# pearl springs



## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

just wondering whats happened to the pearl springs i sent out. i havent really heard from anyone on successes or failures. so i'm interested to hear or see whats happening with them. i sent out and delivered at least 10 cultures and will probably be offering more soon, so it would be nice to get some feedack from others culturing them.

james


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

hey James, I was extremely slow in getting mine to do anything as some of my cultures got contaminated with what I believe were Phorid flies. Unfortunately, your Pearls were one of them. I had a very busy summer and as such, have only just recently gotten them cleaned up. So while I do still have them in my bug collection, I'm afraid I haven't been able to build them into much so far. I did split them once to get them into another pair of hands.


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

thanks for the quick reply doug. if you need clean starters again let me know and ill send them for postage.

these things have been completely bulletproof for me, and the mother CX even survived sub freezing temps when they were accidentally left in a car overnight, that combined with their ability to reproduce quickly has made me wonder why i havent seen more of them around the boards.

james


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## tclipse (Sep 19, 2009)

James, I think I have these as well, they showed up in a couple of my vivs so I tried my hand at culturing them. 

Mine look like these- based on your descriptions in the other thread they sound the same (though if they are the same, I've seen pictures of them in old threads from pre-2007 so I don't think they're actually new to the hobby... Randy/dartsami has at least one pic of them as well).... I believe these are what people were calling "temperate silvers," while the tomocerus were "temperate blacks"











They've been doing really well with my charcoal setup, except that they seemed to only hang out in the drier portions so I lowered the water level a bit. Not sure if these are the same, but they sounded like it. Picture credit to Mike Khadavi, caption was "Received as 'silver' springtails (a temperate variety)"


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

these are NOT the silvers that have been around or awhile (they are much, much smaller. < 1/2 of the size of whites) while i dont doubt others have some pearls in tanks as unintentional viv occupants, i have seen no evidence that these were cultured prior to my attempts. the fact that you culture them on charcoal, alone, leads me to believe we are talking about different sp.. ive tried on several occasions to culture the pearls on charcoal, as did my former roommate, with NO success (cultures crashed immediately). conditions were the same as those used with great success for whites. 

anyway, its sort of an off topic discussion since i was trying specifically to get feedback from those i sent out cultures to, or people who have gotten cultures split from the ones i sent out, and not start a discussion on the possibility of other un-IDs being pearls. although i do appreciate your input. 

james


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Hi James ,
Can you put me on the list for them when you ship out your next batch,unfortunately I just missed out on them the last time around.
Thanks,Lou


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

When I moved I dumped the culture into my mixed isopod culture to cut down on the number of tubs I had to pack and move. They are doing well in a madrone bark/ coco chunk/ live oak substrate and I just feed veggie scraps and some yeast. I would be interested in another pure culture when you have more


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## poison beauties (Mar 1, 2010)

These pearl springs sound very interesting. Would love to try them out and see how they do.

Michael


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

poison beauties said:


> These pearl springs sound very interesting. Would love to try them out and see how they do.
> 
> Michael


the second mother CX is for you. PM me and we'll get it sorted. 

james


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi James,

they did great for me initially but when I moved the springs up to a larger culture, it crashed. Before they crashed they had achieved a really high density. I'm not entirely sure the reason it crashed but I suspect insufficient air ventilation (as the Folsomia in another room in the same type of container are still going strong). I would love to try and get them going again. 

Ed


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## mordoria (Jan 28, 2011)

Id love to get on this round of testing. A fresh culture would be nice to work with.


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## tclipse (Sep 19, 2009)

james67 said:


> these are NOT the silvers that have been around or awhile (they are much, much smaller. < 1/2 of the size of whites) while i dont doubt others have some pearls in tanks as unintentional viv occupants, i have seen no evidence that these were cultured prior to my attempts. the fact that you culture them on charcoal, alone, leads me to believe we are talking about different sp.. ive tried on several occasions to culture the pearls on charcoal, as did my former roommate, with NO success (cultures crashed immediately). conditions were the same as those used with great success for whites.
> 
> anyway, its sort of an off topic discussion since i was trying specifically to get feedback from those i sent out cultures to, or people who have gotten cultures split from the ones i sent out, and not start a discussion on the possibility of other un-IDs being pearls. although i do appreciate your input.
> 
> james


Yep, sounds just like them (the ones listed as "silver temperate" in this picture)-









I'll shoot you a PM to avoid getting further off topic.


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Grea comparison pic!!


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## tclipse (Sep 19, 2009)

frogparty said:


> Grea comparison pic!!


Thanks, but I'm going to start a separate ID thread in the interest of not derailing the thread further per OP's original request. Pic credit to Randy/dartsami.


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