# Worried About My Millipede



## Delaney (Jul 4, 2016)

Hi, I'm pretty new at owning millipedes, I have one giant african black and I'm really worried about her (I think it's a her, I don't know, she's a pet) and I'm not sure what to do. Usually she curls up and sleeps most of the day and does her thing at night, but she's been really really active these last couple days and I'm worried she might have fungus, but I don't know. She's hardly stopped moving in the last 48 hours, she's never been this active and I've had her since late December. I did a lot of research before buying her, but I'm afraid I'm doing something wrong, because there's a lot of conflicting stuff. Can anybody help? I'm really inexperienced and worried about her, I'll put a picture and a link to a video of her since I couldn't really get a clear shot of the legs right behind her head. She's been doing laps around her tank for most of the day, she stopped briefly for about an hour or so and drank, but other than that she hasn't really stopped moving, and I haven't seen her eating. Any advice at all would be really really appreciated, I'm really new to this and I'm worried about her





https://goo.gl/photos/1P5w7tXJfpaFkm8u7 here's a link to a video, sorry for the music in the background, i was trying to get her when she was getting up on the sides of the tank


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## Cavedweller (Jul 4, 2016)

Welcome to the hobby! Your pede is indeed female. Looks like typical millipede wanderings to me, but she does need different substrate. Millipedes mostly eat substrate, use a combination of dead leaves, rotten wood, and cocofiber. This caresheet will get you started http://arachnoboards.com/threads/cavedwellers-basic-millipede-caresheet.263344/

It does look like she has a ton of mites, are there mites on her food? 

I've heard constant activity can be a sign of dehydration. How often do you mist the tank, and what kind of top does it have? If you have a screen lid, cover half of it with plastic wrap or plexiglass.

Reactions: Agree 2


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## Delaney (Jul 4, 2016)

Cavedweller said:


> Welcome to the hobby! Your pede is indeed female. Looks like typical millipede wanderings to me, but she does need different substrate. Millipedes mostly eat substrate, use a combination of dead leaves, rotten wood, and cocofiber. This caresheet will get you started http://arachnoboards.com/threads/cavedwellers-basic-millipede-caresheet.263344/
> 
> It does look like she has a ton of mites, are there mites on her food?
> 
> I've heard constant activity can be a sign of dehydration. How often do you mist the tank, and what kind of top does it have? If you have a screen lid, cover half of it with plastic wrap or plexiglass.


Thank you so much, I'll get her new substrate right away. What she has now is mostly cocofiber, there are leaves in there but not a whole lot. What I have now are pin-oak leaves that we baked first and put in, how should I go about getting the dead leaves and rotten wood?
I don't think there are mites on her food, at least I haven't seen any and don't see any now, but I don't know enough to be sure. Right now she's digging around, the person who we got her from said to put a heat pad underneath one side of the tank to create a gradient heat, but I see in the thing you linked that that isn't good for them. Should I take it off?
I used to have a spray bottle to mist it, and I'd do that whenever it started to look dry, now I usually just take a water bottle and pour a little on the substrate and let it soak in, and I do that probably once every three or four days. I still have the spray bottle though, if that's the best way to do it. It has a plastic screen lid, I'll put plastic wrap on half. Thank you again


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## ErinM31 (Jul 4, 2016)

Delaney said:


> Thank you so much, I'll get her new substrate right away. What she has now is mostly cocofiber, there are leaves in there but not a whole lot. What I have now are pin-oak leaves that we baked first and put in, how should I go about getting the dead leaves and rotten wood?
> I don't think there are mites on her food, at least I haven't seen any and don't see any now, but I don't know enough to be sure. Right now she's digging around, the person who we got her from said to put a heat pad underneath one side of the tank to create a gradient heat, but I see in the thing you linked that that isn't good for them. Should I take it off?
> I used to have a spray bottle to mist it, and I'd do that whenever it started to look dry, now I usually just take a water bottle and pour a little on the substrate and let it soak in, and I do that probably once every three or four days. I still have the spray bottle though, if that's the best way to do it. It has a plastic screen lid, I'll put plastic wrap on half. Thank you again


I have not kept this species before so looked them up in Orin McMonigle's book, Millipeds in Captivity (highly recommended, btw!). They do prefer warmer temperatures (77-82ºF) so a heatpad may indeed be beneficial, at least during the cooler months of the year, depending on what temperature the surrounding room is. I know here and in many parts of the U.S., it has recently become much hotter. Perhaps the heat pad is now too much and this is why your millipede seems stressed?

