Lemon Blue — Fact Sheet

Cubaris sp. “Lemon Blue” · Undescribed expert culture

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Starter colony: 30 × 20 × 20 cm with fine cross-ventilation.
• Minimum 8 cm deep, edible substrate.
• Large stable moist zone and smaller less-wet surface zone.
• Provide two inspection refuges; disturb only one when necessary.
• Quarantine at least 90 days; establish a backup only after several generations.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Thick hardwood leaf cover and crumbled rotten wood.
• Cork flats partly buried across the gradient.
• Sphagnum bank at the watered end.
• Permanent limestone, cuttlebone, oyster shell or plain calcium carbonate.
• Support all stone from the floor to prevent tunnel collapse.

💡 Lighting

• UVB: not required.
• Subdued ambient cycle: 10-12 hours.
• Preserve total darkness beneath cork and through the substrate.
• Avoid sunlight and spot lamps.

🌡️ Temperature

• Warm zone: 24-26 °C

• General air: 22-26 °C

• Cool zone: 20-23 °C

• Night: 20-23 °C

• Use a thermostated side heater only when required.

• Do not test heat extremes on a rare founding colony; correct sustained values near 28 °C.

💧 Humidity & water

• Monitoring range: 75-90%.
• Maintain deep moisture with aerated structure; do not flood compacted substrate.
• Keep a smaller less-wet surface refuge without allowing deep desiccation.
• Water one moss corner; no dish is required.
• Continuous condensation or sour smell requires more airflow.

🥬 Diet

Feed freely:

• Hardwood leaves
• Soft decayed hardwood

In moderation:

• Tiny vegetable or mushroom piece about weekly
• Pinch of dried shrimp, fish food or balanced isopod diet about weekly

Avoid:

• Large rich meals, moldy residues and material exposed to fertilizer or pesticide
• Competing cleanup-crew species in the founding colony

Supplements:

• Keep plain calcium continuously available.
• Remove uneaten rich food within one day.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Sudden losses → investigate overheating, deep drying, pesticide exposure and anaerobic substrate.
• Incomplete molts → restore local moisture and calcium while retaining airflow.
• Food covered in mites → shrink portions and remove protein sooner.
• No young → verify mature, adequately numerous founders without digging for mancae.
• Uncertain identity → retain seller label and photographs; do not assign a similar species name.