# Isopods again :)



## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Well, I am now yet another person culturing isopods. I got the run of the mill A. vulgare in with some plants and later bought about 40 or so Spanish Orange isopods. Both have been breeding well, though the Spanish orange isos are dominant because even though they were introduced later I think the A. vulgare may have only 1 or two introduced to start...and I am not sure if what I am seeing is a lone one and its hard to tell if the babies are spanish orange or normal rolypolys.

With no frogs in the tank it is interesting to watch them come out and forage after tank mistings. I can even see little ones crawling around on the driftwood and climbing up the plants ...no doubt when I have frogs that will be a sight of the past.

So a question...

Has anyone here bothered culturing them similar to how we're also contemplating growing roaches? I could see a big rubbermaid with coir, plantclippings etc. feeding some frogs.

Are dwarf whites worth trying? Also, do people here prefer any one species over another, particularly keeping planted vivs and plant eating tendencies in mind? 

I have a corkbark background that I purposely left large gaps that were later stuffed with a mix of mainly cocochips. I added some plant clippings and some fishfood and I suspect the isopods spend a good amount of time hiding behind this background. Has anyone made a sort of refugium for isos in their tank?(besides the compost tank often mentioned). The only problem I see is that it will be tricky figuring out how to add more food into this area.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Dwarf white woodlice are said to be the best type, because most woodlice are slow producers. DWW reproduce the fastest.

I've been meaning to try them, but they are $20 from http://www.doubleds.org


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

Ive been keeping the 'normal' woodlice in plastic shoeboxes with cocofiber bedding, and a piece of bark to hide under. I feed them fresh veggies twice a week. To feed off the offspring, I set a petri dish with some apple on it, and come back a few days later, when it will be covered with adults and babies - I just pick off the adults, and put the petri dish in with the frogs. Ive noticed when the babies go from being whitish to greyish, my leucs dont care for them - I guess they are getting too hard.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Dwarf white woodlice aren`t very fast producers. rough woodlice, striped woodlice and well I have to get them ID`d but I`m working w/ about 7-8 types and they seem to be somewhere in the middle at equal temps(80-84).
There are differences in each type making them appealing. The pygmy red like it real moist and produce fairly well and are miniscule and soft. rough are very large and pretty prolific so they can culture well in adult tincs tanks because the adults generally aren`t eaten, fresh juvis are a great food source. The striped are very prolific and they climb in humid envs and are perfect for pumilio and thumb tanks because the adults are too big to eat for them. The white are nice because they burrow and arent out much but they are white and are easily seen and not very tough bodied. The roly polies are nice for a terra w/ lots of cork and dryer. etc. etc.


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## bellerophon (Sep 18, 2006)

which would you recommend for room temperature cultures? I'd like to get something that I could keep on the shelf with my temp springs without having to worry about heat tape/lights ect...


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Very cool! Are their any sources that offer a wide variety of homegrown woodlice as opposed to wild collected ones?

Aaron: Have you kept the Spanish Orange isos? Trying to figure how they compare. They seem to like things on the dryer side. Pygmy reds sound like they might be worth a try, as they'd utilize a different habitat than the two I have now.


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

all mine are homegrown. I have`nt tried the spanish orange yet. 
I`ve been collecting them everywhere I go and also collecting springs and culturing them when i get them home. i make notes on where they are found and what`s closeby for food. I`m not sure which does best at room temps as I don`t know what your room temps are and I haven`t really tried to culture them outside the incubator. I know the dwarf white are slow as heck outside the incubator. I`d say, probably the striped woodlice or the rough.


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

The "Spanish Orange" aren't really as they seem--they're normal vulgare infected with a sort of retrovirus. That's probably why the orange strain seems to be dominant.


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## Catfur (Oct 5, 2004)

bluedart said:


> The "Spanish Orange" aren't really as they seem--they're normal vulgare infected with a sort of retrovirus. That's probably why the orange strain seems to be dominant.


They are Porcellio scaber, not Armadillidium vulgare.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Dwarf white tropical woodlice rock!

I've cultured 3 types of woodlice, the roly-poly type, the dwarfs, and a hitchhiker species that is small, black and fast as heck.

Most all of them culture about the same...they take forever to get going but once they do, they do well.

I am particularly fond of the dwarf whites, because most of my frogs will eat even the adults, and the young ones look just like springtails (to the naked eye).


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

I think retrovirus causes them to turn blue, not orange. I remember finding the blue ones alot and they would always die out before long, but "white" and other color variations survived just fine. As Dancing Frogs mentiod 

Dancing Frogs: That little black species sounds pretty cool...though I'm sure most of them evade the frogs.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

The orange are P. scaber as mentioned before... the orange occassionally pops up even in cultures from other populations of the species, but seems to be genetically dominant in this specific form... either it was collected that way or selectively bred to be that way. Feeding and care wise, they are the same, just a "cooler" color.

I think you guys are missing a key point when talking about the "best isopod"... it depends on what you want to use it for. If you are looking for a custodian for a tank, chose one that has a hard bodied adult stage like P. scaber. If you are looking for a FEEDER, you want small and soft bodied, like the Dwarf whites... these forms make crappy custodians because they tend to be kept at such a low population in the tank due to the frogs, and will need to be cultured outside the tank, and "fed out" like a regular feeder. Just don't expect them to last all that long, much less in any density.

It's much like springtails in the tank... I've got them all over the place in my phyllobates tank. I could never keep them around in my imi tanks because they ate them all.

Dancing Frogs - I'd be interested in giving the little black fast as heck guys a try. All you have to do is just figure out a way to feed them out, or get them to come out where the frogs can get them  Uf you have a good colony in the tank, why not do the apple in the tank like zBrinks mentioned on how he collected to feed his?


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Yeah, maybee I should try the apple trick, I've seen a slice of cucumber lure the white ones in great numbers.

Yesterday, after feeding my frogs naturose and calcium dusted ff's, I dumped the leftover supplements in my white woodlice culture, and they really seem to enjoy it...they now have a cool stripe of marroon down their middle!
Here's some pics of the little black/brown hitchhiker pods.


















That one is about the largest one of that type that I have seen...


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

brian, how fast do they culture for you? I've heard that from a lot of folks that they are "slow" initially, but then they "explode." What temperature do you keep them at?

How long does it take before you can feed out?


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Rainfrog: Isn't that the case for the population of just about anything? LOL

Those black ones are really cool. If you ever manage to produce them in quantity I'd be interested in trying them.


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