New Isopod Habitat

[ObscurePIllbug]

A couple pics of my new isopod habitat. If anyone else wants to post their habitats I am very interested in checking them out.

 

[blacksheep998]

Here's my current isopod collection. Not as nice as your glass tank, but my wife hates bugs so I don't have much space to work with.

There are 4 small containers on top containing Trichorhina tomentosa, Armadillidium nasatum 'Peach', Philoscia muscorum, and Trachelipus rathkii.

Next layer down has 2 containers. Left is my colony of Porcellio scaber 'Orange Dalmatian'. Right container is Oniscus asellus.

The 3 large containers, from the top down, are Armadillidium maculatum, P. scaber 'Orange', and P. scaber 'Dalmatian'.

And the 4 on the bottom are all experiments.

One is a second container of P. scaber 'Orange' in which I crossed my oranges, which are bred from a single wild orange individual I found, with the strain of oranges commonly kept in the hobby. I wanted to see if they'd produce orange offspring or if they might have different mutations that interacted in unknown ways. They have only produced more orange offspring though.

Another is an attempt to increase the amount of spots on P. scaber 'Dalmatian' by selecting for the most spotted individuals.

Another is the remainder of the f1 generation crossbreeds between P. scaber 'Orange' and 'Dalmatian'. They appear identical to wild type gray individuals but carry both recessive traits. The 'Orange Dalmatian' breed I mentioned earlier is their offspring and grand-offspring.

And the last is a portion of the remainder of the orange x dalmatian crossbreeds. Due to how the genes work, they produced roughly a 9 : 3 : 3 : 1 ratio of gray to orange to dalmatian to orange dalmatian offspring. I released the gray ones outside but kept the orange and dalmatians in this container to make a multicolored colony. They're already producing their own offspring of all 4 colors.

 

[ObscurePIllbug]

Here's my current isopod collection. Not as nice as your glass tank, but my wife hates bugs so I don't have much space to work with.

That's cool, thanks for sharing. I have a similar setup but I use the acrylic "critter keeper" type cages. The glass cage is for the living room and the only one I have... fortunately my wife is okay with the isopods; not so much other inverts. Do you have problems with mold or gnats in those bins?

Sounds like you put a lot of effort into your projects, if you have any pictures I'd love to see them.

 

[blacksheep998]

Gnats are an occasional problem, but mostly only in new containers. After a couple weeks they seem to die out. Fungus can be an issue on food items if I overfeed.

Anyway, here's some pics I've taken recently of my isopods.

Armadillidium nasatum 'Peach'

Trachelipus rathkii

Philoscia muscorum
All my adults died off over the last month, it was really strange. But the babies they produced are all growing well. And so variable in color!

Oniscus asellus

Armadillidium maculatum

Porcellio scaber 'Orange Dalmatian'

Porcellio scaber 'Orange Dalmatian'
These are two of the best from the group. I'm hoping to breed more of them like these guys.

Porcellio scaber 'Mixed Colors'

Porcellio scaber 'Dalmatian'
From my group where I'm trying to increase the spots. So far it's not working too well, as you can see from all the very white offspring. I got the idea after finding several white headed isopods in the colony. Sadly, two of them died but I've got the final one in with this group.

 

[ObscurePIllbug]

Wow, those are great! That black one in the last picture is very cool... I have not seen P. scaber quite that dark. And I love your dalmatians, if you end up selling cultures let me know. I tried Philoscia muscorum but they all died out after a few months.

Your cultures look super healthy, thanks for the pics.

 

[Dark]

Very cool setups / colonies! I'm very jealous of how healthy and numerous all your species are and I'm amazed you've been able to keep Philoscia muscorum alive, all the adults I've had just died off all of a sudden in each culture and then the babies do too eventually. Keep us posted on that.

Eric

 

[blacksheep998]

You haven't seen healthy and numerous until you've seen my main P. scaber 'Orange' and 'Dalmatian' containers at feeding time!

I've got plenty of these available for sale. I don't have nearly as many orange dals, but can sell a few. Feel free to PM me if interested.

The Philoscia muscorum die-off was the strangest thing. I'd collected ~10 of them from my yard back in june or july, and had no trouble keeping them alive and breeding until about a month ago, when they started to drop off one by one.

I thought they were all gone but I poked around in the container a little more and found 2 adults still alive. So I've got those in addition to the babies, about half of which are in the picture I posted. I haven't noticed any appreciable drop in the number of babies, so I'm hoping they're going to be ok.

 

[ObscurePIllbug]

What are you using for substrate?

 

[blacksheep998]

Compost mostly. I mix in crushed oak leaves as well when I start a new container, but the isopods dig and eat them so they don't last very long. I drop new leaves in on top about once a week, and the large P. scaber colonies can eat a single large leaf in a day or two.