Clean up crew in a bioactive enclosure.

[Wobblez91]

I'm planning on building a bioactive enclosure for my next cham. My only concern is: how big of a problem is the clean up crew finding their way outside of the enclosure? Id really prefer not to infest my entire house with bugs lol

 

[Sonny13]

I got 4 cages bioactive setup, all with a big cleanup crew and I never found them outside the enclosure. Just make sure they got enough "food" (leaf litter) and you're good.

 

[Andee]

Most 'clean up crews' for tropical environments like springtails and isopods cannot survive outside of the environment they get used to. So high humidity like our chameleons need compared to our humidity which is almost always lower (unless you live somewhere tropical) then they will dry up and die as soon as outside the enclosure for more than an hour or so.

 

[MissSkittles]

I have all of my four chameleons bioactive and currently only one out of four of my leopard geckos. I also have a few bins that I’m breeding extra cuc in for when I finally get around to getting my leopard geckos set up bioactive again. I do every now and then find a stray isopod wandering along the floor. I’ll also occasionally find some dead ones in the corners of my spare bathroom. I’m not sure where they are escaping from. They certainly aren’t infesting my home and aren’t able to. They breathe thru gills or similar structures and need moisture/high humidity or they die.

 

[Andee]

They do breathe through modified gills, its similar to land hermit crabs except they dont water dive.

 

[Multivitamins]

I have a regular screen cage modified with the great stuff foam and tons of plants and added lots of isopods and never noticed any escapees they will get down into my drainage tray but I suspect it's as mentioned above they like the moisture.

I'd say very low to almost no risk of them taking your household or room over.

I have some punta cana as well as powder blues if you need a starter culture I might be able to wrangle some and ship them off let me know if that's something you'd be interested in