Isopods Possibly Dangerous to Tarantulas

[Rittdk01]

I keep dwarf white isopods in with my H gigas and T stirmi enclosures. They don’t bother my tarantulas at all. They also don’t get out of control in population, but I don’t think they would be a threat.

^^The scorpions probably died and then were eaten and the female anole was probably chewing on the males tail.

 

[Zevil]

I kept dwarf whites and grays in my chameleon enclosure for a while now. I have never seen them climbing up for food or trying to eat the chameleon when he goes down to catch a few isopods for food. I believe a bioactive setup has been around for ages and no solid evidence has suggest that isopods will eat live healthy animals for food.

 

[Rhino1]

Ive had those little pale dwarf isopods in tropical scorpion enclosures on and off for years, I can't honestly say that I even see a difference in quality whether they are there or not to begin with. I had cannibalism twice in communal set ups but isopods had nothing to do with it, other than that hardly see them until I pull a terrarium down

 

[chanda]

Go big or go home, right? I didn't bother with those itty-bitty dwarf isopods. I have the big (locally caught) canyon isopods (some flavor of Porcellio) and I've put them in with roaches (Blaberus giganteus), millipedes, assassin bugs, and my T. stirmi. For the most part they don't seem to cause any problems - though the assassins (P. biguttatus) did not feed on the isopods as much as I'd hoped they would - but in the millipede cage, I suspect that they were killing and eating my millipedes and also eating their eggs. It is possible that the millipedes died first and the roaches were just playing clean-up crew, but I rehoused the millipedes to an isopod-free cage and they seem to be doing much better without their little crustacean roommates. I suspect that the isopods were also eating the eggs of the assassin bugs - but given how prolific those guys are, there were still plenty of nymphs hatching out!

 

[Dandrobates]

I think most people obsess over them based on their asthetics . Personally I would use them if I could because they look cool and as long as it is set up correctly the tarantula shouldn't suffer any negative consequences.
Although I do think that one day some random begginer is going to set up their new G. Rosea with tall plants so they can have a bioactive enclosure and end up with a tarantula splat on the cage floor because they wanted a bioactive enclosure but did zero research.

What irks me the most is the misrepresentation of the concept. Creating a naturalistic terrarium or enclosure is not a difficult task in and of itself. The object of the game though is in fact creating a closed system that can manage it’s own waste effectively while maintaining the captive needs of it’s inhabitants. This is the premise people seem to miss.

I take issue with the way certain companies market and label their products as “bioactive” and how they target species and biomes where the premise as they define it just won’t work.(see my example at the end) “If your enclosure doesn’t contain X, Y and Z then it’s not “bioactive.” And “Any environment and species can be maintained bioactivly” That’s a load of nonsense. There is a lot of misinformation out there and the novice keeper of any animal can easily be led astray.

Vendors use the term bioactive as a buzzword to sell products that in some situations work very well but in others are pointless. There is much more involved in creating a closed biome than throwing in isopods and springtails. Enclosure size, moisture and humidity, lighting and biomass all come into play. Hell, an aquarium filter is essentially “bioactive” because it utilizes bacteria to manage waste. But if you overload it with waste it’s ineffective. Anyone who’s overloaded an aquarium with too many fish knows that, once the biomass of the fish exceeds the clean up crew’s ability to manage the waste, the water quality goes out the window and the system is no longer effective.

Now here’s my example of bad bioactive advice. I found a video on you tube of a certain person who sells bioactive products and here is what I took away from it. He had a 40 breeder set up as a bioactive bearded dragon enclosure. His contention was that the system would maintain itself with little to no maintenance. Well the reality is the enclosure looked great but there is no way in balls that it’s going to work. He’s keeping a semi arid to arid species on moist cocofiber which is a big no no for several reasons ( beardy keepers back me up), and he’s relying on springtails to clear out the animals waste. Ok in a 400 gallon enclosure I’d buy it. But there is no way a 40 breeder can hold enough microfauna to manage all that fecal matter. But it looks pretty so people buy his product.

 

[Sandland]

I have been keeping isopods with some tarantula's, scorpions. millies, etc. Never have I even suspected they have killed or even harassed an animal before. that being said the reason I keep them in the more display type cages is to clean up waste that would be harder to clean up or even find in a larger planted type display. If I were to throw a dead cricket in one of the cages with them it would not take long before a surprising amount of them would be swarming and eating the cricket but id rather have that then mites on a forgotten cricket. I also feed isopods in the same cages because if just left with what the tarantula leaves behind the isopods would starve in short order.

 

[Joeysorrentino88]

I’m pretty sure isopods killed my p. Vitatta it was fine then I noticed it out more than usual I should have rehoused last weekend F!!! When I noticed a shit load of them in there. I’m not putting anymore more isopods in my enclosures

 

[Frogdaddy]

I’m pretty sure isopods killed my p. Vitatta it was fine then I noticed it out more than usual I should have rehoused last weekend F!!! When I noticed a shit load of them in there. I’m not putting anymore more isopods in my enclosures

Better safe than sorry