# Isopod attempt #3, gonna do it right this time!



## Cavedweller (May 28, 2015)

I've wanted to try keeping pillbugs since I was in preschool, but I haven't had the best luck with em.  

My first batch of pillbugs met an untimely end come summer, my apartment at the time had very little insulation and a big glass door facing the sun 

Last year I gave it another shot, but I had several deaths within the first week, figured I was doing something wrong, and released the rest back where I caught them. Afterwards, someone (I can't remember who) told me an initial dieoff was normal with a newly caught batch of isopods.

I'd like to try it again this year, and make sure I do everything absolutely right. I was just going to keep them like millipedes; a 50% cocofiber, 25% leaf litter, 25% rotten wood/aspen shavings substrate mix, with extra leaf litter on top. Low ventilation. A slab of wood to hide under. Maybe some springtails. 

Any suggestions or tips?


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## DETHCHEEZ (May 29, 2015)

I  may be wrong here if the pillbugs you have in Texas are different from the ones we have here???

NOT saying that there's anything wrong with your substrate mix / Sounds good
But think you might be over thinking it a bit

If you have access to organic compost try using that as a substrate
My compost pile is fill with 10s of 1000s of pill & sow bugs

They feed on decaying organic matter so compost is a good choice for substrate
They'll also eat stuff like lettuce & veggie scraps etc...

I've never kept them as pets
But do use them as clean up crews in my more humid tanks
&
My problem isn't keeping them alive
It's picking them out so they don't over run the tank / LOL
They multiply like crazy

Hope that helps

Reactions: Like 1


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## Hisserdude (May 30, 2015)

If they are the common pillbugs, (Armadillidium vulgare), make sure they have good ventilation, otherwise they will slowly die off. Also make sure they have rotten leaves at all times, it is their main diet and isopods will reproduce poorly or not at all without them. Hope this helps!

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## Cavedweller (May 31, 2015)

@DETHCHEEZE: 
I think Armadillidium vulgare is spread all over the US? Man I had no idea the ubiquitous roly-poly was an introduced species! 

The substrate mix is just what I've been breeding millipedes in, since that's what I have on hand I figured I won't fix what isn't broken. Unfortunately I do not have access to organic compost.

I don't have anything that eats pillbugs, when the population gets too high, I figured it would be ok to just release some back where I first caught them (at night or during a cool, moist day of course). 



Hisserdude said:


> If they are the common pillbugs, (Armadillidium vulgare), make sure they have good ventilation, otherwise they will slowly die off.


Whoa, I didn't know that about pillbugs, thanks!


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## DETHCHEEZ (May 31, 2015)

Here's another fun fact
They're actually "Land Crustaceans"


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## Hisserdude (May 31, 2015)

I didn't know either, until I read it in orin's isopod book! Hope you have success keeping them, 3rd time's the charm eh!


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## Cavedweller (May 31, 2015)

DETHCHEEZ said:


> Here's another fun fact
> They're actually "Land Crustaceans"


I did know this and it always makes me wonder if they taste anything like crab or lobster.



Hisserdude said:


> I didn't know either, until I read it in orin's isopod book! Hope you have success keeping them, 3rd time's the charm eh!


Thank you for reminding me about that, I should pick it up.

Reactions: Funny 1


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## KcFerry (May 31, 2015)

Cavedweller said:


> I've wanted to try keeping pillbugs since I was in preschool, but I haven't had the best luck with em.
> 
> My first batch of pillbugs met an untimely end come summer, my apartment at the time had very little insulation and a big glass door facing the sun
> 
> ...


I've had good luck keeping them and letting them breed, but mine don't last long in my T enclosures? I have naturally occurring springtails in my more humid enclosures which do a nice job keeping things tidy and mold free.


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## The Snark (May 31, 2015)

DETHCHEEZ said:


> Here's another fun fact
> They're actually "Land Crustaceans"


You can take that a step of two further. Crustaceans are the most obvious evolutionary bridge from aquatic to terrestrial. Numerous terrestrial myriapods closely resemble their aquatic relatives and of course there are fresh water and terrestrial crabs.


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## Scythemantis (Jun 1, 2015)

I have isopods breeding like mad in all of my tanks and they are virtually not ventilated at all. My tanks have glass pieces for lids with no visible gaps, moisture held in like a terrarium and they do just fine with rotten wood and soil....you guys overthink them!

I don't even have to add food, they eat the wood and leaves, though I add food anyway.


