And Centipedes are their cat cousins

I got my first millipede!! She's a ziphonora peach millipede, and i ordered her from Richard's inverts (yeah i did say i wanted to get smokey oaks / ivory / giant olive, but i still got a lot of space for them. From what i could find, they all have very similar care guides and they should co-habit fine). She was very well packaged, with some substrate and sphagnum moss in her container and packing peanuts to make sure she doesnt bump around in the box.

I'm pretty sure she's a female; the 3rd and 7th segments seem to be the same size as the rest, but i might be wrong. I can't find much info on peach millipedes online, so i dont know which segment the gonads are normally stored in. She's a little smaller than i expected, though i did order a sub-adult so she'll likely get bigger. The enclosure is certainly way to big just for herself, but i do plan on housing her with other millipedes. Not sure what to name her, i'm open to suggestions!

She's a very curious but hesitant millipede. when i took her out of the container, i tried to get her to crawl onto my hand, which she'd walk up to as if she was going to climb on, before curling her head (or shaking it side-to-side) and walking backwards. I didn't even know millipedes could move backwards XD! She did the same thing when i offered her a slice of cucumber.

she was showing some burrowing behavior so i set her in the very over sized enclosure for her to burrow in. She walked about and sniffed the corners for a while, mostly sticking her head into the dirt before backing up and sticking her head into a different bit of dirt lol. eventually she settled on burrowing beneath a log by the side of the container. I'm not sure how surface active peach millipedes are (again, not much information on them online aside from general care guides) but she seems reactive towards light so she might just be nocturnal.

I'm now realizing i forgot to measure her size before she burrowed away. Anywho, here's a silly video of her trying to climb a wall.

They are beautiful!!!

all the ethical breeders in the uk (that i know of) don't have any of the millipedes i'm looking for in stock right now, but that doesn't mean i can't start setting up their home until then!

First is the container of course. I wanted a decently sized container, because i'm planning on housing at least 2 millipedes (one medium sized one, 20cm max, and one smaller one, 10cm max). Nothing fancy, i ended up settling with a plastic storage container from my garage. it's dimensions are about (w)42cm x (h)32cm x (d)32cm. I think the general rule for millipede enclosures is that it must at least be 2x as wide as the largest millipede's length, as deep as the largest millipede's length, and a substrate as deep as the largest millipede's length

my substrate is about 20cm in depth, which would accommodate for the largest millipede i hope to get (giant olive millipede, species Telodeinopus aoutii, which grow up to 20cm when fully grown.) This leaves them with about 12cm of climbing space. I hope this is enough room for them, but it's hard to tell because not many places explain how much climbing space is needed for different millipedes, though I remember reading somewhere that 10-15cm is fine. I believe climbing space would vary on how surface-active a millipede is, and their actual size. i plan on having an ivory aswell (or smokey oak, whichever one is in stock before the other) which are both relatively surface-active and the same size, ~10cm fully grown, so i think the 12cm of climbing height will be plenty for them.

next is the actual contents of the substrate, which i've seen stressed to be the most important part of a millipede's home. I'm gonna be honest, i didnt actually measure the exact ratio i did of each ingredient, i just mixed it all together and got more along the way if i felt it needed more of something.

for the base, i used some compost that didnt have any fertilizer or manure in it. i heard some controversy about whether or not peat in the substrate is ok for millipedes, but its kinda hard to get your hands on it in the uk due to ethical concerns anyways. topsoil is probably a better base to go with, but i had already bought a bag by the time i realized.

Nutrition in the substrate is probably the most important for millipedes, as their main diet is just the dirt they burrow in. Being detrivours, they feed on decomposing plant matter; mainly white wood and leaf litter / mulch. I collected (probably like 3 bags each?) of white wood and leaves from my local woods, and froze them for at least 72 hours to kill any hitch-hikers, but hopefully not wash out any beneficial bacteria or the nutrients from it. IMPORTANTLY, the leaves and wood CANNOT BE SOFTWOOD! they have resins and saps that are toxic for millipedes and cannot be digested by them! this means no pine needles, pine cones, pinewood etc. though their cousin centipedes can be found in those environments, that's because they're predatory carnivores.

an alternative to white-wood is flake-soil, essentially manufactured decomposed wood. it's usually sold by beetle breeders or other bug-keepers as it's used as the substrate for larvae and grubs. Again, make sure the seller is clear about what wood they use, as softwood is bad for millipedes. Most people make it with oak, birch or beech. i bought from postpods since they sold it at a pretty reasonable price.

flake soil can still be a little pricy though, so a lot of people make their own. there's plenty of tutorials online, but from what i remember its just yeast, water and wood.

you dont need to get both flake soil and white wood, but i didn't want to scalp my local woods from all the white-wood i could find which is why i bought flakesoil. Flakesoil is seen as the more ethical option, since white wood takes years to decay and probably shouldn't be stripped from the ecosystem that relies on it for food. Flake soil is more sustainable, as it can be made in bulk within only 4-6 months.

after mixing everything together, i froze it again just for safe measures, and decorated the surface with some oak logs, which are soft enough for them to eat. They should be fun for them to climb, too. all i need now is an extra handful of leaves to scatter across the surface.

I've had terrariums in the past, and none of them did very well. that's because they need an actual community before making an ecosystem. So, i ordered some springtails; these tiny lil buggos that are usually referred to as the "cleanup crew" because they eat mold to prevent the overgrowth of it in your terrarium. they're neat, but i got them to hopefully keep control of the inevitable fungus gnat bloom.

which they did not. ATM, i have hundreds of larvae covering the walls of the container, some even ontop of the lid that i've been wiping off. they arent a danger to me, the springtails or millipedes, but it is kinda gross and not fun to look at. most people will tell you to lower the humidity if you have a fungus gnat problem, but that's an issue because both millipedes and springtails need high humidity in their enclosure. so, instead, i'm looking at nematodes to hunt them down.

long story short, they're microscopic parasites that hunt down and enter the larvae, produce a bacteria that kills them, then they reproduce to kill a new host. there are different nematodes specialized to target different things. The type i'm looking at (Steinernema feltiae) only hunt larvae, so they won't hurt springtails or millipedes (as neither have a larval stage). After they've hunted down all the fungus gnat larvae, they'll have no other food source and die, so you don't have to worry about them. I haven't gotten them yet, but i'll try and order some to deal with this bloom.