Isopod Colony help

[guitarkyle]

I caught about 10 woodlice (I think that's what they're called) and would like to start a colony. What tank size is good, what do they eat, how to provide water, what substrate, temperature, and conditions to make them breed. Any tips would be appreciated

 

[Jaymz Bedell]

Isopods are actually pretty easy to keep. a rubbermaid/nameless plastic shoebox with a couple of inches of peat or coco fiber topped with a mixture of leaf mould and decompsing wood mould, kept slightly moist should do it. the humidity generated by the substrate should be adequate in a plastic shoebox, you can also place a piece of bark on the surface of the substrate for them to hide under, but the porous nature of a leaf and wood mould mixture provides a lot of hiding areas itself. food can be fish flakes/pellets, fruit and veggies, leaf litter, leaf mould...they're not very picky. normal room temps work very well. with temperate species like our natives a cooling period might be necessary, production might stop, it might not. based on their habitat I would try to keep the enclosure from getting too warm. a light misting once or twice a week should help keep the level of moisture just right. there is a huge wealth of info on raising isopods, both tropical and temperate, on dendroboard.com. good luck.

 

[guitarkyle]

thanks!! whats a cooling period though? I didn't do that, I just kinda put them in after I set the tank up. How good of a chance is there that they'll breed (if you know)?

 

[Jaymz Bedell]

If you caught them in the wild they are a temperate species, N.Y. experiences a pretty cold winter, which can, and in a lot of animals does, trigger mating among other things. some animals will not reproduce at all without those climactic triggers, others will stop breeding without them, and some don't need them at all. so cooling them down might or might not be required, they might just slow down production in winter and pick back up in spring. theres really no way to know until it does or does not happen. keep an eye on them, they should produce for awhile, you'll know more as the culture establishes itself.

 

[Crysta]

i find the ones in nb just keep going, and going....but i dont provide an extra heat source so sometime the tempurture hits 0c in the winter. (cold house mmm) lol

 

[guitarkyle]

I checked the tank today and there's babies in both colonies I have I'm going to post pics soon, because I really do suck at ID'ing things