Cleanup crews?

Pounces

Pounces

Third Instar
I decided to keep all my roaches with substrate, even the feeders. I feel they'll have a better quality of life and that's super important to me now. I'm going to attempt to go fully bioactive with some plants and cleanup crew of both isopods and springtails. I know the plants will most likely get nibbled on and need to be replaced, but thats ok with me. :)

Any suggestions on what isopods would work best? I know to stay away from P. laevis Dairy Cows - my colonies are ravenous. 😅 Kind of wondering about Powder Blues / Oranges and how they might work. They would be going in with B. lateralis, P. nigra and dubias if that makes any difference. For my P. tarsalis, I'm only going to add some arid springtails since the substrate is dry with the exception of a small clump of moss in the corner that I keep lightly damp, plus the footprint is quite small since it's arboreal.
 
Tbh I use nocticola vagus as my roach cleanup. In the past I've used the "Dwarf" isopods as cleanup without issue but I primarily kept them with "live birthing" roaches. I have also had success with cubaris rubber ducky but it was for a roach that perfed more humid conditions and I had a very thick layer of leaf litter. also ficus pumufolia has survived/trived in "infestation" levels of isopods/roaches without issue if provided suitable water and light.
 
Great information, thank you both! I do already have springtails in with all roaches, so I think I just need to figure out what isopods to add in with them. I'm leaning pretty heavily to adding Trichorhina tomentosa in with my 3 colonies of dubia. Maybe Cubaris sp. Panda King in with the red runners, and P. pruinosis Powder Orange in with the Shadow roaches ..

They have been in substrate for approximate 2 weeks now and they definitely seem much happier. I have both bark and egg crates in with them, and they still seem to prefer the egg crates - I had thought I'd transition away from using it, but since they seem to like it a lot still I'll leave it for them. :) I'll look into the ficus pumufolia and see if I can find any available near me! I do have lights on their shelves and they actually adapted really well to them. They're often out in the daytime on top of the bark and in their feeding dishes, I've been kind of pleasantly surprised! :)
 
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