# New springtail food



## ian (Dec 25, 2006)

Lately I've been trying to find a new way to get my spring's to multiply. I've done rice, fish flakes, yeast, algae wafers and everything else possibly mentioned. While putting in my last round of feeding, I had an epiphany. Surrounding my springtail cultures were dog treats. I figured what the heck. After crumbling up some of the bone, I sprinkled it into the containers. BOOM!! It's been a week and now I have too many springtails. I'm putting them in every tank I have just to thin out my cultures. Give it a try and see what results you get.

Ian


----------



## pigeonsaregrand (Jul 31, 2008)

Good to know, I'll have to try that- What brand (if that makes a difference)?

Ryan


----------



## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

I'm babysitting a friend's cat in-house, dry cat food should work the same?


----------



## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

ChrisK said:


> I'm babysitting a friend's cat in-house, dry cat food should work the same?


Not quite, Cat food is really high in Sodium while dog food is really high in protein so i would be careful what you gut load with.


----------



## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Oops (as i pick moist cat food out of the springtail culture..)


----------



## carbonetc (Oct 13, 2008)

Julio said:


> Not quite, Cat food is really high in Sodium while dog food is really high in protein so i would be careful what you gut load with.


I remember back when I had a ferret they'd say you could feed one cat food but not dog food. Cat food was rich in animal proteins while dog food was rich in vegetable proteins.

I have no idea which would be more beneficial to a springtail or a frog, but, more information for the pile.


----------



## SmallScaleDan (Nov 16, 2008)

Try mushrooms. That is a natural food for springtails. I started my springtail cultures years ago from wild springtail on the Morel mushrooms I found while mushroom hunting. They love morels, but will eat the less expensive ones as well. 

DAN


----------



## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Julio said:


> Not quite, Cat food is really high in Sodium while dog food is really high in protein so i would be careful what you gut load with.


 
LOL....I'm sorry Julio.

Had a funny image of a gut-loaded springtail...


----------



## holidayhanson (Apr 25, 2007)

Morels should only be eaten by humans. Too good for springs.


----------



## srrrio (May 12, 2007)

ChrisK said:


> Oops (as i pick moist cat food out of the springtail culture..)


At times I feel I lack a sense of humor - however that got me giggling 

and Holiday .. I so agree. The idea of morels umm so so good.


----------



## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

Philsuma said:


> LOL....I'm sorry Julio.
> 
> Had a funny image of a gut-loaded springtail...


I know it might be amusing to you, but if you feed a frog too much termites it will develop liver disease from what the vet at the zoo told me, when it happened to a few of the frogs in the collection, So what do you think would happen if you feed your springs dog food? try it and let me know.


----------



## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

So the dog treats are bad for the springtails too?


----------



## frogsanddogs (Jun 21, 2008)

Could Julio or someone please clarify? Are both dog and cat food bad to feed to the springs then? I was very excited to find this thread as I have tried all of the regular springtail feeders, but my froglets are eating them as fast as I can culture them, so anything that would make them go quicker would be great... but I don't want to do anything that would be harmful to the frogs of course... I was going to try this, but want to clarify first if this is safe and if so, dog food, cat food, dog treats or none of it?
I read someone else's recent suggestion of avacado & have bought one... just waiting for it to soften sufficiently to feed my cultures... so might as well make sure now too... is that one safe?


----------



## Jeremiah (Mar 1, 2008)

Everyweek I buy a cucumber to make a cuc sandwich (delicious!). I take about a third of it for the springtail cultures and chop them up. I also use mushrooms and am going to try the avacodo next time I make guacamole.
My cultures have gotten so big I have had to divide them a number of times and now I have too many springtail cultures going  My frogs are happy campers tho.


----------



## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

I would personally not feed dog food or cat food to springs you are gonna feed your frogs, i fyou feed dog food to mice they develop tumors, cat and dgo foods are geared specially for those kinds of animals, so i doubt they are looking down the line regarding the benefits of amphibian diet.


