Caresheet - Porcellio Laevis
Porcellio Laevis have many morphs within the hobby, Some of its common morphs are Orange, Dairy cow, Milkback, Caramel and White.
These isopods are generally seen as starter friendly due to their fantastic hardiness and prolific breeding.
Eventually you will need to replace wooden hides once they have gnawed it all and rehouse them with fresh substrate once they have created enough waste.
To keep these isopods yourself we recommend:
Coco Coir.
A Plastic Shoebox or flat storage tote around 5L.
A Hide: either bark or driftwood.
Optional extras include:
Substrate supplements such as bat guano to help increase natural decomposition of botanicals.
Sphagnum moss to help increase humidity [They will also eat it].
Ventilation
When ventilating your enclosure you want to make sure you have an equal amount of humidity and airflow. This is achieved by drilling or melting holes into half the lid.
We do only half the lid as this helps create a gradient of humidity and temperature.
Substrate
With all of our enclosures we opt for coco coir, Coir is the fibrous material found between the hard, internal shell and the outer coat of a coconut.
We choose this as it doesn't contain much mineral or pollutant allowing more control over what we put in the enclosure and gives a great humidity when first hydrated.
Mixing products such as bat Guano to help increase decomposition of natural products such as botanicals or Calcium powder for species like many Cubaris sp. and bentonite powder for a more clay based substrate that holds its shape rich in trace minerals.
You can include Clay balls for a drainage layer and activated charcoal to purify the moisture as it soaks through but we have found these are optional for isopods.
Humidity
Humidity with Isopods is highly important, They have gills to breath making it crucial to ensuring you have adequate moisture at all times.
This is why we only drill half the lid, the side without the holes [we will call this the moist side]will hold moisture much better that the drilled side[we will call this the dry side].
If you include the optional Sphagnum moss, place it on this side so it can help hold the moisture in even more.
Mist the wet side weekly ensuring not to totally soak it but enough to keep it moist until the next spray, drying out will be fatal.
Feeding
Isopods are known as detritivores- [A detritivore is an organism that eats dead or decaying plants or animals as food.]
This means that you can feed them with a number of vegetable scraps like carrot peel, leafy greens, squash et cetera.
They can also be fed fruit such as apple or orange.
We recommend feeding a protein source every 2-4 weeks to ensure they are as healthy as possible and help reduce the chance of cannibalism, Our favourite treat is dried minnows.