Cocofiber is a fine base, but as @Cavedweller said, you should add more decaying leaves and wood. Is there an area of nature near you where pesticides aren't sprayed? If so, you should be able to gather dead and decaying leaves and hardwood there (oak is always a good choice but other hardwoods are good too -- just avoid anything resinous like pine or cedar). Wood should be decaying and may have fungal growth and various inverts borrowed in it. I like to collect these into Ziploc bags to keep anything from escaping into the house. I stick them in the freezer if I don't have time to bake right away but then back and let cool before adding to your millipede's enclosure. (The wood will take a looong time to thoroughly dry out depending on the size of the pieces and you'll want to open the oven from time to time to let out steam.) You can put in some lightweight pieces of decaying wood on top/partially buried into the substrate whole and break up the rest. Make sure you don't have hard pointy pieces of wood in the substrate as this is an accident waiting to happen when your millipede burrows to molt and if one of these were to inadvertently be moved.

How you are moistening the substrate is fine (doesn't hurt to mist as well -- may be all you need to do once you cut down on ventilation); you don't want to let it dry out. Aim to keep it moist overall but not wet.

Hope that helps!


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## Metastasize (Jul 4, 2016)

Delaney said:


> Thank you so much, I'll get her new substrate right away. What she has now is mostly cocofiber, there are leaves in there but not a whole lot. What I have now are pin-oak leaves that we baked first and put in, how should I go about getting the dead leaves and rotten wood?
> I don't think there are mites on her food, at least I haven't seen any and don't see any now, but I don't know enough to be sure. Right now she's digging around, the person who we got her from said to put a heat pad underneath one side of the tank to create a gradient heat, but I see in the thing you linked that that isn't good for them. Should I take it off?
> I used to have a spray bottle to mist it, and I'd do that whenever it started to look dry, now I usually just take a water bottle and pour a little on the substrate and let it soak in, and I do that probably once every three or four days. I still have the spray bottle though, if that's the best way to do it. It has a plastic screen lid, I'll put plastic wrap on half. Thank you again


You can buy leaf litter from here and you can buy wood and substrate from here. Or you can make your own, it's relatively simple.

Heating is probably unnecessary or harmful, unless you live somewhere really really cold. I lost one of my first millipedes to desiccation from a heat source.

Watering is actually probably better, but having a deeper substrate is also important. Mine has about 6 inches of substrate. Don't go by how it looks from the top either, check the sides of the tank and dig through the first couple inches periodically to make sure its completely saturated. Usually newer substrate will start to dry out below but will still look damp from the top. With all those mites though, you should really throw out all the old substrate and replace it. Then using a cotton swab wipe off all the mites. Mites, and even springtails, can sometimes stress out the millipedes. So if you also see her kind of swinging around that's probably why. If you're concerned with fungus, get something like pieces of bark or wood for her to climb on so her feet can dry off.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Delaney (Jul 4, 2016)

ErinM31 said:


> I have not kept this species before so looked them up in Orin McMonigle's book, Millipeds in Captivity (highly recommended, btw!). They do prefer warmer temperatures (77-82ºF) so a heatpad may indeed be beneficial, at least during the cooler months of the year, depending on what temperature the surrounding room is. I know here and in many parts of the U.S., it has recently become much hotter. Perhaps the heat pad is now too much and this is why your millipede seems stressed?
> 
> Cocofiber is a fine base, but as @Cavedweller said, you should add more decaying leaves and wood. Is there an area of nature near you where pesticides aren't sprayed? If so, you should be able to gather dead and decaying leaves and hardwood there (oak is always a good choice but other hardwoods are good too -- just avoid anything resinous like pine or cedar). Wood should be decaying and may have fungal growth and various inverts borrowed in it. I like to collect these into Ziploc bags to keep anything from escaping into the house. I stick them in the freezer if I don't have time to bake right away but then back and let cool before adding to your millipede's enclosure. (The wood will take a looong time to thoroughly dry out depending on the size of the pieces and you'll want to open the oven from time to time to let out steam.) You can put in some lightweight pieces of decaying wood on top/partially buried into the substrate whole and break up the rest. Make sure you don't have hard pointy pieces of wood in the substrate as this is an accident waiting to happen when your millipede burrows to molt and if one of these were to inadvertently be moved.
> 
> ...


Thank you, that helps a lot. I went out and found a lot of dead leaves, I found some dead bark that has some moss-looking stuff on it, tomorrow I'll have to go out and find some better wood, but since it's a holiday I won't be able to bake anything today anyways... I'll get her some fresh cocofiber as well, clean out her whole tank, and put the plastic wrap on. The main thing I was worried about was fungus, but I don't see anything noticeable on her first few segments and I hope it stays that way, I just wasn't too sure. She's curled up right now, I'm hoping I was just overreacting, I got really worried. I'm going to turn the heat pad off for a while and see if that helps. 
Thanks so much!

