Just a few weeks in the past I talked about how one can arrange a breeding terrarium to your isopods in “Learn how to Breed Your Personal Isopods: Half 1”. Now it’s time to get to the actually enjoyable half – including the isopods to the terrarium.
Right here’s what you should learn about isopod species, caring for them, and breeding them.
Choose the species of isopods you need within the habitat
In the event you’re planning to breed isopods, it is sensible to have a number of habitats for the completely different species. It makes breeding and separating the isos by age teams simpler. In fact, should you solely need to breed one selection, then you may get away with solely constructing one iso breeding habitat.
Listed below are a few of the species it’s possible you’ll discover:
- Big orange isopods (porcellio laevis)
- Montenegro or “clown” isopods (armadillidium klugii)
- “Occasion combine” isopods (nambia capensis)
- Zebra isopods (armadillidium maculatum)
- Zevilla isopods (porcellio sp.)
- And plenty of extra species
You could find quite a lot of isopod species on the market at The Tye-Dyed Iguana.
Most isopods require the identical habitat and care no matter species, although there are some variations. As an illustration, some isopods can tolerate barely drier environments, however total they require moisture. And since they arrive in several sizes, some will want extra meals sources per iso than smaller species.
After you have the isopods you need, you merely launch them into the habitat you constructed partly one in every of this text. They’ll instantly begin hiding within the substrate. If the isopods you purchase include substrate of their container, you possibly can simply combine that proper in with the substrate within the habitat.
Know what they eat
In a bioactive atmosphere, you actually don’t want to offer any extra meals for isopods. Nevertheless, the breeding habitats that half one covers will not be a bioactive atmosphere as a result of the isos will not be sharing the terrarium with another residing animals or crops. So meaning you’ll must complement their eating regimen.
The leaf litter that you simply add to the substrate combine is definitely one meals supply for the isos. Leaf litter needs to be continuously out there and refreshed because it runs out. However to make sure full diet, you also needs to add nutrient-rich meals to the habitats about twice per week.
Good choices embrace ready meals that include further vitamins, comparable to Repashy Morning Wooden, recent fruits, recent greens and freeze-dried shrimp. Watch out to not depart an excessive amount of meals within the enclosure so that you don’t find yourself with gnats.
Offering for upkeep and breeding
Isopods are tremendous straightforward to deal with. Other than holding them in leaf litter and sometimes offering extra dietary meals, you’ll must mist their enclosure about each day to each different day to take care of at the very least 60 % humidity. They don’t want a separate water supply.
As for breeding, the isos deal with that themselves, and as your colony grows, you possibly can switch a few of the isopods to bioactive terrariums as custodian inhabitants.
Try the isopods we supply at The Tye-Dyed Iguana.