# Orange Isos



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

Just some pictures of my Spanish Oranges hangin' out before lights out. For some reason these larger ones all climbed up on this ledge.


----------



## btcope (Jan 7, 2009)

frogs actually eat those monster armadillos!?


----------



## tachikoma (Apr 16, 2009)

btcope said:


> frogs actually eat those monster armadillos!?


My terribs eat them no prob. I was hoping they wouldn't but alas nothing that moves will be overlooked in that tank lol.


----------



## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

A lot of frogs leave the adults alone. This lets them establish and breed. The babies are as small as a springtail and make a tasty treat!


----------



## btcope (Jan 7, 2009)

should've known the phyllobates would be all over them... pretty gnarly looking bugs tho. I'd be worried they'd nibble on the little guys' toes if y'all didn't tell me they were okay to have in there.

thanks,
brett


----------



## Mitch (Jun 18, 2010)

My oranges are culturing pretty slow. It's been about 2 months and I just got my first hatching of babies. Seems like it's going uphill now though. Some of the adults are HUGE!


----------



## heatfreakk3 (Oct 15, 2008)

Those are pretty sweet. I think it would be cool to have them breeding in with frogs. It would be more like an ecosystem. Are they expensive/hard to care for?


----------



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

They're about the same price as other microfauna cultures. And I don't think they're hard at all. I culture them on clay soil topped with leaf litter and cardboard, then feed them random fruits/vegetables every once and a while.


----------



## heatfreakk3 (Oct 15, 2008)

Oh okay cool. So can they be kept like springtails?


----------



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

Depends how you keep springtails...


----------



## heatfreakk3 (Oct 15, 2008)

I keep them in coco husk, and occasionally feed them mushrooms.


----------



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

Yeah if you add some leaf litter and cardboard you'd be good to go.


----------



## heatfreakk3 (Oct 15, 2008)

What size enclosure do you keep them in?


----------



## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

I started with about a dozen adult oranges. I set them up in a plastic shoebox with half ABG mix and half hand crushed oak leaf litter. I put several squares of brown cardboard on top. Media mist be kept moist at all times. Any time the cardboard looks dry, we mist it. We took a paper clip and melted about 50 tiny air holes in the top. These are the foods we use. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/64919-great-isopod-woodlice-culture-foods.html
Our orange isopod production is very good and one of the things I credit it to is this. I leave the adults in the culture for only about one month, or until we see a good amount of babies scurrying around. Then we pull all the adults and move these adults on to a fresh culture. Using this method, I am up to three cultures in three months. The original 12 have had enough offspring to seed about 15 half grown individuals into 10 different vivs. So that's about 150 right there. Plus, the ones from culture number two are getting close to half grown and there must be another 150 there. We wait until they are half grown because they are going into thumbnail and pumilio vivs and I figure at half grown, they are big enough that they won't be eaten. Also, they can begin to reproduce at about half grown so that the babies will be lunch and the bigger ones form a thriving colony.
We recently pulled 10 of the bigger ones to throw in with the original 12 adults, simply to build upon the breeding culture population. I've been really pleased with how quickly I have been able to build the population.


----------



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

I have mine in an ice cream tub and some Glad tubs, but you can use 16 and 32 oz. cups, that's how I culture mine to sell.


----------

