How to retain isopod color morphs?

[MantidMaster]

I recently went into my backyard and scoured the entire thing for isopods. I have found some decent looking yellowish, some red-marked, and yellow-marked A. Vulgare, which have fortunately been found in breed-able numbers. I also managed to find a gravid P. Dilatatus within the brush, and have kept it for culturing purposes. However, the population of isopods mainly consisted of another species, P. Laevis. It was quite fascinating how many orange-ish, creme-colored, and striped specimens I could find. Despite the kaleidoscope of dull varieties of smooth woodlice I could locate, there was a unique individual amongst the norm.

(I'm also not sure how I can add the media since apparently the image simply cannot be processed, please help. The pictures were taken with my phone)

The individual in question was split half and half, brown and white. I also found that it was already gravid.

Obviously, I want to keep culturing this color morph. I heard something about recessive traits and whatnot, and I am not currently in the financial state to buy Orin's isopod book, which I plan on buying once my allowance allows me to(young'un troubles). I'd like to gain some advice about my situation, maybe from personal experience or from reading Orin's book.

 

[Terrena Laxamentum]

Well, all you need to do is to isolate the unique ones in question and observe the results of what they produce. You want to see if they produce more similar colored individuals or more normals. This is very basic, as I too am new to keeping isopods.

 

[houston]

If I were breeding for traits, I would start with a large community bin for all of your wild caught individuals. The purpose of this is to get as many young as possible-- the more babies, the better the chance one of the desired morphs pops up.
Once the captive born babies from your colony (the first generation, F1) start reaching adulthood, put the individuals you like best into another bin. The idea is that these F1 individuals have a less varied gene pool, and desired colors/patterns will intensify.
Keep the original colony breeding-- if they produced a neat individual once, they can produce it again. As the F1 colony has young, pick out the most striking and put them into another bin (generation 2, F2). You can continue this until you have colonies regularly producing the colors you want or until you run out of space for tubs