#magic potion ispods

[fogmothshroom]

Guys I want to get some isopods never kept them before, was thinking of porcellio laevis (dairy cows) or armidillium vulgare (gem mix) pls lemme know which ones you have familiarity with and which ones you find easier to keep

Thank you!!!!!! :D

[jaybug-jabbers]

Isopod Update - April 2025

So much has happened in just two months. I have a lot to update you all about! First, let's start with the Chocolate Zebras, since I left that as a cliffhanger from last time.

The Zebras did eventually arrive, it took about a week. Turns out they were delayed due to a very small typo in the address that the seller made. Fortunately they were packed very well by the seller and all 10 isopods arrived safe and sound. Here is one enjoying a pea on their first day.

I was so glad they were ok. The seller was great about things, they refunded the cost of 2-day shipping, and their isopods were very healthy and happy. So all is well. The Zebras have been settling into their new home. It's been tough because I've been battling more mold than usual in the new enclosure. Turns out the botanicals I put in there that went moldy put a lot of spores in there. It's been kind of annoying (I am sensitive to mold spores so that's why I want to keep mold to a minimum) but there has been less mold lately so hopefully things have gone into better balance in there.

Next photo you'll need to forgive that it's blurry, it's a still from a video:

I took this last night! The Zebras seem to be more comfortable by now since they're trying to make baby Zebras. I definitely see them during the day sometimes a fair bit, although other days they are shy about coming into the light. They have been eating treats I offer, but they eat slower than the A. vulgare do. I also have not been offering a lot of fresh veggies since I've been battling mold, so it's mostly been dried fare for them at the moment. Dried peas, dried bloodworms, so on.

The temperate white springtails have been doing their best to battle the mold, but I decided to get them some helpers!

Behold the helpers. Yellow Albino Lavander springtails (Ceratophysella isabellae) and Pearlescent Springtails (Lepidocyrtus sp). I have been waiting for these starter cultures to establish themselves before using them for anything. The Yellows are so gosh darn cute and they've been making little tiny white babies. The Pearls I am culturing on soil and I must admit they are very hard to see on the soil since they are so dark-colored. So I'm not sure how they're doing, honestly. They are also SO very tiny. But they're probably doing fine too. I bought these cute little cubes to keep my springtails in, I have my whites and pearls in cubes now. Speaking of those cubes, I had quite the surprise a few weeks ago in the enclosure for my white springtails:

Yeah. I just get up one morning and there is a whole moth in there. I had carefully baked all the soil, moss and wood before starting this enclosure (to try and control soil mites). Where did moth come from?? Eventually I realized I had placed a leaf in there from my isopod supply without baking that one little leaf. There must have been an egg on that leaf. I am surprised it managed to grow and pupate though. Not much to eat in there. It seems to be some kind of snout moth.

Anyway, that was a fun surprise. But that's not all there is to report. I also moved the Magic Potions to a new, larger enclosure. This was done in part to try and battle fungus gnats but also because it's a much larger bin, which was sorely needed. The transfer process was pretty time-consuming and difficult, since there were so many isopods and I was trying to avoid gnats so I was indeed just painstakingly grabbing ispods, putting them in a small deli cup, eyeballing to ensure no gnats were in there or materials that might harbor gnat larva, and dumping the isopods into the new enclosure. Repeat. Once I'd moved all the isopods and dug up the rest of the isopods in the dirt, I froze the hides, leaves, substrate and other materials from the old Potion enclosure so I could re-use the stuff after a good gnat-killing freeze.

The Magic Potions are so much happier in the larger bin. They have been exploring and eating leaves like crazy. Not to mention anything else I drop in there. I recently bought some beautiful beech leaves to expand their leaf variety and they LOVE those.

After moving the Potions, I decided I needed to move the Marbelized isopods to a new bin next. They needed a substrate change, it had been around 6 months by now. And they were very hard to see in their old bin anyway. Plus their population may have increased enough to justify a size upgrade. Probably, right?

