# How big are baby isopods?



## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

This is my first experience culturing isopods. I have some dwarf white and dwarf purple. I am using the markbudde method. 

On the piece of dog food in the dwarf purple isopod culture, I can see small insects. They are about the size of a grain of sand. When I look at them under a magnifying glass, they are white, and kind of round. Are those the isopod babies? I didn't realize they would be that small if so.


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## Toxic (Jul 9, 2012)

Can you provide a picture? baby purple isos are more oval in shape. It sounds like you have mites.


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## toadlicker00 (Feb 14, 2013)

Could be springtails. I have springs in all of my isopod cultures and never seeded them.


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

I hope this picture is clear enough to see what I am talking about:


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## toadlicker00 (Feb 14, 2013)

cbridgeman said:


> I hope this picture is clear enough to see what I am talking about:


They look like babies to me. Are these the white?


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

That's the thing, this is the dwarf purple isopod culture from Pumilo/Doug. So I figured their babies would be a little darker, but I have no frame of reference. I saw in another thread that babies can be lighter.


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## Valasaraptor (Feb 3, 2014)

They are tiny. The piece of wood in view is a little over 1"


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

Here is that same picture un-cropped. That is a small piece of dog food in a regular pint mason jar (you can see the lip of the jar in the top of the picture):


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## Toxic (Jul 9, 2012)

cbridgeman said:


> I hope this picture is clear enough to see what I am talking about:


those are definitely mites


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

Well, I thought I was doing everything right. I guess they came in on the dog food. I even bought the Carolina Biological Supply mite paper.


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## toadlicker00 (Feb 14, 2013)

I feed my isopods bug burger. No mite problems so far.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Sorry, those are mites most likely brought in from the dog food. Microwaving your foods before feeding can help prevent that. It works best moist though. If using dog food, I pulverize it in a coffee grinder. Moisten and microwave to kill the mite eggs.

Isopods can sometimes out-compete mites, but it could take a while. If those are similar to a mite I fought a few years ago, they are very slow moving, globular, and unfortunately, rather invasive.


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## Toxic (Jul 9, 2012)

This thread might help you. I don't know if it has been tried on isopod cultures but you can try it out. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/159618-mites-gone-forever.html


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

So I want to make it clear that that these mites did not come with the culture from Pumilo/Doug. I am positive they are from the dog food which I did not microwave before feeding. Doug was nice enough to give me a discount on some more purple isos, though, out of kindness. Thanks Doug! 

That's why I like this board. Everyone helps and everyone I have interacted with is very nice. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## cbridgeman (Sep 30, 2013)

Alex, since I am going to start over, I'll give the garlic powder a try on the culture with mites. We will see what happens.

Also, I bought some Bug Burger from the LFS today.


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