# My new favourite way of culturing springtails



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Hi everyone, thought I'd share my new favourite way of culturing springtails.

My new favourite way is: don't culture them.

What I mean by this is: I keep a lot of Isopod bins, there are springtails in the vast majority of my Isopod bins. I can harvest a nearly unending supply of springtails from within my Isopod bins... How you ask? Won't you get Isopods in with the springtails when you harvest them?

There's a trick to it. A very easy trick.

Here's an example of one of my Isopod bins:









Notice the overturned condiment cup? Let's take a closer look:









Look at those springtails! Here's the cup, turned rightside up









To harvest them just take the cup over to a frog tank, turn it back over so that the springtails face the tank, tap the cup and viola, springtails easily harvested into the frog tank.

Put the cup back into the Isopod bin and it'll accumulate more springtails. Isopods don't do well at climbing smooth plastic so you ought not to have any issues with Isopods getting into the cup.

The Isopod bins outproduce my springtail-only cultures .


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

I've actually been terrible at culturing springtails and get all of them from my isopod bins.  

That condiment cup technique looks awesome though, need to try it!


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

And because the springtails are dry you can lightly dust them with supplement powder before adding them to the frog tanks...


----------



## Vargoje3 (Oct 5, 2020)

I seem to get mites real bad in my isopod tubs. Springtail numbers have really taken a nosedive. Any tricks to get rid of them or do I gotta just live with them? They are pretty fast moving and not the type you would see in ff cultures.


----------



## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Vargoje3 said:


> I seem to get mites real bad in my isopod tubs. Springtail numbers have really taken a nosedive. Any tricks to get rid of them or do I gotta just live with them? They are pretty fast moving and not the type you would see in ff cultures.


I co culture dwarf purple isopods and little kenyan roaches in the same bins now. It works fine, both species seem just as productive as when kept seperately and I've never seen mites since adding the dwarf kenyans even though I efinitely overfeed. I think maybe they eat the mites.


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Vargoje3 said:


> I seem to get mites real bad in my isopod tubs. Springtail numbers have really taken a nosedive. Any tricks to get rid of them or do I gotta just live with them? They are pretty fast moving and not the type you would see in ff cultures.


I almost never have mites in my Isopod bins. The springtails tend to outcompete the mites


----------



## eMCRay (Mar 24, 2020)

On getting springtails out of an iso culture - why not just put some yeast onto a leaf and another leaf on top and mist a bit (and in between)? Then dump that leaf sandwich into the frog tank in a day or two. Plenty of springtails in there (way more than your cup).


----------



## npaull (May 8, 2005)

Try avocado skins. You'll never use anything else.


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

eMCRay said:


> On getting springtails out of an iso culture - why not just put some yeast onto a leaf and another leaf on top and mist a bit (and in between)? Then dump that leaf sandwich into the frog tank in a day or two. Plenty of springtails in there (way more than your cup).


You could also get Isopods that way. My method doesn't get any Isopods in to the frog tanks.

Typically when I do my method of collection I get a hundred or so springtails. What was in the cup in the pictures was how many had come in over the 5 minutes after I'd collected springtails for one of my grow out bins.


----------



## eMCRay (Mar 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> You could also get Isopods that way. My method doesn't get any Isopods in to the frog tanks.
> 
> Typically when I do my method of collection I get a hundred or so springtails. What was in the cup in the pictures was how many had come in over the 5 minutes after I'd collected springtails for one of my grow out bins.


Ah - fair enough; hadn't realized you didn't want any isos! Impressive you can get that many (based on the picture seemed like that wasn't the case, but that's a good number for 5 mins).


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

eMCRay said:


> Ah - fair enough; hadn't realized you didn't want any isos! Impressive you can get that many (based on the picture seemed like that wasn't the case, but that's a good number for 5 mins).


These cups and springtails are in with my non-dwarf Isopods, so I don't want any transfered to the frog tanks .


----------



## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

This is cool. Clean - efficient using natural behavior to achieve goal.


----------

