does anybody have one of these in their crestie tanks? i was considering getting one to help with waste management. how much waste do the millipedes themselves produce? and would they spray a toxic chemical on the geckos?
i was curious about your post and came accross this link http://www.petbugs.com/caresheets/A-gigas.html it says that if disturbed it can secrete a defensive liquid that could be dangerous if put into the eyes or mouth plus, i dont think its a good idea to house different species together. also, i don't think they will eat your cresties poop.
Nope, they are perfectly safe. I use these in all my natural planted tanks and they do a great job cleaning up. Their poo kinda looks like dirt so it is really hard to see and when you mix it up - it just adds fertilizer for the plants. They do need about 4-6" of soil mixture so a planted tank is best. Also, a bioactive soil works best with them as, like I said, you can just stir it up and not worry about their poop. As for food, they do a great job of cleaning out the left over crestie food. I am going to chnage all my tanks over to natural ones when I have enough millis. As for the "toxic spary", from what I understand, their defensive liquid is an irritant, not toxic. It is like an inky substance, but they only produce then when provoked. I have heard of people being "squirted" when they hold these guys, but none of mine have ever done so. I highly suggest them to anybody with bioactive soil.
is bed-a-beast a bioactive soil? that type of setup seems easier to maintain... do you have any pointers?
I personaly start with 1/2-1" of gravel followed by about 4" of a sand/black earth/peat moss/eco-earth mix (good for drainage). I finish with about 1/2-1" of eco-earth (but this gets mixed in with time). I add some soil from well developed house plants (as suggested by another breeder who has some tanks that have been going for 10 years with the same bioactive soil!) and I add some decaying ficus leaves. Add the plants and from there you stir once a week. With time the soil becomes bioactive, meaning that little organisims (some of which you introduce with the house-plant soil) brake down the poop and waste. I find that the millis help in the process b/c they eat the decaying leaves that fall from the plants and the dead crickets and just poop them out - instant fertilizer! It is a bit of a process to get it started, but once you get the soil going and invest in the plants it is way easier to mainatin. I personally would not have millis without the bioactive soil (I tried this and I was just cleaning up after them. With the bioactive soil I can just mix their waste in and they help with the process).
Re: RE: african giant black millipedes I was weary of this method at first but then I did my research and spoke with reputable breeders that use this method and have done so for years. In reality What could be more natural? You are providing them with a habitat that is much closer to their natural landscape than paper towels or a thin layer of peat moss. The substrate is completely natural, that is not creepy, it is nature, lol . The best of the best rhac breeders use natural set ups and the rhac "bible" itself depicts the various natural set ups that can be used. My cresties that are in natural set ups are way happier, more fired up and eating fantastic. I know breeders that have been using this method for years and have had nothing but success. I think the stigma is there just b/c everybody thinks that natural = dangerous. That is just not the case. Elysse - I didn't have time to read it through, but from the pic it looks like the soil mix has too much sand and is not deep enough. It is more geared for a snake, but the general idea is there and like the poster said, it can be changed depending on the reptile beeing kept. Like I said, search this site (reptile room) in the crestie room as there have been several discussion on this topic.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes The complete guide to Rhacodactylus - by Repashy et al. It is the best book out there for rhacs, I highly suggest it to anybody keeping them.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes Robert-it creeps me out, too. But I'm really not a huge fan of anything with more legs than me. It may be awesome for those of you who use it, but I'd be scared to death to touch it--not even because of the "irritant" haha.
Re: RE: african giant black millipedes i read that also and was wondering if the crestie were to jump on and startle the milli, would the milli secrete and irritate the crestie? what if it got in the crestie's eyes or mouth? i read in the rhac book that this was ok, which is where i got the idea. also, millis do eat fecal matter. i don't think it would work with my setup. i have bioactive substrate, but only about 2 inches worth, all eco-earth, and no live plants. just keeping it moist and stirring in the poop is all it takes to maintain. what if the milli and crestie tried to eat out of the same dish at the same time? any personality conflicts there?
