# Why are isopods so expensive?



## Rainingvents (Sep 6, 2017)

Hi everyone, I have been in the hobby for awhile now and have always wondered why Isopods are so expensive. Would anyone mind enlightening me? - Are they harder to culture? Do they have longer reproductive cycles? etc.

I appreciate any and all insight! 

Rainingvents


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## SoloSK71 (Dec 25, 2018)

What do you mean by expensive? What species/colour are you looking at? Market controls the price as always.

Solo


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## Rainingvents (Sep 6, 2017)

TBH, they all seem expensive. 

I am looking at Joshsfrogs.com:
White Dwarfs - 100 for $60

with a range all the way up to the
Porcellio ornatus 'Dark South' - 10 for $35


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## SoloSK71 (Dec 25, 2018)

Try looking locally, a lot of places sell them for $10 for a starter culture for common ones.

The other, more colourful ones you are paying for scarcity.

Solo


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## DPfarr (Nov 24, 2017)

There’s some ridiculously priced species st shows. However, someone would call the orchids I buy ridiculous. It’s all relative I suppose.


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## Khamul (Jan 16, 2018)

They are slower breeders than other microfauna yes


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## ds51 (Oct 13, 2017)

they don't cost me anything 
at the bottom of garden I have a pile of leaves and bits of rotten wood 
and they just love to eat and breed all day long 
I just go out to my garden and collect them all year round 
or I go to my local woodland and get some
that's not me that's my mate dan


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

ds51 said:


> they don't cost me anything


Well, they don't cost you anything yet...

Most of us here are very protective of our vivs and livestock, and won't save ten bucks by risking disease/pest transmission by using wild collected materials that cannot be made pathogen-free. Considering the monetary value of frogs, and the value (money and labor) involved in a viv teardown, wild collecting is penny wise and pound foolish, in my opinion.

I'm not trying to be critical, exactly. I'm just trying to point out the possible downsides that someone might not immediately see.


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## bsr8129 (Sep 23, 2010)

it just seems like recently they have become more expensive, when i first joined you could get 50 whites for $10. It seems that one person sold them for more expensive and everyone has just jumped suit to that.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

bsr8129 said:


> it just seems like recently they have become more expensive, when i first joined you could get 50 whites for $10. It seems that one person sold them for more expensive and everyone has just jumped suit to that.


You might be right. I don't really view the number of isos you get in a culture to be all that important, however. There is no question in my mind that, per isopod, whites and purples ought to be the cheapest since they grow so quickly and are so easy to propagate. If I order a culture, though, I am usually just using it as a starter to propagate my own. With that goal in mind, as long as I get 10 or so, it's good enough for my purpose. I think that a "culture" usually costs between 10 and 20 bucks unless you are getting into the more exotic varieties. That seems roughly similar to what I remember paying in the past.

Mark


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

yet another reason to make friends and form local frog meets and gatherings. I've never paid for anything. Hundreds of fly cultures, beetles, worms, insects AND rare plants. 

Not 100% true...I've paid for occasional stuff, but more often than not, I am linked up with anywhere from 10-20 local hobbyists and everything is happily traded.


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## Michael Shrom (May 20, 2004)

Isopod cultures start at about 8.00 ea. and go up to a little over 100.00 ea. That isn't really that expensive. Bioactive setups have become main line and are not just for dart frogs anymore. Demand for isopods and springtails is outstripping the supply. The isopod keeping hobby is very much on the upswing. I expect we will see some prices come down in 2019.


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## SoloSK71 (Dec 25, 2018)

Since all that is needed is some isopods, colour does not really matter for the substrate in your tank. Get the $8 one and let it grow for a while then dump in the hundred or so after two months.

I admit I was all fired up to get a bunch of neat coloured isopods when I first started researching, then I realised that the cheap ones do just as good a job, and if I saw one of my frogs eat a $5 isopod I would probably have one of my special moments.

Solo


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## thedudeabides (Mar 3, 2015)

Here's what a $10 isopod looks like:










P. hoffmannseggi


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

thedudeabides said:


> Here's what a $10 isopod looks like:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Little bugger looks full of himself. He probably _knows_ he's a ten dollar isopod...


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## JimM (Oct 2, 2018)

Apparently I need to become an isopod farmer!
I can go collect a few hundred in the next hour that look just like that little guy.


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## SoloSK71 (Dec 25, 2018)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Little bugger looks full of himself. He probably _knows_ he's a ten dollar isopod...


If I had one of those and a frog ate it I would be googling “frog heimlich”

Solo


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## Michael Shrom (May 20, 2004)

JimM said:


> Apparently I need to become an isopod farmer!
> I can go collect a few hundred in the next hour that look just like that little guy.


