snaredragon
Arachnopeon
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2023
- Messages
- 2
Hello all, I am sad that this is my first formal post here after lurking for a while but I have some pressing questions. I have three A. Gigas that I received in April as a gift and they have been thriving until now. They were moving around, eating, crawling on each other and being over all very lively, even hours up to their deaths. I found two out of three of them dead last night while I was doing my animal care rounds. The first was stretched out straight and totally stiff, only with some nervous system activity near his head and that was it. The second was limp and in the process of dying, with little to no reaction to being touched but some leg movement. I removed the stiff millipede and left the other in just in case, but removed it this morning after it did not move.
I’m really not sure what happened and it’s really distressing to me to be honest. They seemed to be doing well and I love love love millipedes, but I know it very well could be something I did / didn’t do husbandry wise, so I’m going to go over everything I can think of and hope I can get some solid pointers and maybe an explanation for why they died.
Set up:
They aren’t cohabiting with any isopods, but I did add springtails to their set up. I mist them with tap water.
I keep them in a 20 gallon glass tank with mood moss, leaf litter, rotting wood, and sphagnum moss. The soil is around 6-7 inches deep and made from reptisoil, rotting wood chips, crushed up leaves, and some eggshells and a pinch of calcium powder. There is also a minimal amount of horticultural charcoal in it, and maybe a cup or two of coco coir for dig-ability. I know it has no nutritional value but I wanted to fluff up the soil so it wasn’t as dense. Coco coir is definitely not the majority of what’s in there.
Their temp and humidity remains around 70F with a moisture gradient. I mist them twice a day, once at morning and once at night to maintain their moist side. Towards the dry side I have a heating pad I have been turning on at night when the temperature drops. The temp stays pretty steady according to the gauge. I read somewhere that a. Gigas thrives better in 75f, so I’ve been boosting the temp for my remaining milli, who is still super active and healthy looking.
As far as food goes , I feed them thoroughly washed and peeled apples, carrots, and cucumber once or twice a month as a supplementary to the rotting wood, leaves, and moss. They really favor the sphagnum. I did sprinkle a bit of a dried greens mix I received from a breeder for my pink dragon millipedes about a week and a half prior to the gigas deaths, but I haven’t had an issue with the mix for any other inverts.
I did have a pest mite scare a few months ago in August. The mites had boomed in their enclosure, and I took them all out and painstakingly brushed the mites off of them periodically for like two hours. I gutted and re-did their entire enclosure and they were much more active afterwords, but I know I also removed most of their beneficial mites since it was difficult to discriminate with the brush.
Other than the mites, my millipedes came in with noticeable leg rot. This didn’t really slow them down, and I tried to keep the dry side of their tank very dry to
Another environmental factor could be fungi. Ive had mushrooms pop up in most of my set ups, but they’ve had a lot in theirs. I can see deep in the soil but they never really pop up. When they have, the millis have ate them without any real issues. I noticed they got mushrooms after I did the big soil change.
A strange behavior I’ve observed in them is never burying themselves. My desert millipedes are avid burrowers and I see the tunnels they make in their enclosure. I’ve only seen my gigas hide under leaf litter or burrow shallowly. As far as I know, none of them have molted or disappeared for any excess of time.
I know I could make their substrate deeper and enclosure longer, and offer them more of a variety in food and dried leaves (mine are mainly oak). I am still looking for advice and maybe some reasons why they could have died so suddenly. Thank you.
I’m really not sure what happened and it’s really distressing to me to be honest. They seemed to be doing well and I love love love millipedes, but I know it very well could be something I did / didn’t do husbandry wise, so I’m going to go over everything I can think of and hope I can get some solid pointers and maybe an explanation for why they died.
Set up:
They aren’t cohabiting with any isopods, but I did add springtails to their set up. I mist them with tap water.
I keep them in a 20 gallon glass tank with mood moss, leaf litter, rotting wood, and sphagnum moss. The soil is around 6-7 inches deep and made from reptisoil, rotting wood chips, crushed up leaves, and some eggshells and a pinch of calcium powder. There is also a minimal amount of horticultural charcoal in it, and maybe a cup or two of coco coir for dig-ability. I know it has no nutritional value but I wanted to fluff up the soil so it wasn’t as dense. Coco coir is definitely not the majority of what’s in there.
Their temp and humidity remains around 70F with a moisture gradient. I mist them twice a day, once at morning and once at night to maintain their moist side. Towards the dry side I have a heating pad I have been turning on at night when the temperature drops. The temp stays pretty steady according to the gauge. I read somewhere that a. Gigas thrives better in 75f, so I’ve been boosting the temp for my remaining milli, who is still super active and healthy looking.
As far as food goes , I feed them thoroughly washed and peeled apples, carrots, and cucumber once or twice a month as a supplementary to the rotting wood, leaves, and moss. They really favor the sphagnum. I did sprinkle a bit of a dried greens mix I received from a breeder for my pink dragon millipedes about a week and a half prior to the gigas deaths, but I haven’t had an issue with the mix for any other inverts.
I did have a pest mite scare a few months ago in August. The mites had boomed in their enclosure, and I took them all out and painstakingly brushed the mites off of them periodically for like two hours. I gutted and re-did their entire enclosure and they were much more active afterwords, but I know I also removed most of their beneficial mites since it was difficult to discriminate with the brush.
Other than the mites, my millipedes came in with noticeable leg rot. This didn’t really slow them down, and I tried to keep the dry side of their tank very dry to
Another environmental factor could be fungi. Ive had mushrooms pop up in most of my set ups, but they’ve had a lot in theirs. I can see deep in the soil but they never really pop up. When they have, the millis have ate them without any real issues. I noticed they got mushrooms after I did the big soil change.
A strange behavior I’ve observed in them is never burying themselves. My desert millipedes are avid burrowers and I see the tunnels they make in their enclosure. I’ve only seen my gigas hide under leaf litter or burrow shallowly. As far as I know, none of them have molted or disappeared for any excess of time.
I know I could make their substrate deeper and enclosure longer, and offer them more of a variety in food and dried leaves (mine are mainly oak). I am still looking for advice and maybe some reasons why they could have died so suddenly. Thank you.