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes I think the problem people have with the millis and that they don't understand how docile and skittish they are. The millis are quick to run away....from anything! I mean if a crestie jumps from one plant to another and makes a noise, the millis runs back to their hide. I have found that providing a halved terra cotta pot gives the millis somewhere to hide and in reality, they spend most of there time there. I put there veggie treats in the cave and they come out to stroll the cage and eat the babyfood and then they go back. Any time I have seen a crestie inadvertently approach a milli, the milli goes back to its cave. So if a crestie wants to eat, the milli moves out of the way. Like I said, you really have to see these millis to understand how calm and docile there are. The first time I introduced a crestie to a milli, the crestie sat on a branch and stared at the milli in the cave for an hour, and then he finally went into the cave to see what this thing was. He sniffed it, the milli rolled up and he walked back out. I have not seen any other milli/crestie interaction since then, lol. Like I said, the defensive liquid is an extreme measure, the millis would not release it just b/c a crestie is near, especially when they live with the crestie for long enough to become aware that the crestie is not going to eat them. Besides this, the liquid (from what I hear as my millis have never released it) comes out from the bottom, and it is more inky than liquidly. It doesn't squirt so to speak. If they released it, it would just go on the soil and be turned over eventually. As for you tank, if you have bioactive soil you are half-way there. You could add a few more inches of top soil and eco-earth mix and throw a few lives plants in there and you would be good to go. Don't think I am suggesting that you should do this, I am just saying that if you want to, it can be done. This method works really well for me so far, and if others want to try it I think that is great.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes hahaha that's hilarious....your crested reminds me of a curious cat. the milli sounds cute too. that's cool, good to know. i try to stay away from live plants because i'm no good with them. i'm great with animals but horrible with plants. i eventually kill everything lol. jayhay, do you have breeders in those tanks? another concern i had was the milli burrowing and inadvertently shifting buried eggs around before i could recover them.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes no females in these tanks yet. So far I am just keeping the males and juvie females in them.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes hmm....i know the book said they won't harm the eggs. i can assume that means they won't eat them, but i would still be worried about them getting jostled around. are most millis sold wild-caught? any issues with parasites or anything?
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes yep, most of the millis you see for sale are wild caught (mine all are). They do carry a mite that you can see with the naked eye, but these mites are actually good for the milli as they clean up all the areas the milli can't get to. The mite needs the milli and the milli needs the mite, so there is no prob. Otherwise I have never heard of any other issue with them. I personally keep mine in a seperate tank for a few weeks before I put them in with the cresties, just to observe them and make sure they are healthy, but that is it. As for the eggs, the only reason I don't put my gravid females in with the milli is b/c I only use about 1/2" of packed down eco-earth for my gravid females so they will lay in the lay box - I just have way too many females to go digging around the whole cage for eggs. Otherwise it would not worry me, like I said the milli are evry docile and light. They tend to go around obsticals, not over them. Besides, the eggs are removed within 12 hours of laying so there isn't much time for anything to go wrong.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes eek! we usually do everything we can to AVOID mites anywhere near our snakes, geckos and frogs. is it a different kind of mite? seems like they would infest the geckos also.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes Nope,this is nothing like that. The mites are species-specific and like I said, they have a symbiotic relationship with the millipedes (the mites need the millipedes and the millis need the mites). The mites cannot leave the milli or they will die. Again, I know it sounds creepy, but it is nature. These mites are very different from the parasitic ones that we avoid in reptile collections as these cannot be transferred and they do not eat the host, they eat the dead skin particles. They can't live on the gecko as they do on the milis, so as soon as they were to leave the milli, they would die off. They are actually kinda cool to look at. They are tiny tiny and they live mostly under the milli up inside the legs.
RE: Re: RE: african giant black millipedes ok cool, i looked up some more info on a millipede forum. they also mentioned a tiny white mite that lives in the soil and feeds on leftover food (mostly fruit, not decaying plant matter). these mites can have population explosions in a tank and kill the millipede, so some people use pillbugs in their tank as well to out-compete the mites on their food supply. the mites die off, and the pillbug population is kept under control because there are only as many as the food supply dictates. have you seen any of these mites in your tanks? only thing is, i wouldn't want to put wild-caught pillbugs in with the cresties because they are likely to be eaten and there would be a risk of pesticides or something.