No you can't


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## JimM (Oct 2, 2018)

Sure I can...more or less.
I'm not claiming same species...relax.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Uh, oh... I think we need some smiley face emojis before we have a raging fight over isopods (though that would be classic Dendroboard, no?).


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## JimM (Oct 2, 2018)

Yep - smiley..or winkie.


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## thedudeabides (Mar 3, 2015)

JimM said:


> Apparently I need to become an isopod farmer!
> I can go collect a few hundred in the next hour that look just like that little guy.


Probably not considering you called him a little guy. They can grow to over 2" in length.


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## Michael Shrom (May 20, 2004)

JimM said:


> Apparently I need to become an isopod farmer!
> I can go collect a few hundred in the next hour that look just like that little guy.


That is a great idea. Let me know when you are ready to start. I can hook you up on a bunch of them. I ship U.S. and also vend isopods at Hamburg, Pa. and Oaks Pa.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

There is a really easy solution to this.

If you think something is overpriced, don't buy it. If you don't buy it, and the market agrees with you, the price will come down.

On the other hand, if the market supports the price, they sell.

Simple solution.

Buy what works for you.

s


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## Mark Carden (Jul 25, 2018)

What type of isopod is the $10 one? Is it porcelain sp sevilla?


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## thedudeabides (Mar 3, 2015)

Mark Carden said:


> What type of isopod is the $10 one? Is it porcelain sp sevilla?


P. hoffmannseggi


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## JimM (Oct 2, 2018)

Scott said:


> There is a really easy solution to this.
> 
> If you think something is overpriced, don't buy it. If you don't buy it, and the market agrees with you, the price will come down.
> 
> ...


Without a doubt - and well said.

I can see the attraction to having a few of these guys in a dart frog viv just for their own sake. Waste of money for clean up IMHO, but as a cool critter in it's own right I'd almost do it for $10 a pop if they were adults...almost.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

They're more than cleanup crew.

Frogs do not eat iso adults - but they DO eat iso babies. You'll see frogs gathered around a spot and not realize what they're "picking" at. It's often iso babies so small you'll not even notice them.

Getting a fauna population going in a vivarium is a good idea.

s


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## JimM (Oct 2, 2018)

Scott said:


> They're more than cleanup crew.
> 
> Frogs do not eat iso adults - but they DO eat iso babies. You'll see frogs gathered around a spot and not realize what they're "picking" at. It's often iso babies so small you'll not even notice them.
> 
> ...


I think a critter like this that has some display value and adds some grazing utility as nothing but a great thing...but that's pretty much standard reality no matter which species of isopod you have reproducing I think...and pretty much everyone from what I see get's fauna going first thing.


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## jilsao (Jan 21, 2018)

P. dillatatus "Giant Canyon" isopods breed prolifically, and make a great alternate feeder for larger darts. My P. terribilis love them. The dwarfs still aren't that pricey depending on where you buy, and are a great boon to a viv. Shop around, iso prices can vary a lot.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk


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## Michael Shrom (May 20, 2004)

I sell isopods from 8.00 per culture to about 40.00 per culture. Some expensive ones go for around 300.00 per culture. Most of the expensive ones are not good for with dart frogs.


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## connorology (Oct 6, 2018)

I agree that they tend to be overpriced. I understand that it's a lot of labor to keep insects/feeders in culture, and to ship them out, and presumably some don't make it to the destination alive, and they need to be refunded. So there is a base fee that probably needs to be charged to make them worthwhile to actually sell and ship (like, minimum of $10-$20). I also understand that some folks consider them a hobby in-of-themselves, so there will be rarer species that are so niche and hard to come by, they will be sold at high prices (I think the prior orchid analogy was a pretty good one). 

That said, the last time I went to a reptile show, dwarf whites were selling for around $10 for 10 of them. A dollar per isopod? That's nuts. And that was in person too, so it presumably wasn't a matter of time spent packaging for shipping, or weight, etc. That's also a higher per unit cost than any other insect or feeder that you could buy. The possible exception is hornworms, but those have multiple life stages and need to be bred from adult moths, which need to be manually fed by shoving their tongues into sugar water. And somehow those still come out at or less than the cost of a single dwarf white isopod? 

