Critters
Little sea isopod
Cubaris murina
Closed jar onlyGrazes plants
A small tropical roller, slow to breed. Shreds litter quietly.
What the simulation uses
- Eats litter
- 1.5 mg/day each
- Dead leaves one animal shreds a day, turning them back into soil.
- Eats mould
- 0.2 mg/day each
- Mould one animal grazes a day, keeping fuzz and grey mould down.
- Colony at most
- 400 per m²
- How many the floor can feed when food is plentiful; less food, fewer.
- Starving loses
- 2 % a day
- How fast a colony thins when the jar cannot feed it.
- Eats
- decaying plant, leaf litter, rotting wood, fungi, frass, animal waste
- Foods it lives on; the jar feeds it from whichever of these it has.
- Humidity
- 70 to 95 % RH
- Air moisture it needs.
- Temperature
- 21 to 29 °C
- Comfortable range; beyond it the colony suffers.
- Doubles in
- 90 days
- Time for the colony to double with plenty of food.
- Lives
- 912.5 days
- How long one animal lives.
Care
- Size
- 6 to 11 mm
- Moisture
- Moist
What kills it
- substrate drying
- temps below ~18 C
- stagnant waterlogged substrate
Description
Growing to about 1 cm, it is a favourite in tropical bioactive setups. It is gentle on plants, so it suits a planted jar. Keep it above about 18 °C, with soil that is damp but not waterlogged.
Also called little sea, Cubaris 'Little Sea'.
Estimated, where sources were thin: breeding (all fields); lifespan_days; temp_c; humidity_rh_pct; diet specifics.