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## Hisserdude (Jun 1, 2015)

Well most isopods do not need much ventilation, but the roly poly/A.vulgare die without proper ventilation.

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## Cavedweller (Jun 2, 2015)

Well I ordered the book, can't wait to read it. 

Anyone on the forum tried selectively breeding isopods for color before? I know several different color variations of sowbugs have been produced, but I have no idea how long it took. I find those pretty greenish-spotted pillbugs around here and I wanna try breeding for more green. 



DETHCHEEZ said:


> Here's another fun fact
> They're actually "Land Crustaceans"


Wait, wait, I've got it, "Dirt Lobsters".


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## Smokehound714 (Jun 2, 2015)

there are two armadillidium species in the USA- vulgare, and nasatum.  In most of their range here, both are generally found together.

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## Cavedweller (Jun 2, 2015)

Thanks for the tip! I did a little googling, Bugs in Cyberspace mentions how to tell them apart:


> We have two familiar species of pills bugs in the US. Armadillidium vulgare is the larger of the two, and the dorsal segments tend to be glossy. Larger individuals of A. vulgare (older) often exhibit yellow or greenish spotting which occurs mainly down the middle of the segments. The other species we usually encounter is Armadillidium nasatum. These are smaller and tend to have a pattern of very pale green to gray spots running through the middle and along the sides of the segments. A. nasatum is also less glossy, if at all.


Sounds like I'll get a feel for telling them apart with practice. Any idea if the book has some comparison photos?


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## watertiger21 (Jun 3, 2015)

Cavedweller said:


> I did know this and it always makes me wonder if they taste anything like crab or lobster.


Actually, you're quite right! Isopods do taste a little like crab/lobster, and they even change colors when you boil them like lobster does. They're quite edible as long as you cook them! 


I've successfully kept four species of isopod (seven varieties) and they've all been super easy. And once they start breeding, you'll quickly have too many! lol
Substrate doesn't matter too much as long as you don't let it dry out... Definitely keep it nice and moist.

I feed my cultures old dry leaves from hardwood and softwood deciduous trees such as cottonwood, oak, maple, and ash. I also provide pieces of rotting wood too.
This is really all they need, but I do supplement their diet with occasional treats like romaine lettuce, carrot, cichlid pellet fish food (for protein), and bell pepper. In fact, slices of bell pepper seem to be their absolute FAVORITE food!
It's fun to experiment too... one time I gave them half a jalapeno and to my surprise, they swarmed it and completely ate it within hours!

Good luck!

Reactions: Like 4


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## pannaking22 (Jun 4, 2015)

watertiger21 said:


> Actually, you're quite right! Isopods do taste a little like crab/lobster, and they even change colors when you boil them like lobster does. They're quite edible as long as you cook them!
> 
> 
> I've successfully kept four species of isopod (seven varieties) and they've all been super easy. And once they start breeding, you'll quickly have too many! lol
> ...


Interesting that they seem to enjoy peppers the most. I wonder if they store the chemicals from the pepper to use as a defense against predators?


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## Biollantefan54 (Jun 4, 2015)

watertiger21 said:


> Actually, you're quite right! Isopods do taste a little like crab/lobster, and they even change colors when you boil them like lobster does. They're quite edible as long as you cook them!
> 
> 
> I've successfully kept four species of isopod (seven varieties) and they've all been super easy. And once they start breeding, you'll quickly have too many! lol
> ...


I have known they are crustaceans for a while and one day a thought popped into my head...I wonder what they taste like!? So, I Googled some stuff, and threw one in some boiling water for a few minutes, after I worked up the courage to toss it in my mouth...I wasn't disappointed with the taste.

I bet you can make some good food if you can muster up the courage to eat a lot of them.


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## dementedlullaby (Jun 4, 2015)

watertiger21 said:


> Actually, you're quite right! Isopods do taste a little like crab/lobster, and they even change colors when you boil them like lobster does. They're quite edible as long as you cook them!



I bet the giant deep sea variety is especially good eatin'! haha ^_^

IIRC the reason they need good ventilation is because of how they breath. Just give 'em some cross vent holes, toss in some old leaf matter and they should explode (population wise of course ) shortly. Half of the battle is to stop over thinking it lol!


