Purpose of keeping isopods?

They can do this:

Keep mold down for low ventilation species

Eat dead roaches

Gets to the grains before other annoying things do

Plus keeping isopods can be just as addicting as roaches. Trust me... I have touched into many branches of the invert hobby... And it doesn't look like I am stopping either.

 
It's also good to have a supply of clean, home raised isopods for when you have heartburn. Wild ones are terrible bioaccumulators of heavy metals and you don't know where they've been...

 
Heartburn? Haha, do you have to eat them or?. I can't imagine crunching on one of these guys. Personally, I only use them alongside springtails and lesser mealworm beetle larvae to clean up dead roaches, eat spilled food, and keep mold off new wood thrown into moist enclosures. They can breed more prolifically than some of the roaches I keep so I have another spare tub that I throw excess isopods into. Sowbugs do better in enclosures with at least a little ventilation, in my experience. The pillbugs especially like their fresh air. They always slowly die on me when I don't give them ample breathing holes. I use sowbugs as "canaries" in some of my enclosures that lack ventilation by seeing how well they do. I know I need to open up my sealed roach enclosures more often when they become lethargic and stop breeding.

 
Hmm, that's really interesting. Thank you for that piece of information. I'll keep it in mind in case of an extreme emergency :D

 
They are often kept:

*As aquarium "cleaners" (mentioned above).

*As feeders for dart frogs, assassin bugs and other small carnivores.

*And as pets!

 
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