Cultivating springtails ?

[Ultum4Spiderz]

occasionally I find them swimming around in tarantula water dishes but how do you remove them and cultivate them so you have significantly more??
I need some for dubia cages too .

 

[sasker]

Take a small plastic container with no ventilation, put moist garden soil (no additives) in the box, empty the water dish plus springtails into the box with soil, and you are done. You can feed them with all kinds of stuff. Some put boiled grains of rice in as food. These will start to become fuzzy with fungi, which is what the springtails eat. I use food for gold fish (the flakes, but any fishfood would do). Open the box regularly, because there is no ventilation. I hope this helps

 

[basement pets]

I don't know how to remove them but Aquarimax a has a great vid on culturing them. here

 

[BepopCola]

Take a small plastic container with no ventilation, put moist garden soil (no additives) in the box, empty the water dish plus springtails into the box with soil, and you are done. You can feed them with all kinds of stuff. Some put boiled grains of rice in as food. These will start to become fuzzy with fungi, which is what the springtails eat. I use food for gold fish (the flakes, but any fishfood would do). Open the box regularly, because there is no ventilation. I hope this helps

I like this method cuz I don't know what to do if the water gets nasty in the water+charcoal method.
You can keep a piece of cork flat/wood on the soil. The springtails will congregate under there, and then you can take out the cork flat and shake it off in a new enclosure.

 

[sasker]

I think the charcoal-water method is popular among poison dart frog keepers as it allows them to toss the springtails with the water into the vivarium as food. Water doesn't get nasty this way either. But if you just want to keep a colony going for bio-active setups, a box with soil is enough and much easier.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Take a small plastic container with no ventilation, put moist garden soil (no additives) in the box, empty the water dish plus springtails into the box with soil, and you are done. You can feed them with all kinds of stuff. Some put boiled grains of rice in as food. These will start to become fuzzy with fungi, which is what the springtails eat. I use food for gold fish (the flakes, but any fishfood would do). Open the box regularly, because there is no ventilation. I hope this helps

How do they breathe no vents ? Old thread but I’m considering catching springtails again next outbreak I get .

 

[sasker]

How do they breathe no vents ?

That's why you open the box regularly. They won't use up all the oxygen that quickly, so opening the box once every few days should be enough.

 

[DerGraf]

Springtails are adapted to low-oxygen environments, that's why it's okay to only vent a box regularly. You can put ventilation holes in, they just tend to escape through even the smallest holes.