The Isopod Journey Begins…
Armadillidium maculatum aka “zebra isopods”If you’ve read my page about my love for frogs, you’ll probably understand that I love creating diverse bioactive terraria for them. Before the frogs even make it to the tank, the plants and “clean up crew” need to flourish and grow. Clean up crews typically consist of springtails and isopods — the later of which will be the topic for this blog. Isopods are poop eaters…but cute poop eaters! What makes them so great in bioactive terraria is that they eat waste from the frogs and plants. Fun fact: isopods are often confused for bugs, but they’re actually crustaceans!
I always start my bioactive terraria with powder blue and powder orange isopods. Why? They’re quick to reproduce, so the colony can grow exponentially over a month or two before adding the frogs (or reptiles if you’re into that). Whenever I buy them at my local mom n’ pop pet store they always ask which kind I want and I always say, “whatever’s cheapest.” When I bought some last week for the pacman frog tank I’m setting up, I thought to myself, wait…there’s other kinds of isopods? A thus, I fell deep into the rabbit hole.
After doing some research, I decided I would try my hand at breeding them. I thought I could buy some cool species and put them in my frog tanks and have some different cuties running around. But then the more I researched, the more I realized I would probably have an army of them with nowhere for them to go. Should I let them go if I have too many? Give them away to pet stores? Sell them? I’m leaning towards the latter to see if they can actually be profitable.
For now, I bought a starter colony of zebra isopods a few days ago — about 15 of them for $30. They’re really cool looking and some of the larger ones are fun to watch. My plan is to put a bunch in my frog tanks, and see if the rest will sell. There seems to be quite the isopod community online and I’ve noticed many people have little businesses set up for interstate isopod sales. I think I would stick to New York (where I live) for now before delving into a million permits for interstate sales. I’ll keep y’all updated on the zebra isopods over the next few months to see if I get lil babies!