Spring Tails?

[ReptiMike]

Ok so I ordered a spring tail culture about a week ago. I moved the reptibark and placed the culture soil/cypress chips on top of the soil. Gave them the yeast (food) for the first 4 days and then I covered everything back up with reptibark. I put the yeast on there once 2 days ago and then again today.
But how do I know when there is a a full colony going with these guys?
Also I only put like 3 pinches in the tank at time.

I will be adding some woodlouses once NE Herps gets some in, but they are currently sold out.

Mist once a day and humidity with top closed stays at around 80% at all times. Normally let it dry out over night. Working on adding more mesh to lower it down a bit. Trying to keep it around 60-70% at all times with no misting and misting will bring it up for a bit.

[lennart]

You don't have do worry one secound about Springtails. It would be fairly enough to put 3 of them into the enclosure and just let it go. They don't need any care, it takes a few days or weeks until their Population is going up but from then on, they are everywhere. Just let them be there, they eat everything they can find. A naturalistic Setup is, anyhow, the best Solution for having them in. I have loads of mud and bark and moss and leaves from the forest in the enclosures and they eat it when it rots. Within time, you get a perfect, rotten substrate that is much like the natural one. In german we call it humus, don't know how you're naming it. Smells very good and natural (like digging in the woods..) and has not to be cleaned. You could easily leave the substrate like that for Years, just add some new organic stuff on top so the microorganism have something to eat.

This is the average turned around Piece of Bark in one of my enclosures:







Best, Lennart

[pakinjak]

Lennart is right on, as usual.

I'd say just go turn over a rock in NC and you'll have more roly-poly's than you want. If you feel iffy about it, don't use the WC in your tanks. You can put them in a little tub and feed them and you'll have F1's in no time for free. Those things are everywhere in NC... I grew up there. Here in New England I still got my pillbug starters from under a rock.

You could also just go to a nursery and buy a potted plant. They'll have springtails in the dirt. You pretty much can't get rid of them if you want.

[lennart]

Originally Posted by pakinjak

If you feel iffy about it, don't use the WC in your tanks. You can put them in a little tub and feed them and you'll have F1's in no time for free.

Differenciating between the WC parents and F1 offspring in a bowl of 200+ Springtails that are under 1mm of size might outgrow the Time you spend on Husbandry of your Geckos by far

[Dragoon189]

not as hard with isopods though

[pakinjak]

Originally Posted by lennart

Differenciating between the WC parents and F1 offspring in a bowl of 200+ Springtails that are under 1mm of size might outgrow the Time you spend on Husbandry of your Geckos by far

Very true. I was speaking of the isopods though. It is funny to imagine trying that with springtails!

[lennart]

Oh, sorry. Didn't get that roly-poly stuff, still not my mother tongue

[pakinjak]

No worries mate. Where I grew up in the southern US, they're called pillbugs, but more often roly-poly's. They're everywhere, and since getting into herps I've always wondered why people buy them. Perhaps it's something to do with the sterile environment mania and them just being picked up in the yard. Maybe it would be different if I kept different species, but a lot of my Uroplatus are WC, so they've already been exposed to worse things than an isopod could give them.

[lennart]

Agreed. Mine come out of bark that i use to collect in the woods, but can be also found in every german basement
I don't see any problems with using setups that contain wc organisms and e.g. unsterilized branches. But different people different opinions.

My Chondrodactylus turneri are wild caught aswell and, to be honest, they are mean as f*ck. Never seen a Gecko of that size (~7-8 inches) fight that hard.


Lennart

[ReptiMike]

I don't have any leaf litter or anything like that. I have the a layer of organic soil and topsoil and then on top reptibark.
Am I going to be still ok with that?