Rollie Pollies Pill Bugs Sow Bugs Woodlice ... fish food?

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mrgrackle

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 3, 2007
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austin, tx
These guys are Crustaceans, same as lobsters, shrimp, etc. There are two orders that contain species that live on land and Isopoda is one of them. Did you know rollie pollies have gills?

Anyways, I've been looking for free fish food and these guys crossed my mind. I've got about 14 sunfish and all of them eat crustaceans. I decided to toss some rollie pollies into the fish tank and see what happens. The fish went after them right away but then spit them out, sucked them up, spit them out... after awhile they figured it out and now they eat them pretty easily. What do you think? I believe they're pretty easy to raise.

I also feed my fish red wigglers (composting worms, also sold as fish bait) which they're starting to actually eat. They haven't been eating them but I think they're finally starting to get hungry enough to eat the worms. One thing I'm concerned about is that I've heard that certain types of worms, which they called 'red wigglers', are toxic to fish. I haven't had any fish deaths and my goldfish (who love worms) have been eating a lot of them.

The other live food project I'm working on is black soldier fly maggots ("larvae" for the squimish... or "pheonix worms" for the ultra-squimish).

So, what do you think about rollie pollies? If it's ok for the fish then I think a rollie pollie + worm (if they're not toxic) diet would be pretty good, eh? Two "ifs" right there... but?
 
my goldfish and tin foils mostly as there the big guys of the tank, but the little balas try to.
 
I'm sure pillbugs are edible, but probably aren't prime food items for a couple of reasons. They have a very hard exoskeleton that is not very digestible, which could possibly cause a blockage, and if not, just waste space in the gut that could hold nutricious food. I would also be a litle concerned about them eating a hole in the gut, which I've heard of some prey items doing (mostly in reptiles). Never heard of it actually happening with pill bugs, but I wouldn't put it past them.

I'm just playing the devil's advocate here, but they are things to think about.
 
Hmm.. I was thinking that the exoskeleton would be high in calcium or other minerals that fish could use. Crawfish come to mind. Fish are the main predetors of marine isopodes. Also, pillbugs pretty much eat decaying organic matter, mostly plants. I am wondering about the nutritional content of pillbugs. I'll let you all know if I find anything.
 
Update - My sunfish have been eating them like crazy. Right now I've got a mix of sunfish from the colorado river here in austin. With help from here I've ID'd a redspotted sunfish, redbreasted sunfish, green sunfish... I don't think any bluegill (which is what I was really after). When I first started getting into the idea of raising native bluegill for food... all the sunfish looked like bluegill to me. I'm just going to keep them all in the stock tank and see which types do the best in the system I have.

I've embarked on raising terrestrial isopods. The ones I have the most of in my yard are the kind that can roll up into a ball (Cylisticus convexus).. or is that a "C" (Trachelipus rathkei) ... maybe I've got both kinds. Anyways, I took a styrofoam cooler, cut part of the top out and replaced it with some plastic so I can see inside the terrarium. I covered the bottom with a couple inches of topsoil and the covered most of that with a large piece of cardboard for the isopods to hide under, they don't like the light. I made the soil moist and give the inside of the terrarium a good misting every day. The terrarium isn't airtight but it's closed enough so that it stays humid but not suffocating. I believe the isopods want 50% humidity. They don't have the waxy body covering that insects have. That waxy coat lets insects live in just about any type of environment. On the other hand though, these isopods can take moisture straight out of the air.

I russled up a bunch of isopods and put them in the terrarium with a couple pieces of apple core. I checked on them this morning and they where all over the apple core and looks like they already ate some of it. I'm going to try some banana peel next since it's high in potassium and that's a mineral that aquaponic systems like I have (http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=121390) become deficient in.

Fun stuff, I'll keep you all posted.
 
So here's some more information that should make you seriously consider wether to feed terrestrial isopods (roly poly's) to your fish. Isopods have the ability to accumulate large amounts of toxic heavy metals in their bodies without it effect them. They can eat material that's contaminated without any effect. Scientists have actually used them as bioindicators. This was of concern to me because my house was built in 1941 and this lets me know for a fact that the outside of my house was painted with several layers of lead based paint. Lead is THE heavy metal us humans need to look out for, not because it's the 'worst' one out there for us, because it's the one out there in large quantities.

So, I've set up two terrariums to raise my own isopods so I know they're fresh 'n non-funky.
 
The way this world is EVERYTHING is toxic. At one point fish food itself was. If the bugs are polluted in my own yard, the government is getting a call
 
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