I just did a trade of some Utrics with a member of this board for some of his Porcellio scaber woodlice for my vivariums. For now I'm just starting a base colony of my own before I start seeding vivariums with them. These little squirts have some very good press as a live "terrarium maintenance crew" so I'm very anxious to see them in action.
Here's how they arrived:
Packaged securely in these tiny foodies with egg crate stuffed with green food and peat not a DOA in the whole lot and plenty of tiny little ones in the peat, and they are TINY (could not get a pic of the babies). I hope they can't climb cos the babies will zip right out of my aluminum mosquito screen! LOL
Here's where I'll be keeping them for now.
I'm going to look for some bark or some kind of wood to replace the eggcrate (brand new) when I go for a walk in the woods - I'll bake it before giving it to them.
Here are the stars of the show:
They're very energetic (hard to photo cos they won't sit still) and it's fun to watch them tentatively test out the new soil and then scurry back onto their shipping eggcrate for a while.
Here's their bin:
I'm still a bit curious just how wet I should keep it for them? Should there be moisture on the very bottom of the tub next to the plastic or would that be too much? Currently the soil is moist but not wet - squeezed all the water out by hand. I can mist every day like I do the other plants/vivarium if that's a good routine to get into. I just don't want to mold the peat, I'm kinda anti-peat due to the nasties it can carry (algae, molds, slimes, etc). I boiled my water when I mixed this soil up so hopefully the bulk of any bad stuff was wiped out by the time it cooled.
Here's how they arrived:
Packaged securely in these tiny foodies with egg crate stuffed with green food and peat not a DOA in the whole lot and plenty of tiny little ones in the peat, and they are TINY (could not get a pic of the babies). I hope they can't climb cos the babies will zip right out of my aluminum mosquito screen! LOL
Here's where I'll be keeping them for now.
I'm going to look for some bark or some kind of wood to replace the eggcrate (brand new) when I go for a walk in the woods - I'll bake it before giving it to them.
Here are the stars of the show:
They're very energetic (hard to photo cos they won't sit still) and it's fun to watch them tentatively test out the new soil and then scurry back onto their shipping eggcrate for a while.
Here's their bin:
I'm still a bit curious just how wet I should keep it for them? Should there be moisture on the very bottom of the tub next to the plastic or would that be too much? Currently the soil is moist but not wet - squeezed all the water out by hand. I can mist every day like I do the other plants/vivarium if that's a good routine to get into. I just don't want to mold the peat, I'm kinda anti-peat due to the nasties it can carry (algae, molds, slimes, etc). I boiled my water when I mixed this soil up so hopefully the bulk of any bad stuff was wiped out by the time it cooled.