Leaves?

A

Acro

Seventh Instar
I have an abundance of dried leaves at my disposal. I had planned on testing and selling leaves for aquarium shrimp and dart frog terraria, but plans fell through. I'm thinking about using the leaves for my isopods. Is there risk in using the below listed species? Is there special benefit of using the below listed species?

Palm fronds

Mango leaves

Mulberry leaves

Avocado leaves

Seagrape leaves

Royal Poinciana seed pods

Magnolia leaves and seed pods

 
Palm leaves decompose rather slowly--they're not great for feeding detrivores with, but they provide ample surface area for detrivores to breed in.

I'm not sure about mango, mulberry, seagrape, and royal poinciana, but magnolia works just fine and avocado is poisonous to certain organisms like birds and fish and it may not be safe to use.

 
Thanks for the tips on Palm and Magnolia. :D

I've heard that live avocado and mango leaves can contain toxins, but do the dead dry leaves still contain them?

 
Yes, dead leaves should still contain their toxins. Many plants will actually load additional compounds onto their old leaves before dropping them as a way of getting rid of waste products.

 
I wonder if these will affect isopods, not all toxins affect all animals. Also, I wonder if the toxins remain after the leaves start to break down and decay.

I remember finding many isopods living under logs around my Dad's mango and avocado trees back in Miami, FL . . .

 
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I have no idea. I'd recommend setting up secondary containers and testing food items. If they survive, reproduce, and the young successfully mature, you should be fine.

 
Yeah, I thought about that . . . not sure if I want to set up another container and risk my isopods! lol

 
The only isopods I keep at this time are dwarf whites, and they're functioning as cleanup crews and small feeders. Thanks for the offer, but my dwarf whites don't go through many leaves and are doing fine with very infrequent additions of magnolia and oak leaves.

 
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