Mikes Bug Box

The holidays are coming, and with them comes a lot of excitement, but also a lot of stress.

You never know what someone is carrying behind the scenes. So this season, give a little more patience, a little more grace, and choose kindness whenever you can.

It costs nothing, but it can mean everything. 🧡

#🧡

😁

Yellow zebra isopod

Let’s talk about that weird, stringy mold you might see in a NEW isopod setup. 👀🍄

You just spent time putting together a fresh enclosure, everything looks perfect, and then a few days later you open the tub and see white, stringy, web-like stuff running through the substrate, across the wood, or underneath the leaf litter.

Before you panic — this can be completely NORMAL, especially in a brand-new setup.

What you’re often seeing is fungal growth/mycelium doing exactly what fungi are supposed to do: breaking down organic material.

Think about what we put into an isopod enclosure: soil, decaying leaves, rotting wood, bark, moss, compost and other organic materials. Then we add moisture and warmth. You’ve basically created the perfect little environment for decomposers to wake up and get to work.

New setups can go through a bit of an “ugly stage” while everything establishes and balances itself out. You may see mold blooms, stringy fungal growth, mushrooms or other things you weren’t expecting. That doesn’t automatically mean your substrate is bad, contaminated or needs to be thrown away.

In fact, fungus is a normal part of a decomposing ecosystem.

This is also one of the reasons we LOVE springtails in isopod enclosures. Springtails feed on mold, fungi and decaying organic matter and help keep those early blooms under control while the enclosure establishes.

If you notice a little stringy mold, you generally do NOT need to dump your entire enclosure and start over.

Remove heavily molded leftover food, make sure the enclosure isn’t absolutely waterlogged, check that you have appropriate ventilation, add springtails if you haven’t already, and give the setup some time to settle.

There’s a big difference between a little fungal growth in a fresh bioactive setup and an enclosure that is completely soaked, stagnant and foul-smelling. THAT is when you want to look closer at your moisture and ventilation.

Welcome to the decomposition crew. 😂

Sometimes a new enclosure just needs a little time to find its balance. 🤎🍂

Porcellio expansus "Prades" Isopods

Absolute stunners

❤️

Current givvy on Insta for some isopod prints by The Silk Ranch!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ddr2Yq-SNxI/?stkn=emh2OW93eXc4ZjVv