That makes sense! I'm personally going to be using aspen shavings for aeration/moisture retention in my new set up, but I've been going through old forum posts and seeing that a lot of people used vermiculite and wondered why there wasn't too much information negating it! Thank you for clarifying
Both. Isopods have been known to injure/kill molting millipedes, and will often eat millipedes eggs and sometimes even pedelings. From what I've read, dwarf purples seem to be the only isopods that could potentially be kept safely with millipedes as long as they're given enough protein, but I still wouldn't risk it personally.
I had a huge colony of rainbows full of orange Porcellio for a decade and it's not really as bad as people seem to think. I remember mentioning a little problem with keeping them together many years ago when people were saying how great it was to keep them together and and now everybody acts like they're little sharkticons looking for milli babies to devour.
I've never tried it personally, so I can't comment from experience, but I've read a few threads of people that actually have had problems with isopods eating their millipede eggs and injuring their molting millipedes. I can see an issue with isopods out-competing millipedes as well when it comes to beginner keepers who don't know what they're doing, but that's not as frequently talked about. Obviously with someone more experienced such as yourself I don't see any problems with it, but unfortunately most people aren't nearly as experienced and as a result don't know what to look for or how to make sure everyone is sated. But that's along the same lines of not recommending cohabitation to beginners anyway, because there's quite a bit that could go wrong even with "easy" species. Once all of my millipedes are adults, I'll likely start keeping isopods with them, but for right now it's simply not worth the risk to me and I do think it's important to let people know of possible issues, even if they're unlikely.
I think a lot of things get blamed for normal die-off and poor husbandry and while isopods are not entirely safe they are not going to eat up your millipede culture either. Nematodes and other accidental pests can be much more dangerous.
I definitely agree with you there! I'm just trying to say that with people new to keeping millipedes/isopods/invertebrates/etc, it's always best to minimize risk so that they can make a more informed decision later on regarding whether or not they want to do something a bit more risky such as adding isopods or not sterilizing things before putting them in the enclosure.
I do agree, but a friend of mine has lost multiple specimens due to the introduction of isopods to the enclosure (of which he keeps many species), even to the point of losing species from his collection due to them eating molting specimens and such before he noticed. Granted I don't know everything that went on, but the coincidence of the specimens starting to disappear once isopods were added seems to point to some sort of predation.
I agree
I can't agree enough with this, I don't know why so many people think sterilizing substrate is so bad and that it just "destroys" the nutritional qualities or whatever...
Amen to this. I've no problem keeping and breeding my millipedes on flake soils and sterilized leaves with supplemental food like veggies and fruits.
Aspen is great for lightening the soil! When I have helpers take care of my millies and they over saturate the enclosures, I use Aspen shreds to absorb the excess water.That makes sense! I'm personally going to be using aspen shavings for aeration/moisture retention in my new set up, but I've been going through old forum posts and seeing that a lot of people used vermiculite and wondered why there wasn't too much information negating it! Thank you for clarifying
All the info on isopods just struck a chord with something I havent been able to figure out but have been super worried about. I'm a first time owner (and have only had her for about a month and a half) and my millipede is missing pieces of a few of her legs. Its horrifying I have no idea what to do or how to help her but I havent found anything online about this... could the isopods be behind this? I was told to keep them in the soil for general cleanliness/health.... also if not the isopods than does anyone know why this could be happening?? I'm scared it's going to get worse
They might be responsible but sometimes you don't notice missing legs on wild specimens until later even though they were missing the whole time.All the info on isopods just struck a chord with something I havent been able to figure out but have been super worried about. I'm a first time owner (and have only had her for about a month and a half) and my millipede is missing pieces of a few of her legs. Its horrifying I have no idea what to do or how to help her but I havent found anything online about this... could the isopods be behind this? I was told to keep them in the soil for general cleanliness/health.... also if not the isopods than does anyone know why this could be happening?? I'm scared it's going to get worse
Thanks for the reply! Unless I hadnt noticed the extent of it before, she seems to be losing more and more. (Not always whole legs sometimes just bits). And she is also trying to climb and gnaw through the air slits in the container (I have a plastic terrarium container) so I'm not sure what about the environment she is trying to escape (I know now she needs more space though shes grown to half the container size)