New springtail transfer method...

[Jay Why]

I'm trying to seed springs in tank established already with frogs in it, and came up with what I think is a reasonable solution. Works for me at least.

I've got just a small but thriving culture, only have scraps of corkbark on top of the soil for cover. Removing the corkbark and shaking them off works mediocre - not consistant enough for me. The springs run for cover instead of sticking to the bark. (Most people use lava-rock for this method - but I haven't got any so I tried the bark.)

I hesitated to use the method of creating a pool of water in the culture and sucking the water and floating springs out because I didn't want to oversaturate the soil. (My culture is small - no room for a isolated swimming pool for springs.)

I thought I'd try an experiment and its working pretty good. I made a sealed cone from coffee filter, a couple inches tall. Put a tiny pinch of the springs soil in it (the springs will NOT go in the cone without soil to hide in)with a much greater amount of spring food. Leave in the culture overnight, and the next day the cone has got plenty of springs feeding on the food. Open your viv, find a spot to deposit about a thumbprint size cone of soil, pull out the coffee filter cone and dump it in.

I got this idea because when I open a spring culture they tend to dive into the substrate, not jump out. The cone works because when you open the culture the springs hide downward in the soil there instead of escaping out of the cone. It seems to work perfectly for me, and, the resulting spring/soil/food pile has shown to be a very attractive feeding site for days after I put it in. The first day or two my frogs just formed a circle around the pile... waiting. I'm just hoping that enough springs survive and continue to seed the tank.

Added benefit is this adds some spring food into the viv for the colony that (I hope) is doing their own thing in it. The small amount of soil you add to the viv is so little that over a couple days the humidty and spraying just melt it down into the substrate.

Jay

[c'est ma]

Nice idea! Think I'll try this.

[thong_monster]

Thanks for the great idea Jay!

I gave this a try and got great results, but instead of adding some soil or coco bedding into the cone I just threw in a pre-soaked fish pellet and positioned it on the middle. Using this method, I get the most springs without all the water and extra substrate.

[Darren Meyer]

I'm using a different method that's working great . Pour the soil or part of it into a metal strainer like the kind used for cooking . Place over a plastic container used for storing food, I've got a black container so I can tell when enough sprintails have fallen in , or shake the soil in the strainer or wait for a bit . Pour directly into the tanks , sometimes I seed all of the springtails in the tank where I know some frogs like to hang out and feed so I can dust my springtails and know they are going to be eaten quickly .I'd take a few pictures to show camera's out of order.
Happy frogging ,
Darren Meyer

[merrill5]

I have had good luck with 2" by 3" corrugated cardboard pieces laid on top of the substrate, the springtails go inside the cardboard, then just take a piece out and flick it a few times, and the ones inside the cardboard fall out into the tank or container!

Gene

[Dendro Dave]

i use small terracotta flower pots in mine....like 2 inch or less diameter?

I just lay em on their sides, maybe partially in the soil...and mist the inside and put the springtail food in there and around the pot...usually they congregate inside and on the pot. The thing is you need to concentrate you food source near/on/in your transport method or else the population is to widespread to collect and feed to your frogs effectively.

I also use peices of slate with the food placed underneath....when i pick up the slate the bottom is crawling with springs...just knock/blow them into tank.

[Jay Why]

Since my tank already has frogs in it (and they do pretty good at wiping out the spring population) - I'm trying to find the best method for getting the most springs in the tank so they might have a chance of establishing.

Darren - your method looks like it gets a large number of springs with little substrate. I'm gonna' give that a shot also.

Live and learn though - my next tank I'm going to heavily seed with springs long before I put frogs in.

[kyle1745]

This is why I use charcoal and then flood and spoon out what I need as it is easy to drain off any extra water.

i usually just use oak leaves. ive used the charcoal and siphon method, just knocking charcoal together, done the same wiht slate. i like the cardboard idea, but i think for now ill stick with oak leaves.

what i normally do is have oak leaves on the surface of the soil in my cultures. i usually dust them with vitamins, FF media, or fish food (sometimes all three). whenever i want to feed i just grab a few leaves and toss them in.

im constantly adding leaves to the tanks anyway, so why not have them covered in springtails. the frogs love the added bonus of leaves in their tank. and, in any tank ive had a large population of microfauna, it was mainly in the leaf litter.