How many springtails is too many?

[Cavedweller]

The springtail population in two of my tanks has exploded lately. They also climb on my millipedes, and I'll often see a dozen hitchhikers on a pede at a time. Do you think this could be stressing out my millipedes?

I want to move some of the springtails from the heavily populated tanks into the new tanks I just set up (gonna be ordering more pedes aww yis). I tried baiting them with fruit, and hoped I could just shake them off into the new tanks, but they kept running away ever time I'd try to pick up the fruit. A friend suggested putting the fruit in an open plastic bag and just picking that up. I'm gonna try this method next.

Do any of you guys have preferred springtail-wrangling methods?

 

[edgeofthefreak]

When I had an explosion of baby crickets in my with Pandinus imperator, I placed a "6-egg" egg carton in the tank for about a day. Every one of those little guys called it home and I could remove them all in one go.

I'd bet if put fruit in a darkened container, those springtails would fill it up and likely wouldn't see you when grabbing em outta the tank.

 

[Cavedweller]

Ooh that's a good idea! I'll have to try that tomorrow.

 

[Meezerkoko]

I'm not so sure about that, not all bugs are attracted to the same thing. Another thing you might be able to do is to put something good on the soil like fruit or yeast and then, instead of picking up whatever the item is, just scoop underneath the item and get a nice scoop of sub. That might yield the best results.

---------- Post added 04-25-2013 at 08:08 AM ----------

Also, I don't think there really is a quantity that is too many. Also they're so small I'm pretty sure they're not stressing out your pet.

 

[Cavedweller]

Apple worked out real well, within a day the apple slices were SWARMING with springtails. I've tried the bait + bag trick once so far, dumping springtails on the apple into the new tank worked out pretty well, except that one of my millipedes was on the apple too and very stubborn about getting off. I'll do it again in a few hours.

My main concern was just all the springtails crawling on the millipedes. I know large numbers of mites crawling on them can be stressful in some cases.

 

[3skulls]

Do you have cultures of springtails or were you lucky enough for them to pop up?
I could see a bunch of them being stressful. Would springtails feed on eggs at all? That would suck!!

 

[Cavedweller]

I sterilize everything before putting it in my pede tanks (super paranoid about parasites). I bought em from Bugsincyberspace. I did some research first and from what I found they pose no threat to millipede eggs (which is why I chose them over isopods). I'm assuming this is accurate since I've had so many Florida ivory pedelings in a tank with springtails.

 

[3skulls]

Ah, good to know.

I was checking out their site today. Window shopping for some millipedes

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

Even crazy numbers of springtails do not bother millipedes though they may make the tank look a little strange. Only the "giant" springtail is very effective (the one you have Cavedweller that eventually gets to the size of a small fruit fly) as the small species more commonly cultured for darts usually aren't capable of cleaning up much.

 

[Cavedweller]

Ok, it's good to hear that they won't bother my pedes. Man I can't imagine catching and feeding even tinier springtails to dartfrogs. I've got no idea how frog keepers do it.