Flat-backed millipedes and my experience.

Doodle dude

Arachnopeon
Joined
Apr 11, 2021
Messages
4
I have kept flat backed millipedes (euryurus leachii) for about a year now. I can't say I've had the most productive, nor successful care of them, but I have learned a few things.
1. Rotten wood, all of it. These guys love to both eat and crawl around in it. I've tried keeping them without it, and they died, and keeping everything the same and adding wood? They lived. All that I have seen says they eat it and the fungi/ other stuff on it.
2. Humidity is important, the humidity helps keep the wood wet, which helps them to be able to break it down.
3. They don't seem to mind roommates. I've kept them with everything from harvestmen to isopods, and as long as they are given good amounts of food, they seem to be just fine.
4. This may be just a strange habit, or a revolution for the hobby, but I give mine fish food as well. It keeps the isopods and harvestmen and cockroaches happy, but I believe I've seen them take a few bites of it as well. I am unsure if this just means they eat it too, or if it is what keeps them alive as a supplement. Idk to be perfectly honest. But they seem to be doing well and hopefully at some point they will breed. I have had success with round body millipedes before, but these are very different.
I hope this helped someone out there and if not, I hope it was a good read at the very least.
 

Doodle dude

Arachnopeon
Joined
Apr 11, 2021
Messages
4
So, in a fun twist of fate, I was checking on the invertebrates, and I saw that twice of my millipedes were mating! At least, I believe they were, as they were stacked in the signature way. I'll have to watch that rather closely as time goes on!😁
 

Joey Spijkers

Arachnoprince
Active Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2019
Messages
1,054
My millipedes (Spirostreptus sp. 1 Tansania) will also eat any protein if given the chance. If a stick insect, cockroach or even an old millipede dies, they will eat it. So fish food doesn’t surprise me.
 

Madnesssr

Arachnoknight
Joined
Dec 2, 2019
Messages
262
I use a layering method with these guys and they seem to love it. I have a heavy layer of crumbled rotten hardwood at the very bottom of the bin. Then ~ 0.25” layer of flake soil, damp rotting leaves, flake soil, rotting leaves, heavy layer of rotting wood, 1/2” flake soil, and top off with several inches of leaves. I find the babies between the flake soil and leaf litter. It gives them super soft wood that they can use to make their molting chambers on the back of the leaves. I usually have clump on live moss on one end.
 
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