Springtails and isopods

ThatSquareChick

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
21
I’ve got quite a few enclosures with false bottoms and soil substrate, I got some springtails and isopods after reading they can be beneficial to a living enclosure like the ones jumping spiders live in.

I’ve read some about a vivarium-type of enclosure with living plants and living “soil” with microcreatures but I’m limited to these weird candy/cracker jars I modified for the time being.
0A70678C-403B-42AE-8521-86ED2DE5728D.jpeg 070037C9-5EC4-4043-8EED-1687373292D9.jpeg 9C10837C-C35F-443E-A27F-C2FD1C92B2F1.jpeg So, I’m wondering how “many” springtails and how to feed them so they don’t starve the first few weeks and how many isopods should I put in each? I got some leaf litter for the isopods to gnaw on but I’m really curious about the springtails. Do I just chuck in a couple grains of rice and hope for the best or can I use powdered baby rice cereal mixed into a bit of damp soil?
I’m really enjoying learning and watching each type of creature involved with spider keeping and I want to do small cultures of each type because I live in a place where I can’t have live animals shipped during winter. I want to do springtails, flightless melanogastors and hydeis and small crickets.

Any ideas for how to keep my spiderariums healthy for everyone involved? I’d love to hear what everyone does as a tank setup for jumpers, they’re so neat to watch and cute lil buggers to boot.
 

Albireo Wulfbooper

Arachnoprince
Joined
Aug 1, 2019
Messages
1,606
springtails will eat mould and organic detritus - you can mix in some crumbled dried leaves. You don't really need to "feed" them per se.
 

ThatSquareChick

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
21
springtails will eat mould and organic detritus - you can mix in some crumbled dried leaves. You don't really need to "feed" them per se.
Thanks! just went out this morning by the river and collected some fresh pincushion moss to replace the preserved moss that just keeps molding up. Hopefully it takes and I’ll get an even better mini ecosystem set up. I’m fully aware I’ll have to actually feed the spiders so I’m trying to set up cultures for teeny flies and crickets. I just don’t like mealworms for some reason, they don’t creep me out or anything I just can’t get my wild spoods to eat them. They wriggle and move and the spids are like “wtf, is that a bigass roly-poly? I’m not even.” They seem to prefer flying and jumping prey.
 

ThatSquareChick

Arachnopeon
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
21
I do!

outside my house is a stone wall that collected Armadillidium vulgare isopods and some Porcellio spinicornis, now, some of them live in tubs in my nice, warm house. They get lots of leaves, dead crickets, shed exoskeletons of other invertebrates I own, they have sphagnum moss that I keep moist on one side and a dry side with lots of soil and loose rocks to burrow in.

The actual roly-polies, the AVs, they’ve bred already, either that or I’ve got some dwarf whites that I didn’t know about. I can see the itty-bitties roaming around and making use of all the hides scattered around. Whenever I set up a terrarium now, I can just throw a couple from the boxes in there.
The porcellios, they move too fast for me to keep real track of, I’m really just keeping them for when spring rolls around and then doubling my Vulgares. They climb voraciously and eat old webbing, even if the spood is still in it! They can just sit and hang out on a branch next to a nest for hours and scare a timid spode into staying inside and dying of dehydration. They are super cool and really pretty but they’re too aggressive.
 

Smotzer

ArachnoGod
Arachnosupporter +
Joined
Jan 17, 2020
Messages
5,275
Springtails will feed off the fecal matter and organic detritus in the soil you do not need to feed them anything. Just add decomposing wood and leaves for the isopods and the springtails will live on just fine and will self regulate.

Beware that Armadillidium vulagre will eat any living plant material that you put in there, I have tried to make sealed ecosystems and enclosures with live plants and Armadillidium vulgare and any Armadillidium species and it is a no go they will devour any living plants as well they are not strict detritivores.
 
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