Help!! Isopods randomly dying!!!

[squibbleee]

Ugh. I noticed i haven't seen pretty much any isopods this past week, so i looked and noved everything around, and i found ALOT dead. My colony started with 6 A. Granulatum, and 6 A. Maculatum. The granulatums had 2 batches of babies, about 20-30 each i think? About a month or two apart from eachother. Found like 15-20 dead young granulatums, 5-6 adult granulatums, (no more granulatums i guess) and 1 dead Maculatum. I took every thing out of the enclosure, and got every isopod i could find, (carefully of course) and put them in a separate container. About 5 adult Maculatum, and 20-25 young Granulatums. The substrate was way too dry, i did not notice. Cause the humidity was always good! I ordered substrate that is coming tomorrow, so im doing a tank redo, and making sure the substrate is moist enough. The substrate was too dry all the way down, and isopods were dying fast, cause i just looked about 5 days ago, under the stuff, and no dead isopods. These were all just sitting under stuff, and on the top layer of the soil. Just sprawled out on their backs. Made sure each one was dead and removed them, i put all the living ones into a temporary container with moist substrate, some sphagnum moss, some leaves, and an eggshell. (From their main enclosure)

I feel so bad! did not know how dry it was. I gotta do better with this next setup. Sorry to my isopods for not doing better... i hate feeling like i failed, especially when it comes to living things. I am looking through the substrate, carefully brushing it around and stuff, haven't seen any more small isopods. Im just leaving it bare, cause i took all the decor and leaves and put them in a seperate tub. The living isopods seem to be doing good. They are in a small plastic tupperware with holes poked in the top and side. Update tomorrow.

 

[Kada]

It's amazing how a short dry spell can cause a complete die off. It is real. The good thing is you are learning from the mistake. Humidity (especially at your sensor) is not so important as soil moisture in which will have thousands of variables they can pick and choose from. That's always the key in my opinion.

Other than dry, the only thing I have seen to cause mass kill offs are chemical exposure (bug spray, heavily sprayed vegetables etc). I have lost a few groups of animals due to food I thought was fine but just devastated everything

Live and learn. As long as we never make the same mistake twice

 

[squibbleee]

It's amazing how a short dry spell can cause a complete die off. It is real. The good thing is you are learning from the mistake. Humidity (especially at your sensor) is not so important as soil moisture in which will have thousands of variables they can pick and choose from. That's always the key in my opinion.

Other than dry, the only thing I have seen to cause mass kill offs are chemical exposure (bug spray, heavily sprayed vegetables etc). I have lost a few groups of animals due to food I thought was fine but just devastated everything

Live and learn. As long as we never make the same mistake twice

Thankyou i will check on the living ones, hopefully they are doing good. I will put the survivors in the new setup as soon as i get my substrate, and i will pay attention to the soil moisture

*edit* the 5 adults are doing good, wandering around, and the young Granulatums are just kind of buried but alive. They seem to be fine, so thats great. Just waiting on my substrate to get here.

 

[Kada]

Many People, including myself, keep one spot moist and one spot "dry" on opposite sides and in between is a gradient to let them figure out where is best. I feel this is the best way. Offer options and gradients, they know better than us what they want insofar as moisture

I tend to use corners. I wet down one corner and it will dissipate through the soil to the opposite corner which is left "dry". not counting leaves, wood etc, I tend to put fresh food (eg. Fruit and veggies) options near the dry corner for mold reasons. no harm in some sphagnum moss buried in the wet corner as a safety net in case one forgets to add water for a bit too long. same with having deeper substrate.

 

[squibbleee]

Many People, including myself, keep one spot moist and one spot "dry" on opposite sides and in between is a gradient to let them figure out where is best. I feel this is the best way. Offer options and gradients, they know better than us what they want insofar as moisture

I tend to use corners. I wet down one corner and it will dissipate through the soil to the opposite corner which is left "dry". not counting leaves, wood etc, I tend to put fresh food (eg. Fruit and veggies) options near the dry corner for mold reasons. no harm in some sphagnum moss buried in the wet corner as a safety net in case one forgets to add water for a bit too long. same with having deeper substrate.

I have a moisture gradient, the left side with more leaves and sphagnum moss gets watered, and then i dont spray or get the right side wet, thats where their decorations like their cork bark and jawbone is. This is the new setup if you didnt see, and i have like 4+ inches of substrate now. They seem to be settling well, i have a food dish (clam shell) in the middle of the enclosure that they go to eat off of, they love that. The colony has settled good, all under this peice of cork bark i love this setup more, the landscape is not just perfectly flat which looks cool to me. Thankyou for the tips! (Im going to add more leaf litter on the right side)