Help needed in havesting Springtails

I have no problems breeding, feeding, watering, or housing my Springtails - and the culture has really blossomed lately. I wanted to know what is the best way to harvest the Springtails from my large culture (in a shoe box with dirt) so I can add them to my mantis nymph cups and other habitats?

I originally bought a half height deli cup (12oz?) of Springtails from Chris at CocoHutDartFrogs.com. Using the deli cup to harvest them I was told to simply take off the lid and pour out some water, with Springtails, into where I wanted them. That works fine for the deli cup as it is just water and charcoal, but would be near impossible to do with my large shoe box culture filled with dirt.

So any ideas on how I can use this large culture would be helpful. As it seems now it is nothing more than "pets".

I kept my original culture in the deli cup, but spread them slowly into my cricket tank, some habitats, and the shoe box awhile ago. I now use it as a backup in case my large culture fails. I just add water occasionally and some of my dry cricket food.

The large culture is in a plastic shoe box with a tight lid. It is a semi-transparent blue which seems to help block the light allowing them to thrive - I use my pen flashlight to shine light to see inside. The 2" layer of dirt inside is a 50/50 mix of top soil and coconut fiber (Plantation soil). I occasionally add water as needed, some vegetables like lettuce, and some of my dry cricket food. They seem to not touch the food until it begins to decay then they devour it.

I am including some photos to show my Springtail cultures. The fourth photo is a animated GIF I made from two images, taken only about 5 seconds apart, to show the Springtail movement giving you a better idea of how many are in the box.

Id suggest flooding the container so it has water sitting over the substrate,than use some mesh screen to pour thru should send the springtails thru the mesh while holding the substrate back.This is merely a suggestion,I have springtails,but they are in charcoal and water.

dwalls247 said:

Id suggest flooding the container so it has water sitting over the substrate,than use some mesh screen to pour thru should send the springtails thru the mesh while holding the substrate back.This is merely a suggestion,I have springtails,but they are in charcoal and water.

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Alright thanks. I read that they do better in the 50/50 mix of dirt/coconut so I tried it and they really are flourishing - making my deli cup with charcoal look empty by comparison. I just can't remember how they harvested them in the article.

Mine breed quite well in the charcoal,I started with one small culture of temperate whites and now I have 5 cultures going strong.I also feed out of the containers 2-3 times a week,and they keep multiplying.

Some people put in a leaf or something for them to grab onto and then they throw it in the mantis cage.

You could always use a little plastic container to scoop out some of the substrate and then do the flooding method on a small scale. Personally I would just place a sliver of fresh squash in your cage. The springtails in my roach bin love squash. All you would have to do then is pick it up and flick it a couple times to knock all the ones you collected off into whatever container you want.

Thanks for the responses. I did some more searching but have no idea where the original post is describing the setup I made from it. I think it mentioned something about glass to harvest them, but have no idea.

I went ahead and lightly flooded the shoe box, when it is at a incline. Then I used a eyedropper to suck up the springtails and simply used it to "spray" the springtails into my nymph cups through the feeder holes. It worked much better than I would have expected - I kept thinking the dirt mix would get in the way but no problem. i feel silly for not trying it sooner, but I didn't want to hurt the culture.

I was able to add a small culture to all my nymph cups (nearly 50) from the shoe box culture itself, and then added some to the deli cup too. Seems there are plenty left to spare, enough to do it all again, looking at what is left. I have another plastic shoe box I have been waiting to see how to harvest them before making a new culture with it, so I will make a new one too.

I had some tree fern panels lying around and I've been using pieces of it for my springtail cultures.

They'll live inside it and all I have to do during feeding is pick a piece up and gently tap it to get some out--no tedious process of separating springtails from substrate required!

Question... With such a small enclosure I have 8x8x11 would I still need to harvest my own or could I just but some in the enclosure and let nature do the rest?!?!

Springtails will naturally travel to the bottom of the enclosure and hide where there's moisture, so they will not be out in the open very frequently. They're only frequently on the surface if there is food or if they're kept in high humidity. If you are feeding something that comes to the bottom of the enclosure to hunt that also does not require a great deal of food, you could just put them in the enclosure and culture them there. Otherwise, you will need to have additional cultures so that you can have springtails to place directly in front of what you're feeding or to add more springtails to what should be a decreasing population that's being predated on.

