3L Braplast Plastic Tub

Walk into almost any UK isopod room and you will find the same plain box repeated along the shelves, holding nearly everything. The 3L Braplast tub is that box. It is not the enclosure anyone photographs, and it never wins a spot on looks, but it is the container the whole hobby quietly runs on. After roughly five years of keeping isopods, and a good deal longer with reptiles before that, I still reach for one before anything else.

It is a clear, hinged-lid tub of about 245 x 185 x 75mm, holding three litres. The plastic is food-grade, light in the hand and stands up to years of use without cracking or warping. Those transparent walls matter more than they sound, because I can check on a colony without lifting the lid and letting the humidity escape, which keeps shy species calm. When a tub is eventually retired from one colony, a wipe-down and a rinse has it ready for the next, with no single-use waste.

The lid is the part people tend to underrate. It arrives pre-vented, so there is no drilling, melting or fiddling before you can use it. Open the box, add substrate, and you are ready to keep. The hinge sits across the middle, so the lid opens from either end. That sounds minor until you are feeding a quick Porcellio colony or a culture of springtails, when opening just one half lets you drop food in or lift a hide without the whole lot making a break for the edge.

On size, three litres lands in a sensible middle ground, roomier than a cramped pot but smaller than a full vivarium, which makes it my default for starter and mid-sized colonies. Most isopods settle in happily, from Armadillidium such as zebras to the everyday Porcellio like dairy cows and powder oranges, along with entry-level Cubaris that want a decent depth of substrate to burrow into. Filling it a third to halfway leaves plenty of headroom. Springtails do especially well, since they are surface-active rather than climbers and appreciate the wide floor, and the hinged lid makes scooping out a seed culture quick and tidy. Young millipedes, small roach colonies, mantis nymphs and spiderlings all pass through 3L tubs on their way to something larger.

Stacking is where the design earns its keep. The tubs are shaped so a stack does not seal off the vents beneath it, which means you can run five or ten colonies in the footprint of one and still keep the airflow. On dedicated shelving, with each tub labelled by species and date, a sizeable collection stays organised without sprawling across the whole room.

A couple of honest caveats. The standard vents are sized for airflow, so the very smallest mancae and springtails can slip through, and for prolific tiny species you may want to reduce the openings. Drier Mediterranean species often prefer extra cross-ventilation, while high-humidity Cubaris do better with some vents covered. Once a colony climbs into the hundreds, or a millipede reaches adult size, it is time to move up to something larger rather than force the issue.

Common questions

How much substrate should I add? Roughly a third to half the depth for most isopods, a little more for burrowing Cubaris and less for springtail cultures.

Do I need to add ventilation myself? No. The lid is pre-vented and works as it comes for most species. You are more likely to be closing vents down for humidity than opening them up.

Can I stack them straight away? Yes. They are designed to stack without blocking the vents, so colony shelving works from the very first tub.

For the bits that turn a bare tub into a working setup, from substrate and leaf litter to calcium and food, have a browse through the accessories collection. Start with one, and I would be surprised if it stayed the only tub on your shelf for long.