# New springtails?



## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Well, was at work today ( a resturaunt) and was doing some minor plumbing repairs. When I removed a drain clean out "bung" the inside of the pipe was teeming with springtails. They are small, and they may very well just be temperates. Since I cant very well just reach in and pull them out, I will (I think) drop in a slice of banana on a string and let it sit there for an hour or two before I pull it out. Then I'll examine them closely to determine if they're just temperates, or maybe something different. Likely different since there ae thousands of species of sprigntails out there.


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

There are so many.....they'll likely be something different. I have a large green springtail similar to Tomocereus that lives in my large bromeliads out on my porch that I need to get around to culturing one of these days


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

very cool. I keep my eyes open. Ideally I'd like to find somethign as large or larger than pink's (sinella). But I think those will all be tropical varieties


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Nah, the largest Ive eve seen are temperate. Larger by a long shot


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Tomocerus, sometimes called Giant Black Springtails, or Giant Silvers, are temperate rather than tropical. To the best of my knowledge, they are the biggest springtails in the hobby.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

How are your cultures of the tomocerus going Doug? I spent some time yesterday dangling muchshroom and yeasty dough in that pipe and collected enough springs to start a culture, left them in a 4 ouce deli cup with some muchrooms on the counter when I got home from work....Dad saw the cup, threw it in the freezer. Dead bugs. So....now I get to do that ALL OVER AGAIN on Wednesday.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Tomocerus are more difficult to culture than other springtails. I quit working with them as customer after customer reported crashing the colony. 
Some people do OK with them but there may be something missing for Tomocerus. Perhaps they need a source of calcium? It's also possible they may need substrate changes after a few months. A lot of people report crashes right after they get booming for the first time. 
In my own vivs, I discovered that Tomocerus established very nicely in vivs with a lot of cork bark or tree fern panels. After 3 or 6 months, however, they disappeared, while my tropical pinks and my temperate silvers, have firmly established themselves. 
Now that I finally have clean cultures of temperate silvers, I am becoming more impressed with them. Pinks and then Silvers have become my favorites.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

How big are the silvers compared to the pinks?


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

The temperate silvers I have are smaller than pinks. Close in size to temperate whites, but maybe even a touch shorter.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Was able to get enough of these springtails to start a small 2 ounce culture. I'm gonna set up 2-3 more if i can get enough. Obviously they are temperate then....but they appear different than the small temperate whites, and the pinks. Very active. Hopefully they flourish. I'll spread them around dependign on how well they do.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Welll I was able to get 8-10 springs of this species...keeping them in a 4 ounce deli cup untill I start to get some population expansion. It looks promising. They do not appear to be either species I am currently working with.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Should you be successful, may I ask where the first culture is going?


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Of course you may ask Doug! But you should already know the answer to that question. ;-)


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## dartfanatic (Sep 24, 2012)

pdfCrazy said:


> Well, was at work today ( a resturaunt) and was doing some minor plumbing repairs. When I removed a drain clean out "bung" the inside of the pipe was teeming with springtails. They are small, and they may very well just be temperates. Since I cant very well just reach in and pull them out, I will (I think) drop in a slice of banana on a string and let it sit there for an hour or two before I pull it out. Then I'll examine them closely to determine if they're just temperates, or maybe something different. Likely different since there ae thousands of species of sprigntails out there.


I've got red and yellow micropods, a grey looking tropical bodied type, platinum and silver springtails from just a couple times looking around my house.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

There are springtails that glow in the dark in Europe and Australia at least...not sure about N. America...I only found one guy with access to them and he wasn't selling cultures ;(


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Nice, so your frogs can track them down witht he lights off!


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

pdfCrazy said:


> Nice, so your frogs can track them down witht he lights off!


Nah, Dave wants them for shock value. His frogs already have headlights!  http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...nic-pets-plants-glowing-frogs-especially.html
(Dave hasn't really done this...yet?)


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Pumilo said:


> Nah, Dave wants them for shock value. His frogs already have headlights!  http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...nic-pets-plants-glowing-frogs-especially.html
> (Dave hasn't really done this...yet?)


LOL, no that project is on the back burner for now...I don't have the cash or the connections I might need to get some of the reagents and stuff...It was kinda fuzzy during research whether or not all the stuff I'd need was available to private citizens. It looked fairly doable though to do it at home, if you could get the stuff (bribe a professor, or grad student) and had a few thousand bucks.

As for the springtails, I just think they would be cool to have...and I don't remember reading anything about them being toxic....might be they are to small that the chemicals would bother the frog.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

And.....they are reproducing!


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## clifford (Oct 17, 2008)

pdfCrazy said:


> And.....they are reproducing!


Would like to hear if this pans out. My experience has been similar to Doug's. I collect tomo's, they start to reproduce in about two weeks, and I see hundreds of offspring. In about another two weeks the entire population is wiped out. 

My local isos have done much better.


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## pdfCrazy (Feb 28, 2012)

Well, they are in just a 2 ounce deli cup with mostly crushed leaf litter and a little ABG. I feed brewers yeast sparingly. Went from 7-8 bugs to maybe 50-60 in there so far. A few more weeks and I will put them in an 6-16 ounce deli cup to give them some space to grow out the population without putting stress on them by constantly movign them. If I move them to early without enough population, I find the "colony" can peter out and die. Keeping them in medium to high population densities seems to be a good thing for most springtail species.


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