[Guest]

Can mealworm beetles climb smooth plastic or fly?

and

Has anyone tried culturing springtails on a larger basis like in a 5 gallon pail or larger and if so what did they use and how well did it work and how long did it take till they could harvest it?

Thanks

 

[geckguy]

They cant fly. I have used 2oz. condiment cups for springtails up to 76oz. ziploc containers, and they do pretty good in the larger containers, I had a colony in a sweaterbox that produced good but it took up alot of space, so I split it up into smaller ones. In a five gallon bucket I would use orchid charcoal (all natural hardwood charcoal) for them, just rinse it off, and fill the whole bucket with it. After that add some water to the bottom to keep the humidity up, and start with lots of springtails, the more you use the sooner you can harvest them. It also depends on your temperature, temperate springtails do better at temps closer to 70, where as the tropicals like it closer to 80. Only feed enough food so that it is gone in 3-4 day, add more food 3 days after it is gone. The one thing that really slows them down is too much food. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask.

 

[Dancing frogs]

Haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking of doing super large cultures in one of those big (20 gallon?) storage containers using leaf litter, spagnum moss, and maybee some ABG mix, or something like that, and when (if) it really got going with springtails, taking some of the culture out and use it as substrate for froglet tanks.

One thing I'm experimenting with right now is culturing springtails in a shoebox filled with pieces of coco-fiber mat. The idea is there is more surface area in the matt than there is in charcoal, but should still be able to harvest by simply banging the pieces of mat together over a tank just like you do with a charcoal culture.

Just a couple ideas for ya! :wink:

 

[geckguy]

I am actually starting to make cultures using leaf litter, so I can add a handful to new tanks.

 

[EDs Fly Meat]

Hi Chantel,

I have not tried the mega springtail culture myself, but I know of a few zoos that do. A few years ago I went to the Amazonia exhibit at the National Zoo. Awsome exhibit by the way, and free (your tax dollars at work). They got in a ton of leaf litter for their exhibit and bred some frogs on site. They kept large trash bags of leaf litter and pulled some out to put into froglet tanks. The stuff was crawling with tons of microfauna. It was really cool to see, and they didn't have to pay anyone to feed the frogs, they would just drop in some leaf litter. Try it, from what I've seen it works.
Dave

 

[*GREASER*]

my culture that does the best is a shoebox with a few layers of leaves and thats it.

 

[Guest]

Re: Hi Chantel,

I have not tried the mega springtail culture myself, but I know of a few zoos that do. A few years ago I went to the Amazonia exhibit at the National Zoo. Awsome exhibit by the way, and free (your tax dollars at work). They got in a ton of leaf litter for their exhibit and bred some frogs on site. They kept large trash bags of leaf litter and pulled some out to put into froglet tanks. The stuff was crawling with tons of microfauna. It was really cool to see, and they didn't have to pay anyone to feed the frogs, they would just drop in some leaf litter. Try it, from what I've seen it works.
Dave

Great idea !! In fact one of my best springtail cultures happens in fact to be my woodlice culture. It's loaded with leaves and I just keep adding them in there from my yard (cleaned of course). Of course now that all my leaves are under snow and it's almost Christmas..where am I going to find a trash bag full of leaves to raise springtails in? :roll:

I'll have to remeber that one next fall though. I went with a 5 gallon bucket with a lid half filled with charcoal and ground coconut bark with misc veggie peelings for food.