I just picked up a pair, well, its supposed to be a pair, I know there is at least 1 female because there were 6 babies that came with them but I haven't really looked at them too closely yet to see what the difference are. Anyway my question is on the babies. A few years ago I was given about 10 of them and I tried to keep them alive but gradually (about 4 or 5 months) they all died off. I was keeping them communally and feeding them mostly fruit flies.
I'd really like to succeed with this new batch so I was hoping to get some answers here. I've kept and bred several batches of D. diadema (just paired up some F1s hoping for F2s) and I seem to have them down but these baby P.m are so tiny I'm kind of afraid to even mist thinking they may drown in a water droplet.
My main questions are should I go communal with them (the babies and the adults for that matter) Right now I have separated them and I have no problems going through the extra steps to care for multiple enclosures and I think I can monitor them much more closely but if communal is better I'll go that route.
What do you feed them besides fruit flies. My last batch that's pretty much all I did and like I said hey all died off and in fact I don't know that they ever molted. I can put in baby dwarf white isopods but they generally stay in the substrate. Springtails are an option and I can get a culture but are they too small? I always seem to have an issue with the phorid flies so they will also be added to the mix as well. What about grain mites. I try to keep them down but if I'm not carefull in my hissing cockroach cage and leave too much food in there I can get a pretty big explosion pretty quickly. I'm sure it would be pretty easy to knock a few into the conatiner.
That leads me to the container. Communal is no problem I can probably go with a 32 OZ deli cup with cork bark but they would be far to big for an individual. Right now I have tall 8 oz plastic solo cups and they seem OK I just don't like their configuration. they are tall and top heavy and prone to tipping and the lids I have for them are not perfect. I have to snip the edge so they spread a bit and snap over the lip.
Sorry for so many questions. I've been lost in Banshee's thread for a while and I'm glad to see more species becoming available in the US and maybe in the future I will be getting more but right now I want to make sure I can keep the ones I have alive.
I'll figure out the sexing later. I'm assuming the female should probably molt again before they will produce more babies?
I'd really like to succeed with this new batch so I was hoping to get some answers here. I've kept and bred several batches of D. diadema (just paired up some F1s hoping for F2s) and I seem to have them down but these baby P.m are so tiny I'm kind of afraid to even mist thinking they may drown in a water droplet.
My main questions are should I go communal with them (the babies and the adults for that matter) Right now I have separated them and I have no problems going through the extra steps to care for multiple enclosures and I think I can monitor them much more closely but if communal is better I'll go that route.
What do you feed them besides fruit flies. My last batch that's pretty much all I did and like I said hey all died off and in fact I don't know that they ever molted. I can put in baby dwarf white isopods but they generally stay in the substrate. Springtails are an option and I can get a culture but are they too small? I always seem to have an issue with the phorid flies so they will also be added to the mix as well. What about grain mites. I try to keep them down but if I'm not carefull in my hissing cockroach cage and leave too much food in there I can get a pretty big explosion pretty quickly. I'm sure it would be pretty easy to knock a few into the conatiner.
That leads me to the container. Communal is no problem I can probably go with a 32 OZ deli cup with cork bark but they would be far to big for an individual. Right now I have tall 8 oz plastic solo cups and they seem OK I just don't like their configuration. they are tall and top heavy and prone to tipping and the lids I have for them are not perfect. I have to snip the edge so they spread a bit and snap over the lip.
Sorry for so many questions. I've been lost in Banshee's thread for a while and I'm glad to see more species becoming available in the US and maybe in the future I will be getting more but right now I want to make sure I can keep the ones I have alive.
I'll figure out the sexing later. I'm assuming the female should probably molt again before they will produce more babies?