Reactions: Like 1


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## Delaney (Jul 4, 2016)

Metastasize said:


> You can buy leaf litter from here and you can buy wood and substrate from here. Or you can make your own, it's relatively simple.
> 
> Heating is probably unnecessary or harmful, unless you live somewhere really really cold. I lost one of my first millipedes to desiccation from a heat source.
> 
> Watering is actually probably better, but having a deeper substrate is also important. Mine has about 6 inches of substrate. Don't go by how it looks from the top either, check the sides of the tank and dig through the first couple inches periodically to make sure its completely saturated. Usually newer substrate will start to dry out below but will still look damp from the top. With all those mites though, you should really throw out all the old substrate and replace it. Then using a cotton swab wipe off all the mites. Mites, and even springtails, can sometimes stress out the millipedes. So if you also see her kind of swinging around that's probably why. If you're concerned with fungus, get something like pieces of bark or wood for her to climb on so her feet can dry off.


I'll order some of the composite substrate from the first link, thank you. Are the mites on the legs? I just looked at her (she's curled up right now) but don't see anything on her back, should I just swab her off? Sorry, I'm really new at this, I just want to make sure she has a healthy environment to live in. I turned her heat pad off because it is summer right now and it isn't cold. Do you think she'll be alright as she is (with a change of cocofiber tomorrow) until the substrate arrives? Thank you very much for the help


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## ErinM31 (Jul 4, 2016)

Delaney said:


> Thank you, that helps a lot. I went out and found a lot of dead leaves, I found some dead bark that has some moss-looking stuff on it, tomorrow I'll have to go out and find some better wood, but since it's a holiday I won't be able to bake anything today anyways... I'll get her some fresh cocofiber as well, clean out her whole tank, and put the plastic wrap on. The main thing I was worried about was fungus, but I don't see anything noticeable on her first few segments and I hope it stays that way, I just wasn't too sure. She's curled up right now, I'm hoping I was just overreacting, I got really worried. I'm going to turn the heat pad off for a while and see if that helps.
> Thanks so much!


I understand; I worry about any of my creatures too when they start acting differently. Fungus of the type that grows on old wood (and will probably blossom for a day or two and then disappear on old wood you put in their enclosure) isn't harmful and is often eaten by the millipedes. In my albeit limited experience, the main symptom of a fungal infection is lameness of the second half of the body and as far as I know, there isn't anything that can be done to help at that point.

Sounds like you're making the right changes and I hope your millipede continues to do well!


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## Cavedweller (Jul 4, 2016)

Heat pads at the bottom of tanks are bad for any animal, since they would normally burrow to escape heat. Unless your house regularly drops below 70 degrees, I wouldn't even think about heating. In the event it gets super cold in the winter, I use a space heater and make sure to increase watering accordingly.    

What makes you concerned she has a fungal infection? 

From the video it looks like the little specks all over her body are mites.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Delaney (Jul 4, 2016)

Cavedweller said:


> Heat pads at the bottom of tanks are bad for any animal, since they would normally burrow to escape heat. Unless your house regularly drops below 70 degrees, I wouldn't even think about heating. In the event it gets super cold in the winter, I use a space heater and make sure to increase watering accordingly.
> 
> What makes you concerned she has a fungal infection?
> 
> From the video it looks like the little specks all over her body are mites.


I unplugged the heat pad and won't plug it back in, she seems to be doing fine. If it gets cold in the winter I'll use the space heater like you suggested, thank you!

I saw a thread on here about white, spiky looking stuff on the first few segments on the legs, but I can't tell a noticeable difference between now and when I got her. I think it was mostly me being paranoid because she was behaving a little strangely, I'll keep a watch on her. Thank you for the help!

Reactions: Like 1


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## Delaney (Jul 4, 2016)

ErinM31 said:


> I understand; I worry about any of my creatures too when they start acting differently. Fungus of the type that grows on old wood (and will probably blossom for a day or two and then disappear on old wood you put in their enclosure) isn't harmful and is often eaten by the millipedes. In my albeit limited experience, the main symptom of a fungal infection is lameness of the second half of the body and as far as I know, there isn't anything that can be done to help at that point.
> 
> Sounds like you're making the right changes and I hope your millipede continues to do well!


Thank you! I'm going to make all the changes suggested and keep a close eye on her, she was curled up for a large part of today but she's active again. Thank you very much for the help, I was really concerned about her

Reactions: Like 2


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## Nephaleim (Jun 10, 2021)

Delaney said:


> Thank you! I'm going to make all the changes suggested and keep a close eye on her, she was curled up for a large part of today but she's active again. Thank you very much for the help, I was really concerned about her


Hi! How is your pede today? 
I recently got my own, and I'm growing a bit concerned with it's behaviour.


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