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## Biollantefan54 (Jun 4, 2015)

Good eatin'

Reactions: Like 1


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## edgeofthefreak (Jun 6, 2015)

Biollantefan54 said:


> Good eatin'


Oh wow, not sure if any of mine are that big! I just started a "box of isopods/myriapods", so now I'll be looking for meal-sized ones! Most of mine are still youngens.

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## Biollantefan54 (Jun 6, 2015)

If found it outside, I was like "Woah, that's bigger then I normally see" lol! I figured it fit into the thread

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## Cavedweller (Jun 6, 2015)

Sorry I was out sick a few days, I have returned.

Dang that's a big isopod! What color do they turn when they're cooked? Just regular lobster red? I heard somewhere isopods aren't good to use as staple feeders because they accumulate a lot of heavy metals, IDK if that's true or not but it would make me hesitate to host a pillbug boil hahaha

My book arrived, I'm about halfway through now.


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## Biollantefan54 (Jun 6, 2015)

When I boiled mine, it never changed color.

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## blacksheep998 (Jun 18, 2015)

I've been keeping isopods for a few years now.

I started when I found a bright orange isopod under a flowerpot on my porch. Initially I thought it was some unusual species and set her up a container with some dirt and leaves to live in while I tried to ID her. Soon I discovered that she was a Porcellio scaber displaying a rare color morph.

By good luck, she was carrying an egg case when I found her, and soon they hatched into ~20 offspring. Half of which turned out to be orange like their mother.

From those babies I bred a whole colony of bright orange P. scaber. I've got several hundred of them in a plastic sterlite container with dirt, leaves, and bark. Here's what it looks like when I flip over one of the bark pieces. http://i.imgur.com/hIamr7F.jpg

I have a single small hole punched in the lid for ventilation, and they do great with minimal airflow. I feed them a mix of table scraps, fish food, food for feeder crickets, and the occasional bug that gets into the house. Here's a picture of them devouring a still slightly alive roach that got into the house. http://i.imgur.com/nrcRAFz.jpg

With those guys doing well I decided to expand my collection, and last spring I acquired two new isopods online.

The first was another color morph of Porcellio scaber. http://i.imgur.com/s7qLmM8.jpg

These are known as dalmatians. They're white with patches of normal P. scaber coloring, mostly grey and brown. I received 7 of them about 15 months ago, and they've bred quite well. Currently I have at least 100 of them, enough for me to try a little experiment.

I've already experimented with orange and gray in the past, and learned that the orange color is single gene recessive. Meaning that if you cross an orange one with a wild caught gray all the babies will appear gray as well. But they carry the orange gene and if you let them inbreed then 1/4 of the next generation will be orange again.

I suspect that the dalmatian trait follows the same pattern, but rather than testing it with a wild caught gray P. scaber I decided to try crossing them with oranges. The first babies of this cross are now a few months old and, as I expected, are all grey. http://i.imgur.com/uh9jmBk.jpg

Once they grow up I'm going to let them inbreed and I'll get a mix of colors. Most of them will be wild type gray, but some will be orange or dalmatians. And if my hypothesis is correct, I should get a few who inherit both recessive traits and are orange dalmatians, or white with orange spots instead of gray.

And finally, at the same time I recieved the dalmatians I got some Armadillidium Maculatum 'Zebra' http://i.imgur.com/1HNZWiJ.jpg

These guys are just awesome to see. However they've been very slow to multiply. They breed alright, but very few of the babies survive. After the last batch of babies died off I punched a few extra holes in the lid of the container and have been letting the soil stay much drier.

And it seems to be working! With all the previous batches most of them were dead within the first couple days, but they produced a new batch last weekand it would appear that the majority of them alive. http://i.imgur.com/D3r39QY.jpg

There's a couple more species that I'd love to add to my collection too. 

Currently available is Armadillidium nasatum 'peach'. http://shop.bugsincyberspace.com/images/om_peach_Armadillidium.jpg

I'll probably be getting some of those this fall.

I also recently discovered that europe has a TON of really awesome isopod species that aren't available here in the US.

These include Porcellio hastii, http://i.imgur.com/6sawJRX.jpg which also comes in an orange color morph known as 'sunshine' http://i.imgur.com/nS0qw0f.jpg

Porcellio spinipes is another species I'd love to get but can't find in the US. They've got an awesome mottled yellow and gray pattern http://i.imgur.com/2Stbcq9.jpg

And finally, my personal favorite that I REALLY want to get is Porcellio expansus. http://i.imgur.com/1nTsFtm.jpg Not only do they have that AMAZING pattern, but at almost 2 inches long they're one of the largest species of terrestrial isopods.