----------



## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

The bottom line with springtails is that they are the janitors of the outside world. Anything wet that has bacteria and fungus feeding on it will make Collembola go nuts for. And the choices are literally endless.


----------



## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Julio,

Sorry for the confusion on the humor of gut loading springtails.....thats the beauty of the internet where communication is sometimes skewed.

I wasn't arguing the dog food / cat food thing.

I was chuckling at the thought of trying to gut load an animal that has the holding capacity of the tip of the point of a pin......kinda silly huh?

The term gut loading usually refers to crickets, mice and other larger food animals as they have a larger stomach capacity to benefit from this husbandry technique.

I think its been established that it's not effective to attempt to gutload FF right? The nutrient transfer is so minimal, it's why we dust them.

how about....gut loaded.....MITES!


----------



## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Yeah it could be serious enough to try and get a definite answer on, and also how long would the food actually stay in a springtail if it was bad for the frogs? I don't feed them directly to the frogs I just seed them, but if it was really that potentially dangerous for the frogs to feed dog treats to the springtails then I wouldn't use them in the culture


----------



## ian (Dec 25, 2006)

I have been using Iams milkbones. They are slightly crumbled up into smaller pieces then put in with the springs. The spring go nuts after a few days. Really blew my cultures up.


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Philsuma said:


> I was chuckling at the thought of trying to gut load an animal that has the holding capacity of the tip of the point of a pin......kinda silly huh?
> 
> The term gut loading usually refers to crickets, mice and other larger food animals as they have a larger stomach capacity to benefit from this husbandry technique.
> 
> I think its been established that it's not effective to attempt to gutload FF right? The nutrient transfer is so minimal, it's why we dust them.


Its not larger stomach capacity that is the problem, it is the transit time through the intestional track. When you are looking at gut transit time, animals that feed on liquid or primarily liquid diets have rapid transit times as they have to process a lot of liquid for the nutrients. This is why we theorize that adult ffs may not be worth attempting to gut load.. yet it is worth while gut loading pinhead crickets and new hatched crickets have a similar mass/size when compared to Drosophilia. 
The question would be whether or not the springtails are actually ingesting solid materials or are feeding on the active biofilm on the food as this would contain a significant level of moisture and may be the equivalent of a liquid diet. 

I tend to not use grain based food sources for springtails anymore as mite outbreaks were inevitable in my experience. Along with this, I no longer keep my spring tail cultures in the same area of the house as my ffs, dry ff media or other dry insect cultures as these conditions all seemed to lead to mite outbreaks. 

On a quick literature search I was not able to substantiate the discussion of dog food causing tumors in mice. Is there a citation? I have doubts about this being the case with all dog foods and it may be due to an old study looking at preservative, these studies have to be interpreted very carefullly as many substances can present a cancer risk when exposed at high levels. 

Some thoughts,

Ed


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Julio said:


> I know it might be amusing to you, but if you feed a frog too much termites it will develop liver disease from what the vet at the zoo told me, when it happened to a few of the frogs in the collection, So what do you think would happen if you feed your springs dog food? try it and let me know.


Liver disease may be caused by many things but as termites are very high in fat, and given how people feed the frogs to excess, the liver disease was in all probability due to being very overfed on a high fat diet and resulted in a non-alcohol based fatty liver. 

Ed


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

EDs Fly Meat said:


> The bottom line with springtails is that they are the janitors of the outside world. Anything wet that has bacteria and fungus feeding on it will make Collembola go nuts for. And the choices are literally endless.


This is correct and one of the main limitations is going to be on how much food is available. Typically you need to increase food availability as the culture grows otherwise you are limiting the culture. I use live yeast (baker's yeast) as the food for my cultures and the tops of the cultures are white with jumping spring tails. When I flood the culture to collect them and pour them into a large fruitfly culture container, the numbers are sufficient to make a hissing sound if you listen closely. 

Ed


----------

