Transform a 6 Quart Sterilite Bin Into an Isopod Habitat - Fast and Easy

Welcome to my latest video 'Transform a 6 Quart Sterilite Bin Into an Isopod Habitat - Fast and Easy'. In this tutorial, I'll guide you through my process of making isopod bins using a 6-quart Sterilite Bin. We'll cover everything from selecting the right materials to the actual setup, ensuring you can follow along with ease. This is the best way to get a great start on your isopod care so that you are sure to have thriving and breeding isopods soon.
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[@mariahmoosymoose470]

This is awesome ❤thank you for this!

[@danellescritters]

Thank you! So much more to come. :-D

[@miningking70]

Nice video. ❤Great information. Thank you for sharing your video.

[@danellescritters]

My pleasure! I really love sharing what I have learned along the way. I have lots more cool videos planned and hope you find more of the videos helpful! :-D

[@siyg]

This is probably one of the best quick guide for isopods I’ve seen on RUclips. Some other videos spew some misconceptions and blow some stuff way out of proportion and this is great. I’ve been doing something very similar with my 6 quart sterilite bins with lots of success
Some thing that I would change on, to make the bins even more ideal without sacrificing cost or convenience are:
1. I prefer organic compost over organic topsoil. Both are great, cheap, options but topsoil compacts more easily. Go for something organic (like said in the video) with no artificial fertilizers (no miracle-gro). I would also avoid compost sourced from manure or resinous material like pine needles. Organic compost sourced from hardwood, forest humus, etc, it really good.
2. Something that I’ve found works better than baking leaves is putting leaves from outside (no pesticides) and submerging them in a bucket filled with water. After a few days-weeks, the leaves grow tons of nutritious microorganisms and kills off any pests like centipedes, mites, etc. I usually do like 40-60 ratio of these nutritious leaves and sterilized leaves so I don’t have to be making a ton of these at once. The isopods love them and usually eat them much faster, and they are usually gone in a few days. I would also add more diversity to the species of leaves. In the video it looks like you only add those narrow, tough leaves. Isopods usually eat these much slower and I would experiment with different species of leaves and see how fast they are eaten.
3. Isopods can’t really eat any type of fresh wood chip. These wood chips aren’t decomposed/broken down and the nutrients aren’t accessible to isopods. It could take over a year for them to break down enough inside the isopod enclosure to be eaten by isopods so it’s really just filler. If your already going to spend that kind of money, flake soil or white rot wood is much better.
Notes: Using dried, harvested sphagnum moss is best for hydration stations, I’m assuming that you used sphagnum moss but it’s just to clarify for people watching
I’m usually not too concerned about isopods escaping as the ventilation holes are much too small and isopods cannot climb plastic anyways (unless there is a film of dirt on the walls). Be careful about stems leading out of the enclosure as isopods can climb on them and out of the enclosure, or get stuck in between the lid and the tub and die.
Where do you source your cork bark? I find it hard to get them and just get them from petco. The point of using cork bark as a hide is that isopods eat it extremely slowly so it can be used as a hide long term without replacing.
When it comes to supplemental food, I’ve never heard of anyone letting up the cork bark and placing food underneath. Lifting up the hide too much can stress out isopods, especially when they are first getting started out. Placing the food on top is what some people do to minimize mold, the isopods will find it, especially in higher population densities. You are correct, isopods generally won’t eat as much supplemental food when they first start out due to them being in a new environment, more shy because of low population density, and also since there is so much decaying matter for them too eat in a fresh bin.
For that last bit, lots of shippers will send extra isopods just in case any die or if they have too many, another thing you can do is place the cup inside the enclosure and let them wander out on their own.

[@danellescritters]

Thank you for taking the time to leave such a thorough comment! I will these things in mind as I do future isopod videos. I actually have one recorded that I will be editing for tomorrow and I have some ideas for the future. I do enjoy the isopods as pets, but I love, love, love setting up bioactive enclosures for my reptiles and would like to help people be successful with both. :-D

[@siyg]

@@danellescrittersThanks for the quick reply! Sometimes I leave long comments like this when I don’t have much to do 😬. I watched the new video already and I’ll rewatch it and maybe add a comment