Indeed as Ranitomeya says you will need to culture them separately otherwise they will die off typically in a mantis habitat, or will be in such small numbers in a few weeks (at most) they will have minimal affect in cleaning.

If you do a deli cup or plastic shoebox culture of them keeping them moist (the lid on) and fed with various vegetable scraps, and just about anything else that is food (dry dog/cat/rabbit/etc) they will build monstrous populations once the food starts to decay/mold. At most I spend maybe 5-7 minutes a week on my springtail cultures to keep their numbers high.

To harvest them I just tilt the culture slightly to one side, and spray with water till springtails are floating. Then using a eye dropper suck up the floating springtails and then squeeze them into mantis tanks.

Thanks @Ranitomeya and @CosbyArt I can probably do a small culture... Especially if it will help Triple OG live a healthy life... If u guys have links to keeping them in something very small and kinda out the way I'd appreciate it... As much as I love my Mantis I really don't want or have the room to start a bug farm lol

@BigDazz Your welcome. For a small culture it doesn't get any smaller than a deli cup in my above photo. That one uses charcoal and water only, then just add springtails. Although, I've found if they are placed in potting soil and fed various vegetable scraps or just about anything else that is food (dry dog/cat/rabbit/etc) they will reproduce much faster and have bigger populations vs the charcoal setup. So if you want to give that a go just add the soil to a deli cup instead of the charcoal and add some food.

If you do a deli cup culture just open the lid every 3 days or so to allow the air to exchange, and release the excess humidity, otherwise they will eventually run out of air.

Gotcha!!! 

I have pieces of bark in the cage which I hold over whatever I want them to go into and blow them off with a puff of air. 

They are the easiest to raise as long as u feed them, I sometime ignore them and months later they are still there.

I made a mix of fish food and yeast and other items, now I sprinkle it in the containers once or twice a week and'

they are so many in the container it is easy to feed off without worrying if they will be enough to share. Crosby, your

picts are great.

@hibiscusmile Mind sharing he full concoction... I'd appreciate it! 

I keep that to myself. But just use anything that will mold quickly, it's easy to raise them with most food. Sorry, but I

have a full time business that needs some secrets.

hibiscusmile said:

They are the easiest to raise as long as u feed them, I sometime ignore them and months later they are still there.

I made a mix of fish food and yeast and other items, now I sprinkle it in the containers once or twice a week and'

they are so many in the container it is easy to feed off without worrying if they will be enough to share. Crosby, your

picts are great.

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I've ignored mine at times for weeks on end with no problems too. It seems the only thing that will wipe out a culture quickly is if it dries out. Thanks, I the GIF one showing the culture moving (about 2 seconds apart) really shows them off.

BigDazz said:

@hibiscusmile Mind sharing he full concoction... I'd appreciate it! 

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One of the best things I found for them is to buy a huge bag of those cheap dry dog biscuits - like $5 for 5 pounds of them. When wet they quickly mold in just a few days time and they love it. You will need to grind up the biscuits to a powder, I use one of those magic bullet blender/grinders (but a coffee bean grinder, food processor, or blender should work great and can be got for $5-$15 at many stores (second hand from a thrift store is even better and cheaper too)). Then just sprinkle the powdered biscuits in their culture and mist with water.

If you want a recipe though (not necessary) here is the one I use for my cricket feed mix, but it works even better for springtails.

- Mix ingredients by volume, not weight. I used a 1/2 cup scoop but adjust size for more or less feed.
- All ingredients were ground into powder by a fine blade food processor or coffee grinder - then thoroughly mixed.

• x4 Dry cat food (Friskies)
  
• x3 Oats
  
• x1 Mashed potato flakes
  
• x2 Powdered milk
  
• x5 Dog biscuits (Milk Bone small dog sized)
  
• x1 Flour
  
• x2 White rice
  
• 1/2 oz ReptoMin Baby turtle feed (floating food pellets - fish/Goldfish flakes would work just as well)
  

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