not realizing they're not a good clean up crew for land snails. My main goal is that the little buddies don't go hungry. I can't help but fill up their little bowl with bug bites or fish flakes or iso chow (in addition to lots of leaf litter and wood in the bin...plus veggies once a week or so). I've also got dwarf whites in there and so far so good after about 2ish years.
I’m starting making a compost bin/isopod habitat with isopods I found near my chicken coop, I hope I do a good job taking care of those little guys! They started to thrive where I found them and put debris to feed them originally!
This is good information about the isopod so happy that I caught your video
I tend to feed my pods the offcuts from my aquarium plants, though they can barely work through the frogbit at the rate it grows in my tank lol, thankfully I have a very healthy springtail popualtion in the tank that keep the mold down
Great video!!!! Also I think there are instances where a mild mite population can be healthy for your enclosure, but people just tend to see mites as icky.
Love seeing the the Gestroi "Zingers" come out
Great video Rus! Over feeding is a big issue for me when I begin new isopod enclosures as there is a smaller population and less established microorganisms. In my large Porcellio laevis enclosure, it seems that however much I feed, it’ll always be gone in hours 😂
I’ve luckily never had problems with mites in my isopod enclosures but one time I oversee my springtails and somehow a bunch of mites just showed up overnight?
Such a useful video and good topic. Something I always try to keep in the back of my mind when giving them extra food.
Really useful, thanks Rus!
Most of the mould issues I’ve had have been to do with the leaf litter. Any that I’ve gathered in autumn has usually been fine but any from later in the year has had a real tendency to fluff up within a couple of days of being introduced. I guess after the leaves have been dead a while more spores attach and start working on them so I’m going to be doing all my collecting early this winter! I always bake anything I collect as despite careful sorting a young native centipede got into my ember bee tub last year 🫣
Had the odd problems with starter colonies but to be honest none of my isopods have payed much attention to fresh fruit or veg so haven’t had many issues with that🤷♀️ they just stick to leaf litter and love sturgeon pellets and dried fish and shrimp!
Thank you so much for the helpful info! I was dealing with this EXACTLY with my zebra colony. Thank you for the great info as always ❤
Thank you Rus!
This was super helpful and full of general information around the subject for me being new to the hobby. I'll check out more of your content x
Most excellent! Super helpful!
Great informative video. Thank you for sharing. You should update some old videos and add small details from what you've learned with the years too!
Thank you Rus, always very informative.
Excellent Video Rus
Great, informative video Russ!
Thanks!
I stumbled across your channel today. love the video's! I was wondering, where do you get your leaves?
Glad you enjoy it! We don’t spray our yard, and have lots of trees, so I collect leaves in our yard.
How about not feeding at all except leaf litter and gecko poop
If there is plenty of leaf litter, and the leaf litter is of good quality, with balanced nutrients, that should work just fine
Do you know if pomegranate skins or rinds are alright for isopods? It's a pretty dry type of compost, less strawberry and more like an orange peel, and the inner area (which i think is called rind) is easy enough to flake into sandy pieces that it makes my hands gritty while cutting poms until I wash my hands off. I dont have isopods yet but I thought it could be good for them and not wasteful, because I can't throw pom pieces outside for the wild rabbits. 🤔
If they are not treated with pesticides, you could try a small piece and see how your future isopods react to it.
@@Aquarimax thanks! I always try my best not to buy things that have pesticides in them because more things use chlormequat as a pesticide nowadays, which is a pesticide that causes reproductive issues and developmental problems in embryos. General Mills, Kelloggs, Quaker, Cheerios, Nature Valley - a bunch of oat based cereals, snacks, and such all got recalled recently because of dangerously high levels of the pesticide in their products. I have a friend who was using oats for mealworm culturing, and all of her mealworms died and she couldn't figure out if it was the temperature she had them at - and I'm willing to bet it was the oats. I'm letting you know in case it's relevant for you too!
A few days back, some type of mites appeared on my zebras enclosure. They were all over my Isopods, covering about half of their back. Today I found 4 zebras dead, there are 4 remaining... I removed them and put them in an other enclosure. These mites killed them, and they were feasting on them afterwards. I've never seen this before.
Do you have any macro photos of these? I’d like to understand what is happening here
@@Aquarimax Yeah I do. I also have some videos. I can sent them to you, I was also a bit puzzled from this.
thank you 🙏:)
You’re welcome!
I was doing fine feeding too much, well not that over just looking by the amounts of the colony and there is no mold (since i had springtail in it) but the problem is there are some maggots, like gnats larvae and it's kinda annoying but salt water is going to kill them anyway
Sounds like they could be fungus gnat larvae
@@Aquarimax it might be, it's so thin, small, trasnparent and could barely seen.
What species is shown at the 1 minute mark?
Those are Oniscus asellus BC Maple 👍🏼
i over feed mine if they refuse i force them to eat
@@williamdai8796 🤣
Can they get overweight?
Not really…though some can become larger than others of their species
Thank you for the video!! I do have fruit flies in a couple of my enclosures... Not all... I feed all my isopods the same foods, same schedules and notice the fruit flies have begun showing up. I normally kill them or swing my lid across the top of the enclosure to blow them out. Most the food is gone within 2-3 days. I've learned the only way to figure out what my isopods like to eat is by trying out different things. Come to find out they don't all eat the same stuff and when it sits, it molds. Spring tails don't always eat all the mold either so to fight that I always put my food on the dry side of the bin with the a ventilation hole above the food. That has stopped 99% of mold issues. Can't figure out exactly how to get rid of the flies but I haven't seen them very long. I hope if I calm the feeding down, they go away. Thanks again for the video. I really appreciate it. ❤
You may be having fungus gnat issues rather than fruit flies. These can be controlled with Mosquito Bits, and I use a Katchy trap and a Cape Sundew to reduce their numbers