Polyxenida Care

[Ponerinecat]

My culture is collapsing, with individuals literally melting against the walls. Likely improper food. Been giving then some fungus from the dirt, moss, and lichen from rocks, any suggestions?

 

[Hisserdude]

Well I've never had the melting issue, mine just slowly died off without producing offspring... No idea how to keep these properly, I don't think anyone's had success with them.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Ah, that's too bad. Thanks for the help anyways, now I don't have my hopes too high.

 

[MadMilli]

ANY water on the sides of the tank will kill flat millipedes. They are super susceptible to this because they cannot lift their heads out of the water like round millipedes are able to, babies especially and smaller species. My polydesmus angustus reproduced and the offspring died 3 times before I figured out it was the sides, and seeing what species you have, it’s probably similar to my offspring which would explain the “melting” behavior that you’re seeing. If you have any water on the sides just wipe it off and keep spraying to the middle of the enclosure.

 

[Ponerinecat]

ANY water on the sides of the tank will kill flat millipedes. They are super susceptible to this because they cannot lift their heads out of the water like round millipedes are able to, babies especially and smaller species. My polydesmus angustus reproduced and the offspring died 3 times before I figured out it was the sides, and seeing what species you have, it’s probably similar to my offspring which would explain the “melting” behavior that you’re seeing. If you have any water on the sides just wipe it off and keep spraying to the middle of the enclosure.

Thank You! Ill definitely keep that in mind until I move them to a larger enclosure.

 

[MadMilli]

Thank You! Ill definitely keep that in mind until I move them to a larger enclosure.

No problem! Your species is also known to rely on lichen, so a nice piece of wood with some lichen would probably really help them out. If you get any reproduction let me know

 

[Ponerinecat]

I see, will definitely try it. Been trying soil hyphae on them so far.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Somehow I've been able to stabilize the population, no deaths so far after adding a new batch. The setup is a mishmashed 2 by 1 inch container containing moss, dirt, eggshell, bark, lichen, soil hyphae, and some patches of mold.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Doing good!

 

[Ponerinecat]

I've done it! Noticed some tiny babies against the container walls! From the looks of it only 3 segments, minus the head. I almost mistook them for pauropods until I saw the wispy tail tuft. Measure in at slightly less than half a mm.



Also photographed some adults for the fun of it.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Sorry, inaccurate measurement. Slightly more than half mm.

 

[Hisserdude]

Holy crap, congratulations! You may be the first person to breed these in captivity! (the first I know of at least! ).

 

[Ponerinecat]

Bit worried here, shortly after they bred all the individuals have gone away. I cant see any evidence of them, but no corpses either, so they may still be alive. Perhaps they've gone dormant? If this continues Ill move them inside and maybe carefully scrape off some layers of soil.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Went and dug through the container, looks like another failure. Ill leave the substrate to sit in case I missed something, but pretty sure they're all dead. Not sure what went wrong. Perhaps next time will be better.

 

[Hisserdude]

Went and dug through the container, looks like another failure. Ill leave the substrate to sit in case I missed something, but pretty sure they're all dead. Not sure what went wrong. Perhaps next time will be better.

Ah dang, that sucks, wonder what happened... Was there a spike in temps or anything?

 

[Ponerinecat]

Thats definitely possible, although as of right now it doesn't seem likely. In the wild here they live in dry, hot conditions. I'm thinking it may have to do with the soil I made for them, next time it may be better to collect some from the original habitat.

 

[Ponerinecat]

Found a very large group of adults aggregating under a deep set stone and many juveniles by themselves. Starting over again with this species, this time with objects from their native habitat only.

 

[Madnesssr]

Found a very large group of adults aggregating under a deep set stone and many juveniles by themselves. Starting over again with this species, this time with objects from their native habitat only.
View attachment 365481

Good luck! I can’t wait to see how it goes.