How to culture Isopods / Woodlice and Springtails

[Pumilo]

I’m shipping a bunch of bugs out and this is my care sheet for them.

Isopod / Woodlice culturing

These are shipped “concentrated”. There will be too many isopods in the container I ship them in too try to culture them this way. You will want to set them up as soon as possible in a bigger container. For the Dwarf Whites and the Dwarf Greys you could use a fruit fly culturing container or a 1 quart jar. I prefer to start mine in small Ziplock style containers. King Soopers makes a knock off, Kroger one, for very cheap. I use the 24 oz. size which measures about 6” x 4.5” x 3” tall. It looks like this.

[Pumilo]

For Giant Spanish Orange Isopods I like to go straight for the larger size as Oranges are much more active and they will do better with more space. I also use the larger size as your Dwarf Whites and your Dwarf Greys outgrow their original, 24 to 32 oz container. The larger size is also available from Ziplock or, better yet, King Soopers/Kroger. It is 76 oz. or 9.5 cups. It looks like this, plus a pic of the two sizes side by side.

[Pumilo]

The reason I don’t go straight for the bigger container for the whites and greys is so they are in close proximity to each other for breeding, while the populations are lower. The oranges are so active that this is not necessary for them. With whites and greys, grow them in the small containers for a month or two. When your population is visibly growing, it's time to move them to their bigger home.
Regardless of your container choice, don’t forget the air holes! I use a safety pin, heated with a candle or lighter, to push through the lid, melting your hole in. I have been using about 15 or 20 small holes in one end of the smaller containers and about 30 or 40 in one end of the bigger container. Putting them in one end may help allow the isopods a choice in hanging out on the wetter side or the drier side.

Substrate choices
I am having excellent results on ABG Mix mixed with 50 percent hand crushed leaf litter. We use oak leaves from our tree in the backyard. Any non toxic leaf litter will work but Magnolia may not be the best choice as we want it to be able to break down easily for the isopods to eat. ABG Mix is available from Josh’s Frogs.
ABG mix (4 quart)
You can find the recipe for it here if you want to make your own. The TRUTH about ABG Mix!!
ABG works well because it is light and airy, stays moist, and is packed with organics that your Isopods/Woodlice can eat.
A cheaper alternative would be a peat based mix with plenty of organics mixed in. Something like this.
2 parts Peat Moss (this is the pulverized, brown, dirt like stuff)
1 parts Orchid Bark (supplies wood for the woodlice)
1 part charcoal (I like the Cowboy or Frontier brand from Lowes because it is cheap. Throw some chunks in a pillowcase and smash them into about ¼ to ½ inch bits)
4 parts hand crushed leaf litter
It is a good idea to fully moisten, and then microwave your substrate, to kill off any potential bug eggs.

Your substrate should be kept moist, but not saturated, at all times. Isopods/Woodlice require humidity and humid air or they will quickly die.
I lay several pieces of brown, corrugated cardboard on top of the culture. I like to cover roughly 2/3 of the surface with the cardboard. Your cardboard will have to be replenished from time to time as it breaks down and is eaten.
Here is a shot of the type of oak leaves that has been working well for us. Also, a shot of a completed, producing culture, and just some Giant Oranges wondering where lunch is.

[Pumilo]

We have also had good results culturing this method How I culture woodlice (isopods) but I believe my first method has reaped better harvests for me. I'm sure different people will have differing results. I must admit the the extremely low maintenance approach that MarkBudde's method presents, is tempting and does give nice results too. I will always be using his suggestion of Ultra high quality dog food even if I decide to discontinue my jars.
Here you can see some of my "BuddeJars" and in the culture you can see some Dwarf White Isopods and some of the cardboard strips decomposing into dirt. You can also see where I decided to experiment with starting to add some fish flake to some of them.

[Pumilo]

Feeding your Isopods/Woodlice.
So many great foods to try. Ultra high quality dog food is great. We like to crush it into a powder first. Quality fish flake food is also great. They go absolutely NUTS over fish flake food! The good thing about fish flake and dog food is that it offers the necessary proteins along with all the added vitamins and minerals. If you only feed vegetable bits, you are missing out on calcium and a lot of other good things. I’m going to reference my son’s post here as it is great for Isopod food choices. It also talks about how much to feed.
Great Isopod / woodlice culture foods
Basically you want to feed small amounts of food, once or twice a week. Only feed as much as they are eating. If you are seeing mold, skip a feeding. Too much mold can wipe out a culture. Remember that’s it’s better to be feeding not enough, than it is to feed too much. When we feed too little, it’s not a problem because of our substrate. They have peat moss to eat, wood bits, leaves, and cardboard (which is just processed wood), lots of good stuff to snack on until you get the mold under control and can add more scraps.

[Pumilo]

Summary and Feeding Out
That’s pretty much it. Don’t forget to mist your culture now and then if it needs it. Remember, moist but not saturated. A good rule of thumb is this, If the cardboard is dry, it could use a little misting. To feed out of your culture, lift a square of cardboard and brush the bugs into a small container. I like to use a tiny modeler’s paintbrush for this. Dump it into your viv. If you want, you can brush the adults back into your culture first, then brush the babies into your feeding container. In fact, you pretty much always do Giant Oranges that way as your frogs can’t eat them anyway.

When your production is high enough, you will want to take a group of adult Isopods and try to establish them in your viv for in-viv food production and janitor duties.

[Pumilo]

Giant Spanish Orange Isopods Only
The following is for Giant Oranges only. I have posted it elsewhere but this is where it belongs.
Everything above applies to Giant Oranges but I have been working with a method to drastically increase their production. Here it is.
I started with about a dozen adult oranges. I set them up in a plastic shoebox with half ABG mix and half hand crushed oak leaf litter. I put several squares of brown cardboard on top. Media mist be kept moist at all times. Any time the cardboard looks dry, we mist it. We took a paper clip and melted about 50 tiny air holes in the top. These are the foods we use. Great Isopod / woodlice culture foods
Our orange isopod production is very good and one of the things I credit it to is this. I leave the adults in the culture for only about one month, maybe two. Only until we see a good amount of babies scurrying around. Then we pull all the adults and move these adults on to a fresh culture. Using this method, I am up to three cultures in three months. The original 12 have had enough offspring to seed about 15 half grown individuals into 10 different vivs. So that's about 150 right there. Plus, the ones from culture number two are getting close to half grown and there must be another 150 there. We wait until they are half grown because they are going into thumbnail and pumilio vivs and I figure at half grown, they are big enough that they won't be eaten. Also, they can begin to reproduce at about half grown so that the babies will be lunch and the bigger ones form a thriving colony.
We recently pulled 10 of the bigger ones to throw in with the original 12 adults, simply to build upon the breeding culture population. I've been really pleased with how quickly I have been able to build the population.

[Pumilo]

Springtails--it's coming, need a break!

[31drew31]

Awesome write up's Doug!

[randa4]

Really great information--thank you!