# Isopod food



## Matecho

I know many people feed their isopods fish food but i don't have any at home and would like to use more organic stuff at the moment. I put a piece of banana in all 3 of my cultures but i think i used to big of a piece and the bugs don't seem to be eating it. After 3 days i took out most of the banana and barley any was eaten. I have leaf litter, cardboard, and a tiny piece of banana they can eat but what food have you find isopods to eat well? If it can be a normal house hold item the would be great! Thank you


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## aspidites73

Before switching to Repashy I would give my isos vegetable scraps and mushrooms.


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## Matecho

Okay and how much vegetable scraps would you give them? Like a very small amount or a good size?


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## aspidites73

that depends on your colony size. If it lasts more than a week, i believe it's too much.


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## Pumilo

Trust me, they are eating it. Every type of isopod I've worked with, will eat banana just fine. Isopods and small and have tiny appetites. Starter cultures generally have small numbers of isopods. Food disappears very slowly. If your culture is way too dry, and the banana is up on top, drying out, then they might not be too attracted to it. In that case moisten your culture or bury your banana. 
Here are one or two other foods you can try. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/66991-how-culture-isopods-woodlice-springtails.html


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## Matecho

Okay i have a 3 colonies 1 giant orange 1 dwarf purple and 1 dwarf white. They all are adults and are starting to breed


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## Pumilo

Taking out most of the old banana may have been a mistake. The riper it gets, the more it attracts them. I have pulled apart moldy chunks of banana to find them filled with isopods happily munching away from the inside, out. Feed smaller portions and walk away. You need patience with isopods or this will be a very frustrating experience for you. Springtails may show results in weeks or even days, but isopods take months. 
I have no problem with throwing in a big enough chunk of banana to last two, or even three weeks. A little mold doesn't bother me. When the mold starts clearing, it's dinnertime again. But if you feed heavy and you go poking around in there all the time, you could be smothering them in their own gooey food. If you feed heavy and you remove uneaten food, it is extremely likely that you are removing isopods, too.


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## Matecho

Wow thank you for all that help! For a culture of dwarf white or dwarf purple about how much should i feed? like and inch of banana or more or less? And same for giant orange isopods


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## Judy S

just today took out moldy banana that has only been in the vivs a few days...and it can be confusing to think that the mold that makes cultures crash, is a good thing in other situations...How do you determine the parameters?


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## Pumilo

Matecho said:


> Wow thank you for all that help! For a culture of dwarf white or dwarf purple about how much should i feed? like and inch of banana or more or less? And same for giant orange isopods


That is an impossible question to answer. A 2 oz culture or a 10 gallon tank culture? Three bugs or three thousand? Get it?

You need to start small and watch what they are eating. If they eat it all in a day, guess what? Feed more. Sorry, I don't mean to get smart, but just like with a cat, a hamster, or yourself, you must monitor what you feed and constantly adjust it. 

Even if I somehow had an answer for you, let's pretend the answer is exactly 1/4 teaspoon once per week. How can the culture ever grow? If you don't increase the food when babies are born, then the increasing numbers will compete for the limited food until everybody starves. So that answer would only be good for, what? A week? A month? As the population grows you better increase the feeding. Now what happens when I harvest bugs out? Now I would be feeding too much.
If there was a lazy, easy answer, it would be on page one of my tutorial.

If you are considering a one inch chunk of banana, you must have HUGE, MASSIVE, producing cultures. If you had thousands of dwarf purple isopods, you would still be feeding many, many hundreds of times their body weight.


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## Enlightened Rogue

Pumilo said:


> . Feed smaller portions and walk away. You need patience with isopods or this will be a very frustrating experience for you. .


Fantastic Doug.
That was the hardest part for me, every time I checked the cultures they weren`t
eating...or so I thought. Once I opened a culture of Giant Oranges and there were 3 of them
chowing down on a piece of bug burger.
Just because you don`t see them eating doesn`t mean their not. I dumped 3 or 4 of them
in my Leuc tank months ago and I still see them in there. As a matter of fact one was molting this morning.
I stopped using mushrooms because they smell really bad after awhile.


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## Pumilo

Judy S said:


> just today took out moldy banana that has only been in the vivs a few days...and it can be confusing to think that the mold that makes cultures crash, is a good thing in other situations...How do you determine the parameters?


Smaller portions, Judy. Start with smaller portions and work your way up. Remember, it's easy to add more, but removing food is likely removing microfauna, too.
Plus, I didn't say mold was a good thing, just that smaller amounts are no big thing. If you are feeding natural foods without any preservatives, you are going to see some mold. Our viv conditions are perfect for mold.


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## Matecho

Pumilo said:


> That is an impossible question to answer. A 2 oz culture or a 10 gallon tank culture? Three bugs or three thousand? Get it?
> 
> You need to start small and watch what they are eating. If they eat it all in a day, guess what? Feed more. Sorry, I don't mean to get smart, but just like with a cat, a hamster, or yourself, you must monitor what you feed and constantly adjust it.
> 
> Even if I somehow had an answer for you, let's pretend the answer is exactly 1/4 teaspoon once per week. How can the culture ever grow? If you don't increase the food when babies are born, then the increasing numbers will compete for the limited food until everybody starves. So that answer would only be good for, what? A week? A month? As the population grows you better increase the feeding. Now what happens when I harvest bugs out? Now I would be feeding too much.
> If there was a lazy, easy answer, it would be on page one of my tutorial.
> 
> If you are considering a one inch chunk of banana, you must have HUGE, MASSIVE, producing cultures. If you had thousands of dwarf purple isopods, you would still be feeding many, many hundreds of times their body weight.


Thanks doug! I understand what you mean now. I was feeding a 2 inch piece of banana to my starting culture of giant orange isopods and i thought that wasn't enough. Now i know that is way too much. I will start with small portions and once the food is gone i will add more. I was reading forums saying people would feed once a week minimum so i got worried they weren't eating after 3 days. Thank you for all the help you definitely know your isopods!


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## scoy

2inches no wonder you didnt notice anything after three days. Being theres only starter cultures start off with the tiniest sliver you can cut and go from there.


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## Matecho

Haha i noticed that now. I took out most of it and i already see some of the dwarf purple eating!


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## Pumilo

That's a little bit like plopping a side of beef in front of 2 year old and expressing concern that he hasn't finished it by naptime.


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