The answer is YES. I was shocked when I lifted the bark hide and saw how many adult-sized isopods were crowded under it. Way more than the initial 10 I bought, that's for sure! I used the same routine to transfer them to the new enclosure as I did for the Magic Potions. But there were a lot more very small mancae in this bin than with the Potions so it took a lot longer to get those. I removed all leaves and hides and put out a slice of cucumber to lure out baby isopods. It took me literally weeks. I checked every morning and night and every single day I was finding a few babies. I waited until no more babies were appearing before finally freezing the substrate. A long and tedious process, to be sure, but that's how substrate changes go.

While I have not spied gnats in my new Potions or Zebra bins yet, I have spied some gnats in the Marble bin. Which means either they somehow snuck in while transferring the Marbles, or, they magically survived the process of FREEZING the brand-new soil I used in the new bin. Oddly enough I suspect the latter. Because the day I took that soil from the freezer and opened it up and mixed it for the new bin, lots of gnats were magically appearing in my room and getting zapped by the bug zapper. How the HECK they survived the freezer I cannot say.

In either case, I've been trying to kill 'em off in the new bin. My latest efforts have been to try beneficial nematodes. I did this last week:

That's the nematode substrate soaking in water. After soaking in water I injected the water into the isopod enclosure with a turkey baster. Btw don't use a mason jar for this, I learned the hard way the substrate expands a ton in water and it acted like a cork lol, I barely managed to remove it from the jar. Anyway, this nematode species is Steinernema feltiae, I picked it up from the garden store. This species should be safe for isopods and springtails. I used it on my Marble enclosure, so we'll see how it goes. Keep in mind nematodes of this species are usually microscopic and they need damp conditions to live. They also will die off if they have no food to hunt, of course, so they are a temporary application just like BTI. On the isopod subreddit a lot of people are wary of using Sf nematodes, but nothing in the literature has ever stated that this species goes after isopods. In any case, call this an experiment.

I think my Marbles like the new enclosure. It's a bit hard to tell because they continue to be quite a shy species for me. They generally don't like to come out unless there's no light at all, but in the evenings I do see a few younger ones milling about. Only a few, mind you, out of a very substantial population!

Still, they must be settling into the new enclosure all right, since a few days ago I spotted a mating ball during the day:

There's one last thing to add to this update. A few weeks ago was a reptile expo that I attended. It was HUGE. Surprisingly only two or three vendors I spotted had isopods, but I wasn't planning on buying isopods that day so it worked out fine for me. There was a good number of inverts, though; mostly spiders, to no surprise, but not all were spiders:

My favorite was one of the isopod vendors which had Green Laser isopods, though:

Such cute little beans. I haven't gone into Cubaris species yet, but maybe someday.

Anyway, I think that covers it for now.

[the-dye-stained-socialite]

oh hmmmmm.... if you wanted to take things an interesting direction you could have those be eye-spots!! different colors could also change further down the line in particular colonies in different sections of the roof and morph further!!!

ohhhh yes, isopods can darken as they molt with color becoming more vibrant, i think ridges coukd develope over time!!!

YES YES PATTERN THE BABY!!!!!! (please imagine a magic potion ispod but white blue and purples)

@the-dye-stained-socialite OUGH YEA!! the basic descrp we have for them is them being Blue with Many Eyes on the shell but!! beyond that! i think there would be a whole lot of potential :O [esp since recent text has mentioned different colour ones]

different patterns on the shells, various different shell formats. maybe it can change over time when they molt too, that'd be interesting

maybe i should give the hybrid's shell a pattern.........

[glassamphibians]

• RAISE MAGIC POTION ISPODS HOW DID I FORGET THAT

okay updated list of life goals:

• hold octopus

• see whale shark irl (possibly pet?!?)

• certify front yard as an official wildlife habitat

• raise moths (possibly pin?!?!)

• raise a spiny flower mantis

• get job i guess :/