Clown Isopod — Fact Sheet

Armadillidium klugii · Clown Isopod

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Housing: Indoor, cross-ventilated colony tub with fine openings that retain mancae.
• Starter size: At least 25 × 18 × 15 cm for 10–20 animals; favor floor area over height.
• Substrate: 5–7 cm of mineral-rich topsoil, deciduous leaf mould and rotten hardwood.
• Gradient: Keep one-quarter to one-third damp, with a progressive transition to a less-wet ventilated end.
• Avoid: Uniform saturation, complete deep drying, coir-only bedding, fertilizers, pesticides and aromatic wood.
• Preserve Slano as provenance; do not merge it with the separate uncertain A. cf. klugii “Omis” culture.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Deep layers of oak, beech, maple or similar safe hardwood leaves.
• Cork flats spanning the full moisture gradient.
• Soft rotten hardwood and a moss pocket at the wet end.
• Cuttlebone, limestone or clean calcium carbonate available continuously.
• Keep dry leaves above damp material so mancae can choose moisture safely.

💡 Lighting

• UVB: Not required; no specialist lamp or replacement schedule is needed.
• Cycle: 10–14 hours of diffuse room light, optionally shorter in winter.
• Maintain deep shade beneath cork and litter.
• Avoid direct sun and heat-producing display lights.

🌡️ Temperature

• Warm-side upper target: 22–25 °C

• Ambient zone: 18–25 °C

• Cool retreat: 16–20 °C

• Night: 16–22 °C

• Avoid sustained temperatures above 27 °C; deliberate cold dormancy is not required.

• Measure inside the litter at both ends.

• If supplemental heat is essential, thermostat one outer wall and never heat the entire base.

💧 Humidity & water

• Working range: 50–70%; keep the molt refuge at 65–80%.
• Add water to the wet end instead of fogging the whole box.
• No open water dish or soaking is required.
• Tight clustering under moss suggests excessive drying; condensation, sour odor or crowding at vents indicates excess moisture and weak airflow.

🥬 Diet

Feed freely:

• Dead hardwood leaves and decomposed hardwood, replenished before depletion.

In moderation:

• Squash, carrot, sweet potato, mushroom or balanced isopod food 2–3 times weekly.
• Dried gammarus, shrimp or quality fish food about once weekly.

Avoid:

• Seasoned scraps, conifer litter, pesticide residues and large protein portions.
• Wet leftovers older than 24–48 hours.

Supplements:

• Keep cuttlebone or clean calcium carbonate permanently available.

🩺 Health warning signs

• Poor molts or deaths after molting → dry refuge, abrupt moisture change or mineral shortage.
• Colony restricted to the moss pocket → the rest of the substrate is too dry.
• Constant climbing, condensation or sour odor → excessive moisture and inadequate airflow.
• Mites increasing around food → overfeeding protein or delayed cleanup.
• Locality label lost or Slano mixed with unnamed/Omis stock → provenance compromised; separate and document immediately.

For persistent unexplained decline, isolate the colony and consult an exotics veterinarian or experienced terrestrial-isopod specialist.