rollie pollies

finalfantasyxii · Post by **finalfantasyxii** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 6:04 am

No way! Mine cannot climb the glass. I have to leave an area open for ventilation, never seen one escape. If they did escape I've read they will dry up and die quickly so no worries about an infestation in your house!

latieplolo · Post by **latieplolo** » Fri Aug 09, 2013 11:14 am

I think it would probably be SAFEST to buy them, but I just collected some that I found in the yard and kept them isolated for a while. I kept about 10 in there for a while, but they all died out eventually.

guitarsjb · Post by **guitarsjb** » Thu Aug 15, 2013 2:33 pm

Wow, glad this topic came up. Awesome..will grab some tomorrow from under my cucumber plant, they are everywhere

Marshmelo76 · Post by **Marshmelo76** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 4:26 am

Just ordered two sets of 15 from bugsincyberspace.com. I'm excited! So, will this be enough for a 55 gal? I saw that you need 100-200 for that size, will 30 of them multiply to that? Also, if we get these bugs to clean the crabitat, why is it necessary to do a deep clean? Wouldn't they do all the cleaning for us? The thought of doing a deep clean with 9 crabs makes me really nervous, so I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary with the bugs.

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:04 pm

@Marshmelo76, yes deep cleans are still necessary as the rollies produce their own waste ie fecal matter and urinary gases the substrate will still build up contaminants that will eventually need to be cleaned out and deep cleaning is the only way.Rollies eat discarded or forgotten food that has been buried by the crabs and they also help to keep certain strains of mold and fungus down by eating them.I'd be leery of introducing anything from my yard into the enclosure even hermitcrab edible leaves and woods because my entire neighborhood sits on a hill and all the houses above and below me have their yards treated with fertz and insecticides which then ends up passing through my yard during times of hard rains as runoff so my yard is not safe for anything I might want to give my hermits and this is the real danger for all of us we just don't know whats getting introduced into our yards via runoff and leeching from the local water table.I guess you could say this is a personal call as to whether or not you want to risk it but as for me I just choose not to.

jenok · Post by **jenok** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 6:31 am

For some of us its an easier call like me for instance. Between myself, my sis, and my parents we have 50 acres. The area I get my crab stuff from is a top a hill so no runoff and I know everything that gets put on the land and where. The surrounding areas have cattle and don't use a lot of chemicals.

Amanda2 · Post by **Amanda2** » Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:40 pm

This is just a thought but when the hermies molt will the rolly pollies eat the soft crab or disturb them at all?

Crabber85 · Post by **Crabber85** » Fri Apr 18, 2014 7:21 am

@Amanda, no the rollies should not bother molters and I've never heard of a case where rollies actually attacked or ate on hermitcrabs.