I have not tried to sell isopods, so someone else would be a better judge of this - but if you are raising a species like dwarf whites, that breed very quickly, I can't imagine that the demand for them could ever exceed the supply you are able to produce. So while I understand you might need to charge ~$20 for a culture in order to make it worth your time, I'm unclear why you couldn't shove around 100 isopods into that culture. At the very least the customer would feel like they're getting more bang for their buck, even if they get going so quickly in culture that it might not matter. It seems like the goal would be to make more overall sales rather than nickel-and-dime buyers by counting out 10 individual isopods. I suppose what may be happening is that it's a very niche hobby that folks are willing to spend money on, and everyone is buying from a few sellers online who are being stingy because they can't meet demand. Then those isopods go into hundreds of individual cultures that explode but are owned by folks who do not buy/sell/trade with other hobbyists, so like 95% of the captive isopod population is out of circulation which jacks prices up. 

Personally, I'm a fan of the "root around in the backyard and find some yourself" approach. I culture them first to minimize the risk of introducing pests or pathogens, and my current culture of backyard isopods is four years removed from the wild (as an aside, does anyone have evidence that wild caught isopods have actually caused a problem in vivariums? I've seen that concern raised before but am unclear whether it is a reasonable concern, or an actual recounting of something bad that happened). I was also given some dwarf whites from a guy I bought frogs from - he literally gave me a bin with like 1000 in it because they breed so fast he had too many.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

connorology said:


> So there is a base fee that probably needs to be charged to make them worthwhile to actually sell and ship (like, minimum of $10-$20). (...)
> 
> That said, the last time I went to a reptile show, dwarf whites were selling for around $10 for 10 of them. A dollar per isopod? That's nuts.


I'm not arguing with your evaluation, but the last reptile show I attended as a buyer (NARBC) the table fee is $350. Even the local/regional show I vend at in WI (Sewerfest) is $60 a table, a five hour round trip drive, and 300 miles of gas in the car, and I have to get up at 4:30 am to pack up, and get home in the evening totally wasted.


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## connorology (Oct 6, 2018)

Socratic Monologue said:


> I'm not arguing with your evaluation, but the last reptile show I attended as a buyer (NARBC) the table fee is $350. Even the local/regional show I vend at in WI (Sewerfest) is $60 a table, a five hour round trip drive, and 300 miles of gas in the car, and I have to get up at 4:30 am to pack up, and get home in the evening totally wasted.


I suppose a less verbose response than my above novel (I got overly excited) is that I am not sure why the most common species of isopods are different from other insects/feeders cost wise, while the labor and supplies involved seem like they would be roughly the same. Maybe it's because species bought specifically as feeders are purchased recurrently as a consumable?

This is purely curiosity speaking, I've wondered about this for a while. I'll add that if I was tabling an event I would not sell anything for less than I felt it would sell for while allowing to move all the inventory. Do you sell isopods? I'm wondering what the demand is for them. As in, could you theoretically sell enough of them at ~10 per culture to sell your entire stock.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

No, I don't sell isopods.

I sell leopard geckos, mountain kingsnakes and rosy boas, mostly. Some other small geckos, and I have a couple new snake projects that I'm pretty excited about. I sell these because I like to breed them, and I sell them for under market value because I want to vend two shows a year and sell everything I breed. I haven't figured out how much the hobby costs me each year, and I don't want to know.

To be honest, I share your isopod thoughts about bread and butter animals like leopard geckos: they're easy to breed and in any event aren't really worth much. Don't get me wrong -- I think the animals I breed are really cool and I get a lot of enjoyment out of them, but when I see people charging $300 for an animal I know cost them about $20 to produce...well, a fool and his money, I guess.

If I bred reptiles and vended shows for profit, I'd hate the hobby. No joke or sarcasm intended. It could be that folks who are charging high prices need to make a big profit because they aren't doing this for fun and they'd rather be at home watching football but they need to pay the bills.


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## Isopoddiner (Feb 26, 2019)

thedudeabides said:


> Here's what a $10 isopod looks like:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I dont think anybody is getting $10 a hoff these days. I _have 1000s of isos, ship throughout the usa and hoffs maybe $4-5 _


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

I actually found a few places selling specific Isopods for $15-26 each. The most interesting part is they were sold out! Prices of Isopods were new to me, so it was a bit of a shock.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Tihsho said:


> I actually found a few places selling specific Isopods for $15-26 each. The most interesting part is they were sold out! Prices of Isopods were new to me, so it was a bit of a shock.


It depends on the type of isopod. There's a big demand for some species.


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## Woodswalker (Dec 26, 2014)

It's become a hobby in its own right, so in the same way that there are $25 frogs and $1025 frogs, there's supply and demand, as well as perceived rarity, newness of the species to the hobby, and a trendiness component influencing the prices. Some breed faster than others, and some are harder to keep. Since becoming more popular, prices have risen across the board. That's true of frogs, too.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

It is clear that very many things in the herp hobby (and much else) become more sought after as (and because) the price rises. I've recently learned that there is a name for these items -- Veblen goods.









Veblen good - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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