What's this in my Springtail Culture? Look

I ran across this maybe a week ago and it puzzles me. I think it's dirt or something but I thought "How could that get in there?" I hope it won't kill my springs or anything, whatever it is.

What do you think?

See those dirst specs?


Closer


Even Closer

[UmbraSprite]

My guess is fungus feeding on whatever you are feeding the springtails...and completely normal.

[dragonfrog]

Looks more like mites or eggs to me.
Keep an eye on them. Or better yet, remove them.

Do I remove them?

[OneTwentySix]

I've got to agree with UmbraSprite. I don't know what they are for sure, but it does look a lot like fungus from what I can see. If it's fungus it should be harmless. I don't believe that that's a mite or mite egg, and even if it is, you'll never be able to remove all of them, and your culture's pretty much done in that case.

[tyler]

What are you feeding your springtails? They look like mites of some sort. I know that fishflakes attract tons of these tiny bugs that begin feeding off the food. I got rid of them by using baker's yeast and I'm still getting a "boom" from the the springs. It's kind of hard to tell by the pics because it's burned out - I'll try to get a pic of the mites to compare.

[tyler]

I really haven't had them affect the population boom from the springs. They move way too slow and only feed off of the food. Since using baker's yeast, the population of the mites has gone down some. They are a little more peachy than shown - the flash washed them out a bit.

Here they are more individual:


And here they are in the more commonly seen groups:

[dragonfrog]

Even though your photo is much better Tyler, close-up, I still think those are mites. They look just like your group shot.

I use Collembola food to feed these guys, which are flakes.

What's the best way to get rid of these guys?

[KeroKero]

Are the white specks moving? If they are... then the specks are mites. If they aren't, they are probably just fungus.