I have actually found a couple people who keep them, but only in europe and none of them have so far responded to my attempts to contact them, though to be fair I'm not sure if most of them speak english.

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## Scythemantis (Jun 20, 2015)

Porcellio expansus is amazing, I had NO idea terrestrial isopods got that big! If you ever do get them, and breed them, I want some!

I know there are some other wild looking isopods out there, it's a shame this isn't a bigger hobby in itself.

I'm actually keeping some sea slaters! Wild caught while I still lived in Florida, they're very large, active, and easy to care for - all they need is some saltwater to keep dipping their tails in, they don't need it to be filtered or even regularly changed. They do, after all, thrive around stagnant tide pools!


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## Galapoheros (Jun 20, 2015)

Scythemantis said:


> I have isopods breeding like mad in all of my tanks and they are virtually not ventilated at all. My tanks have glass pieces for lids with no visible gaps, moisture held in like a terrarium and they do just fine with rotten wood and soil....you guys overthink them!
> 
> I don't even have to add food, they eat the wood and leaves, though I add food anyway.


Same here, had to dump some out, I keep them to clean up things.  I tried catching sea slaters on the docks along the tx coast, those things are fast.  Did you just chase them down and cup them with your hand?


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## KcFerry (Jun 20, 2015)

Smokehound714 said:


> there are two armadillidium species in the USA- vulgare, and nasatum.  In most of their range here, both are generally found together.


Which of the 2 are the larger ones?
I find 2 kinds here in PA...They look similar, but the smaller ones are darker and faster.


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## blacksheep998 (Jun 20, 2015)

Believe me, if I manage to get them I fully intend to share the wealth once they breed. I'm a firm believer that if we can get more interesting species and color morphs going then we can attract more people to the isopod hobby.

The two inch size on P. expansus is counting the antenna and tail parts. The body portion is only about an inch, but that's still a fair bit bigger than most of the other terrestrial species.

And Armadillidium vulgare and nasatum get roughly the same size. 

The difference is that A. vulgare has a darker and shinier shell. They're dark gray, sometimes with some yellow markings, http://www.biopix.com/photos/armadillidium-vulgare-00028.jpg or sometimes just solid colored. http://www.bihrmann.com/bugs/Crustacean/slides/Kuglebænkebider (Armadillidium vulgare)6.jpg They're usually dark on the underside too.

A. nasatum is lighter gray and has a patterned shell. http://bugguide.net/images/raw/CQ5/...Q50CQ50CQFK1RI0ARHQ9RZQAR80ARI0OQ50JQFKCQ.jpg They usually have light colored undersides.

Both of them are pretty slow and clumsy though. If you saw some really fast isopods could it maybe have been Philoscia muscorum? http://www.aphotofauna.com/images/t.../crustacean_philoscia_muscorum_27-06-13_4.jpg They're a little more than half the size of any of the common Armadillidium or Porcellio species we have in the US, and have much longer legs. Those little guys can really move!

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## edgeofthefreak (Jun 20, 2015)

Wow, the eyes on _Ligia oceanica_ are just amazing. I'm looking at picture of these guys, and they could look right back at me (IRL)! Would be awesome to have an isopod hobby going, with all these morphs and sizes available!


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## Scythemantis (Jun 26, 2015)

I actually caught them by swishing a butterfly net under the huge, concrete pipes they were hiding under!

I just had a couple of them molt.

They're living in an exo-terra mini arboreal tank with the built-in styrofoam rock wall, which they spend all their time on. The bottom of the tank holds an inch of saltwater and that seems to be all they need.

Though small, they make a hilarious toothbrush-like sound, quite loud, as they scurry along the fake rock!

Apparently the species breeds only once in its life, when it gets to be around two years old. I have a mix of sizes, so it's likely few or none of mine have bred before. I wonder if they will in captivity? I can't find any information on how the young are produced, like if they carry them or they lay eggs on a substrate or something.


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## dementedlullaby (Jun 27, 2015)

I just wanted to say thank you to Blacksheep for the incredibly informative and interesting post, please do keep posting with your breeding experiments. Very fascinating!


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## Cavedweller (Jun 30, 2015)

I was away for the past week and I missed the updates, thank you so much for all the info Blacksheep! It's great to hear those breeding projects are going so well. Those different species are all incredible, especially Porcellio expansus.


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