# Isopods



## Heat2Glo (Aug 17, 2016)

which isopods breed faster ? I have draft whites they are reproducing but slowly. 

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## carnzayne (Jan 3, 2017)

Dwarf whites are one of the faster ones. While orange giants are the slowest. What are your temps, cage food source etc. 

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## Heat2Glo (Aug 17, 2016)

carnzayne said:


> Dwarf whites are one of the faster ones. While orange giants are the slowest. What are your temps, cage food source etc.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk


Well I'm honestly I'm the temp for my room it's not cold or hot, but it did just turn spring but still cold out. And I feed them brewers yeast or fish flakes. I might change their set up and put cardboard. 

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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

If your isopods are eating yeast, they are probably starving. Isopods really have no interest in yeast. Isopods are looking for something with some substance to it. Here is a good thread specifically for isopod foods. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/64919-great-isopod-woodlice-culture-foods.html

Save your yeast for your springtails.


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## Heat2Glo (Aug 17, 2016)

Pumilo said:


> If your isopods are eating yeast, they are probably starving. Isopods really have no interest in yeast. Isopods are looking for something with some substance to it. Here is a good thread specifically for isopod foods. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/64919-great-isopod-woodlice-culture-foods.html
> 
> Save your yeast for your springtails.


Thanks so much I'll try that method asap . 

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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Another great method, is to let them live and breed IN their food. Let me explain, as you obviously can't keep them on any normal feeds. The colony would mold over quickly and kill everything. We know that isopods eat decomposing vegetable matter, right? 

Leaf litter IS decomposing vegetable matter, and yes, they will eat it.
I used to sterilize the red oak leaves from my backyard, in a pressure cooker. Hand crush them, and let your substrate consist of about 2/3 leaf litter. Types that break down a little quicker, are better for this, than live oak or magnolia. A mix of 2/3 or 3/4 live oak, and 1/4 to 1/3 maple leaves, would work well, too, with periodic additions of more maple. On it's own, maple would likely decompose too quickly, and tend to flatten out in a sheet, instead of keeping light and fluffy for them to easily burrow through.

*Now you are still going to feed them more nutritious foods*, but in between feedings, they will eat the slowly decomposing leaf litter.
Relying solely on leaf litter, would make for a very slow producing colony.

Actually, over time you will find that isopods even eat the cardboard squares that some of us keep on top of a culture for collection purposes.

I've tried a lot of different methods, and the one that blows them all out of the water, is this.
One to two inches of my calcium bearing clay substrate recipe on the bottom of the culture. Top with 2 to 4 inches of red oak or pin oak leaf litter, half the leaves shredded in a blender, half the leaves left whole, for structure.
Add to the leaf litter as necessary.
Feed any of the foods mentioned in my son's thread on isopod foods.
Dwarf purple, and dwarf white isopods, in particular, really rock on this. My production on dwarf purples, at least doubled when I switched to this.


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## Heat2Glo (Aug 17, 2016)

Pumilo said:


> Another great method, is to let them live and breed IN their food. Let me explain, as you obviously can't keep them on any normal feeds. The colony would mold over quickly and kill everything. We know that isopods eat decomposing vegetable matter, right?
> 
> Leaf litter IS decomposing vegetable matter, and yes, they will eat it.
> I used to sterilize the red oak leaves from my backyard, in a pressure cooker. Hand crush them, and let your substrate consist of about 2/3 leaf litter. Types that break down a little quicker, are better for this, than live oak or magnolia. A mix of 2/3 or 3/4 live oak, and 1/4 to 1/3 maple leaves, would work well, too, with periodic additions of more maple. On it's own, maple would likely decompose too quickly, and tend to flatten out in a sheet, instead of keeping light and fluffy for them to easily burrow through.
> ...


Thanks a lot again, I will definitely change things. I did however have leaf litter and will be adding oak leafs since I'm getting a hold of a few items would any mix make a difference? And one more question is there another type of isopods that breeds fast ? I like the zebra isopods but they are hard to get a hold on. 

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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Dwarf purples did the best for me. Others report dwarf whites are faster in their cultures.
Springtails get moving quickly, and can be booming in a few short weeks. Isopods will take months to get going. At the beginning it can seem like forever.


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## Frogsarefun (Nov 25, 2015)

To add to all of Dougs great info, I feed mine crushed cuddle bone, old bananas, cantaloupe rind, egg shells, old mushrooms, zucchini, you get the idea and leaf litter.
I find my whites produce best if the substrate is more moist, almost wet, 
don't know why they just do.
Now that said I find a good indicator of my viv substrate getting too wet is Isopods coming out of it.


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## cjkpa1 (Dec 17, 2016)

Best results I've had is with the gerber baby oatmeal and fish food


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## azbombero (Dec 4, 2009)

Dwarf whites have produced quickly for me. Feed them fish food and left over veggies


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## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

I use Doug's method of using crushed leaves as my media. In my case I use 100% crushed maple leaves. I don't find that with all maple leaves mine flatten out as Doug mentions. All the stems from the decaying maple leaves help to give it some structure.

By far the best food I've found to get the cultures really producing are veggies, in particular yellow and green squash. But I have found if you just continually feed veggies the moisture in the veggies tends to make the cultures too wet. So I do dry foods such as fish flakes as well. A rice formula based baby cereal works REALLY well also.


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## thumbnail (Sep 18, 2005)

Pumilo said:


> If your isopods are eating yeast, they are probably starving. Isopods really have no interest in yeast. Isopods are looking for something with some substance to it. Here is a good thread specifically for isopod foods. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/64919-great-isopod-woodlice-culture-foods.html
> 
> Save your yeast for your springtails.


Have had success with dwarf purples living solely on fish flake, brewers yeast and plant clippings. In no way are any of my iso's starving on yeast. They take it out quickly and the mold that results from moistened yeast does not last long. The only thing that seems to slow the production that I have witnessed is getting too cold.


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## bssknox (Apr 24, 2017)

thumbnail said:


> Have had success with dwarf purples living solely on fish flake, brewers yeast and plant clippings. In no way are any of my iso's starving on yeast. They take it out quickly and the mold that results from moistened yeast does not last long. The only thing that seems to slow the production that I have witnessed is getting too cold.


Do you think they could live off of Josh's Frogs Springtail food?


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