How To Farm Isopods

 I find different types of Isopods in parks of New York.

Buy Isopods Locally on Craigslist: 

https://newyork.craigslist.org/search/sss?userpostingid=7391919122

 Buy Isopods on Amazon (paid link): 

https://amzn.to/3HDJM9M

 Surely, it's easy to find everything online these days. 

Yet, picking wild samples is more fun and...you never know what else you may find. 

I like surprises and I like adventures. 

My adventure with Isopods started in 2021.

 And the first surprise was to find Isopods active, among other critters even in winter time.

 Well, you can see it all in my previous videos. 

The warm season is undeniably the best time to look for Isopods.

 

Here I pick a dozen or so Isopods in one take.

 Isopods like the bark of trees and fallen leaves. 

So, let's pick some right here. 

It's all essential parts of a terrarium for Isopods. 

At first, I set up a couple tilted terrariums in glass jars to learn more about Isopods. 

It turns out that Isopods are one of the easiest critters to culture for one thing.

 Isopods reproduce all year around for another thing. 

And thirdly, my toothless Guppies and Endlers eat Isopods.

 So, by the end of 2021 I decided to farm Isopods to feed my pets. 

Picking wild samples often brings surprises as you can see some critters laid eggs on the wall.

 Perhaps, you may figure out what critter laid those eggs if I provide you with this clue. 

Here you can see strings of fine webs hanging down seemingly from the eggs.

 Let me give you a close up view on those strings... 

Well, I am not sure if the strings are related anyhow to the eggs for that matter. 

Here is another surprise that came with wild samples of leaves from the park. 

I believe those are Grindal worms. 

That is a very welcomed surprise!

 I've been culturing Grindal worms for feeding my fish. 

And it is great to know that Grindal worms are native to New York.

 Here you can see a bunch of, I would say few weeks old, baby isopods. 

The newborn isopods are even smaller than that... of about speckle size.

 I see newborn isopods every month or two in my cultures. 

Up to one month old Isopods make great live food for adult toothless guppies and endlers. 

It takes many cultures to provide my pets continuously with Isopods. 

So, instead of one glass terrarium I want to use 16oz stackable food containers.

 Which would allow me to put a couple dozen containers in a place of one glass terrarium. 

Here I pick Isopods from the old glass terrarium. 

This time I picked only Isopods without any wild surprises.

 Let's prepare the plastic container for culturing Isopods. 

Poke holes in the cover of the container to allow air circulation. 

Fill the container only with essentials for Isopods. 

Namely: dry wilted leaves, tree bark and moisture. 

Dry leaves and bark serve as food and as medium for isopods. 

And it's all available absolutely for free all year around - even in NYC!

 In this example, I start the new culture with only 5 mature Isopods. 

Though generally, it is better to start with more Isopods of different ages. 

Let's put isopods into the new home.

 I want to start this culture with a small number of mature Isopods to show their reproduction rate for you.

March 8th, 2022

We have made the simplest terrarium with 5 adult isopods.

I check on Isopods once a week.

Moisten the culture a bit and add new food only if necessary.

About a month later, on April 4th I spotted newborn Isopods.

It would take a couple weeks for baby Isopods to grow a couple millimeters - a perfect size food for my adult Endlers.

Let's move the 5 adult Isopods into a new container.

And again, I use only adult Isopods to set up new cultures just to show how fast Isopods reproduce.

Let's set up a new container.

Dry leaves have the best water retention than any other medium I have tried so far.

And Isopods feed on dry leaves!

The second culture is all set on April 4th.

Again, feed and moisten Isopods culture once a week.

Isopods molt as they grow - and they need calcium for that.

Eggshells are a great source of calcium.

Add dry leaves, bark of trees and slices of some vegetables only if necessary.

May 2nd.

Here you can see a gang of newborn isopods in the second culture.

Again, it took about one month - a pretty stable breeding rate.

Notice - the slice of carrot gets spoiled here.

Normally, I remove everything spoiled as soon as I notice it.

Though, this time I rather let it stay until baby isopods move to somewhere else.

Let's just add more eggshells and some dry leaves and moisten it all as a part of the weekly routine.

Here you can see the first culture.

Young isopods have grown noticeably.

These isopods were identified as Porcellionides - Blue Powder Isopods.

The Blue Powder Isopods grow to about 1 cm long.

Please check my iNaturalist record for more details.

Here you can see the first culture 3 weeks later on May 23rd.

Isopods grow fast.

And as they grow bigger they may need more food.

Of course surprises appear again as I add leaves from parks.

Here you can see Grindal worms in droplets of water accumulated on the cover.

And again, Grindal worms are totally harmless and welcomed in all my setups.

June 4th

I am moving the oldest Isopods into another new container.

Also, you may have noticed that the number of newborn babies goes by dozens.

So, there are enough isopods to start 2-3 new cultures instead of one as I show here.

It takes months for young Blue Powder Isopods to mature and start breeding.

Okay, here I separated the 5 oldest Isopods that we started all previous cultures with.

I keep the young Isopods in the same container just for example.

And here is the new container already filled up with leaves and bark for the oldest Isopods.

Here they go.

June 4th, I set up the third culture.

So, with only 5 adult isopods I was able to start a new culture every month.

I feed my Isopods mostly with dry leaves and bark of trees.

Once in a while I give them a slice of potato, carrot, yams, or zucchini. 

Vegetables are optional for my Isopods.

And vegetables often get spoiled.

Here is an example - the slice of zucchini is spoiled and already covered with mold.

Spoiled food and mold has to be removed from the container to prevent spreading it on everything.

I've never seen Isopods anywhere around pieces covered with mold.

So, I don't think Isopods eat mold.

So, with simple weekly care and so many baby Isopods arriving monthly my fish have plenty of live food.

Some months I even have a surplus of Isopods to sell locally.

Let me show to you my Isopods farm as it is in October  2022.

4 stacks of 5 containers in each - total of 20, fit into one compartment of a standard IKEA shelf.

No bad odor as I remove any spoiled food right away.

Which allows me to keep it all on the same shelf with my aquariums in our living room.

I keep all cultures at normal room temperature all year around.

Blue Powder Isopods seem to be the easiest and prolific to culture among others that I tried so far.

 I will show my other Isopods in future videos.

And so I will explain in future videos a different way of culturing this type of Isopods for newts.

Yes, the whole point of farming Isopods for me is to feed my pets - fish and newts.

Speaking about feeding newts...

Adult Red-spotted newts in an aquatic stage of development enjoy Isopods I farm.

Here you can see it.

My Red-spotted newts eat exclusively live food.

Since September of 2022, I have 3 adult newts that need constant live food supply.

And if everything works out the way they should... then I should take in account possible baby newts...

Which implies farming more Isopods and other critters as well.

Thankfully, farming Isopods is simple and scalable.

Have fun and happy farming :)