# Isopods/Springtails not decomposing poop?



## albinogomora (Dec 6, 2019)

Evening. I'm attempting my first bioactive setup with my juvi Merauke BTS (3 months old approx.) and I included a culture of about two dozen orange isopods and a full Josh's frogs culture of springtails. 
Maybe because they're still getting adjusted, but I notice the clean up crew isn't getting to work on my Merauke BTS's droppings. In fact, I barely see them around in the enclosure; I see an Orange Iso run around every so often, but never around my leaf litter piles or poop. It's been about a week now, maybe I'm poking around too much and taking the poop out too fast(I leave it in for a day or two) but I'm not sure.


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## elishacoombes9 (Sep 5, 2017)

That’s why then. They don’t decompose it in a day or two, it takes longer than that..


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## kfamtvw7 (Nov 15, 2017)

It's a bit of a misconception that adding a handful of isopods and spingtails to an enclosure means you no longer have to clean it or concern yourself with managing the waste from a relatively large animal like a blue tongued skink. 



It seems this misunderstanding largely comes from the dartfrog hobby where it can hold true that properly constructed bioactive enclosures can run for long periods of time without any 'cleaning ' but this is because of how tiny the actual dart frogs in question are and the high humidity environment they require. To achieve the same effect for a blue tongue skink you would need to be keeping it in a truly huge enclosure to accommodate enough custodians to enirely break down it's waste.
To put it in perspective I keep tiny geckos in bioactive enclosures that have thriving populations of 8 different species or springtail and 4 different species of isopod as well as millipedes, roaches, mites, rove beetles etc. and i can only JUST get away with not removing feces from the enclosures. But the geckos are so small that their vivariums are really oversized and provide plenty of refuges for the microfauna to reproduce. In order to achieve the same ratio of tank size to inhabitant size for a blue tongue skink I would need to keep it in a 20 foot long tank.

One problem you might also be having is that in a drier setup the springtails and isopods will tend to hide in buried or concealed areas with a more humid microclimate whereas your skink will presumably defecate wherever it likes but frankly you are unlikely to achieve high enough loads of microfauna in a BTS vivarium to completely process it's waste. 

If anyone tells you otherwise they either don't know what they are talking about or are trying to sell you something 'bioactive'. Often springtails are feeding on the bacteria and fungi hat are *actually* breaking down the waste too and in a drier setup this breakdown might not be happening as quickly.



Your orange isos may be large enough that the skink has eaten most of them too, you might try incorporating tiny isopods like the dwarf purples that it's less likely to notice, as well as burrowing micro roaches like the 'little kenyan roach'. I'd also recommend the larger european springtails like Pogenognathellus longicornis or flavescens as these tend to do better in drier conditions in my experience.
Hope this is some help.


*TLDR* isopods and springtails will not be sufficient to process the waste of a larger animal like a blue tongue skink in any normal sized enclosure.


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## albinogomora (Dec 6, 2019)

kfamtvw7 said:


> .....
> 
> Your orange isos may be large enough that the skink has eaten most of them too, you might try incorporating tiny isopods like the dwarf purples that it's less likely to notice, as well as burrowing micro roaches like the 'little kenyan roach'. I'd also recommend the larger european springtails like Pogenognathellus longicornis or flavescens as these tend to do better in drier conditions in my experience.
> Hope this is some help.
> ...


Thank you very much for the advice, it was very helpful! I've started to carry my own load in cleanup now, and the springtails and isopods (if there's any isos left) have plenty of leaf litter to dine on if there's no poop around. 

Also i got my species wrong regarding the BTS. It's a halmahera, a sub species that requires around 80% humidity. Would the white dwarfs and other species you recommend still do alright in that high of humidity, or are there others you'd recommend?


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## kfamtvw7 (Nov 15, 2017)

They will all flourish at 80% humidity. There's a guy on here called Darren that sells dwarf whites and dwarf purples in the feeder classifieds section who pro vides really excellent starter cultures of isopods as well as larger springtail cultures for a reasonable price. I've bought from him many times and wouldn't hesitate to recommend him. here is his Ad https://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/food-classifieds/1263963-isopods-special-offers.html
I think the little kenyan micro roaches might be a great addition to your clean up crew too and you can buy them from https://buzzardreptile.co.uk/product/kenyan-burrowing-roach/ or on ebay.


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