# Best clean up crew?



## hypostatic (Apr 25, 2011)

A question for those who have been in the hobby for a few years: from your experience, what is the best clean up crew for things like frog poop?

From what I've seen, springtails are 100% ineffective. It looks like they only go for things like bacteria and mold.

For isopods, I've tried "dwarf whites", and "giant oranges" (P. scaber?). The whites are basically completely subterranean; the oranges are mostly subterranean as well, but occasionally will forage above the leaf litter.

I've started culturing Armadillidium maculatum, and they look like they might be a bit more promising -- they spend significantly more time above the substrate than my other isopods.

Any thoughts?


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## cam1941 (Jan 16, 2014)

Giant Canyon Isopods (Porcellio dilatatus) are unstoppable. If you put them in your tank with other isopods they will outcompete them. I would go so far as to call them a minor pest for that reason. I had a tank with Zebras in it too and the Zebras are gone. I even helped out their numbers and removed The Canyons, and the Zebras still disappeared completely.

As far as cleaning up? Again unstoppable… When I feed my frogs they are out first eating vitamin powder and even the fruit flies themselves. I’ve seen them eat fly larvae as well. Frog crap never lasts long. 

I use them as a feeder for my ants there are so many. I could even use them as a feeder for other herps if I wasn’t concerned about cross contamination.

If you are looking for simple visibility then I would go with Zebras. They are always out and IMO are the coolest in terms of look. I’ve never seen an isopod that hangs out more in the open then Zebras which is a lucky break because of their look. The problem is that they do not reproduce very rapidly at all.

These observations come from having had a collection of almost every isopod on the market at one point and the only ones I still have are Giant Canyon Isopods. They survive everything…




Edit: I even use them in my Lacerta enclosure and they survive and thrive in there even though the conditions are much harsher and there are 2 large predators about... They don't grow very large in there at all though LoL


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