Ardentiella sp. 'Pastel' Isopods

I cannot tell you exactly what your Pastels will look like. The colours in Ardentiella sp. 'Pastel' shift from brood to brood, so the animals in any photograph are a snapshot of one generation rather than a promise about the next, and you do not get to pick. That is an awkward thing to put at the top of a product page, and it is also the part I would not want changed. A Pastel colony is not a fixed look, and every new batch of juveniles is worth going through to see where the palette has landed.

Pastel is meant literally. The colouring sits in soft, muted tones where the rest of the genus goes saturated and loud. Batman is the dark, high-contrast one, Red Diablo is the vivid red, and Tri Colour carries neat red, yellow and black banding. The Pastel works at lower volume, and the exact mix differs between individuals in one tub as much as it does between broods. It is a large animal for the genus, on a par with its relatives, though almost nothing is published on this morph so I would treat any figure you see quoted as a rough guide.

What the animal actually is

These are Vietnamese isopods from tropical South East Asia, and a recent revision moved the whole hobby group out of Merulanella and into Ardentiella. Both names are still in trade use, so the Pastel turns up under either one. It is not a beginner animal. Ours are captive-bred, which makes a real difference to how forgiving a colony is, though it does not remove the part of the care that catches people out. Ember Bee asks less of a keeper than the rest, which is why most people start there, and anything else in the wider Ardentiella range will feel familiar once you have kept one.

Humidity and airflow together

The core requirement is high humidity and high ventilation at once, which is harder than it sounds. Most of what a keeper does to raise humidity has the side effect of choking ventilation, and that is where colonies are lost. Vent one wall only and you leave a dead corner behind it, so fine mesh sits opposite fine mesh and a current crosses the box instead of stalling in it. Saturated air that never moves will empty a tub. Humidity belongs around 60 to 75 per cent, sloping from damp at one end to drier at the other, and the substrate should never be soaked. Anywhere in 19 to 26°C is tolerated; 21 to 24°C is the band they actually do best in, and above about 26°C they start to suffer. The build is set out step by step in our Ardentiella care guide.

Vertical glass and polished plastic hold no fear for them, adults and mancae alike, in the manner of cockroaches. The lid gets checked, never assumed. Height beats floor area too, so a tall enclosure suits them better than a wide flat one, and cork bark stood on edge with branching routes up keeps more of them in view than flat hides. A startled Pastel can shut into a ball, but the behaviour shows up much less than the shape of the animal suggests.

Underneath all that the substrate needs depth and life, a minimum of 8cm where the enclosure allows, damp throughout, with generous leaf litter and crumbled white rotten wood over the top. Waste is the second trap: these animals react badly to their own frass, so cleanliness matters, and a springtail culture running alongside the colony from day one stays ahead of mould. Leaf litter and rotten wood carry most of the diet, topped up with soft vegetables and a little protein once or twice a week. A block of cuttlebone or a scatter of crushed limestone is a permanent fixture, and it disappears faster than you would expect.

Every colony ships in a deli tub that is ventilated, over sphagnum kept damp, inside an outer box walled twice. Royal Mail tracked next-day, before 1pm, Monday to Thursday only, so a parcel never has to sit out the weekend. Each group carries more animals than the count ordered, with our live-arrival guarantee behind it.