# Food for springtails?



## dawkinsj (Apr 17, 2006)

Need some help on this one. I have always been feeding FF's to my frogs and with my tadpole and juvi froglet population booming I am needing to feed springtails. I have always had cultures, but they never seemed to really take off. I do the normal routine, mist culture to keep it damp, open a few times a week for fresh air, but I feel that it is the food that is limiting my production. I have currently been placing white rice as well as oatmeal in the culture weekly/bi-weekly with not much success. Any recommendations on a better food for the springtails? Can you feed them too much?

Thanks!


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## Compi (May 1, 2006)

I got one culture and i feed them with tropical fish food. They seem to be doing fine, since they seem to be multiplicating since i bought them. I give them more food when i cant find any left. Say like 2 times per week.


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

Too much food and lack of ventilation will lead to CO2 buildup and sleeping of springtails.

Try cucumber peels.


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## kj (Jan 15, 2006)

Try readybrek :wink:


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

I use rice, but with some of the recent topics on them I maybe looking for some more nutritious items.


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## rozdaboff (Feb 27, 2005)

I get excellent yields of springtails by using cricket gutload as their food source. It is a high quality gutload, so even if only a small percentage of the nutrients are getting inside the springtails, it should be beneficial.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Ed's Fly Meat makes springtail food, tho I haven't tried it. I personally use fish flakes, and have heard teh cucumber peels help with booms, but there have been a number of threads that generally showed that the substrate and food was more the preference of the person culturing them rather than what has them produce more....

... getting really good production comes with how much and how often you feed them. How many times a week are you feeding the cultures? I'm up to 3 times a week feeding all my cultures (each time enough that the fish flakes are gone by the time of next feeding), the production is crazy, and I'm feeding my thumbnails and froglets almost exclusively springtails as I have so much lol. 

Increasing the frequency of feeding the culture will cause the present adults to breed like crazy, and then you continue to feed at that rate to sustain the new springtails, slightly increasing the feeding as they grow. For max booming you'll want to feed soon after the last meal has disapeared. Do not feed if there is still food left over from last time.

Opening them up daily or every other day to check their food will also help with the CO2 problem if you are worried about it.

As for gutload... I guess you have to think about what the springtails are eating... are they eating the actual stuff we put in the containers... or the fungus that grows and breaks down the items we put in there (in which gutloading isn't exactly what's occuring, unless we give them a variety of fungus to eat).


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## stchupa (Apr 25, 2006)

Revitalize the substrate in the cultures by adding a very small amount of dendro care or similar product (small being a pinch or less in a 12oz. culture) and mix it in. 
If you suspect it to already be exhausted, exchange the springtail into a freshly started culture (e.i. coco w/half as much added supplement as indicated with an established culture, mixed when moist.)
All cultures will eventually at some point (sometimes not for many years) fail when the micronutrients in the soil become depleted.
If you have any left over algae (they seem to perfer live over powdered) or any other tadpole foods that have passed expiration)
Hold off on the spirulina or at least use very sparingly as this will increase the salt level. But is always great to start with in new cultures as it replenishes what's allready missing.
Whole seed buckwheat seems to be one their favorites, as with most every other feeder insect.


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