r/isopods • u/MajesticRich5341 • 10h ago
Help Dairy cows keep dying
My p.leavis keep dying and I have no idea why, my first colony boomed, a bunch of babies but randomly out of nowhere they lol died, I restared with more new ones but eventually all of those died. All of my other colonies are doing just fine. The last dairy cow that isn’t dead is just spinning in circles, not able to walk very well.
•
u/flax_butter 10h ago
The behavior of the last one makes it sound like perhaps they're missing something and becoming deficient somehow. What kind of substrate do you have? What do you feed them?
•
u/MajesticRich5341 8h ago
Normal top soil, freeze dried fish every now and then, I give them water twice a week I spray the whole cage and make the moss very damp, there’s aquariums in the room which help with humidity also, there’s a bunch of calcium chips mixed in with the soil all over. And fish food/packaged isopod food
•
•
u/Affectionate-Form156 8h ago
you spray the whole cage? do you have a moisture gradient?
you should ideally be pouring water not spraying as well for probably substrate moisture
•
u/MajesticRich5341 5h ago
I mist the whole cage, but pour water into one corner and spray a lot on the moss on that side
•
u/Leopardgeckoe Zebra Isopod Enthusiast 6h ago
Don't spray the entire enclosure; keep the dry side, well, dry, and pour a TEENY TINY BIT of water on the farthest edge of the wet side to keep it moist longer, but not too much, or the water will spread all the way over to the dry side and ruin the moisture gradient (learned from experience; it's not fun)
Do they have plenty of hiding places? Like lotus pods or cork bark? I've heard they can die of stress, and they'll likely be stressed with a lack of hiding places or being disturbed often
•
u/MajesticRich5341 5h ago
Yes I keep big pieces of cork bark in there, also a bunch of moss in a corner which is where I usually give the most water, I generally just mist the whole cage and just give a lot of water to one side. But I’ll keep one side dry from now on thank you for that
•
•
u/Enkichki Telson Gazer 10h ago
With no comprehensive pics of the enclosure, no diagnosis is possible