The short answer: they are almost certainly alive. A tub of springtails that looks empty or lifeless when the parcel is opened is the commonest worry we hear about, and nearly every time the culture is fine and simply lying low after the journey. This page explains why that happens, how to check, and how to get the culture going, and then tells the story of the day three customers reported the same thing and what we changed about our packing because of it.
Why a culture looks dead on arrival
They are tiny and easy to miss. This is the simplest explanation and often the whole story. A springtail is a millimetre or two long, pale, and easy to overlook against soil, moss or charcoal, so a tub holding hundreds of them can look almost empty at a glance. Look closely, in good light, and the specks resolve into moving animals once your eye adjusts.
They shut down in transit. A springtail tub can only carry the finest ventilation, because the animals escape through holes that would be fine for isopods, so a sealed tub in a warm van builds up carbon dioxide and heat. Springtails answer that by going into diapause, a period of suspended development that invertebrates use to sit out bad conditions. They are not dead; they have paused, and they come out of it once the tub is open, cool and settled.
Cold does the same thing. A tub that has sat somewhere cold on the way, which is not unusual in a British winter, arrives sluggish and still. Cold slows springtails right down without harming them; room temperature brings them straight back.
Condensation and disturbance. The journey shifts moisture around inside the tub, leaving droplets on the lid and sides and the animals hidden down in the moss or substrate. What looks like a lifeless culture is usually an unsettled one that needs a day or two to re-establish itself.
How to check the culture is alive
Look closely, in good light, and wait. Set the open tub somewhere bright, get your eye down to the surface, and watch for a minute or two. Tilt the tub gently; springtails often answer by moving or springing, which makes them far easier to see.
Let it settle and warm up. Put the lid back on, leave the tub at ordinary room temperature, and check again in a few hours or the next morning. A culture that looked empty on arrival often looks busy once it has warmed and settled.
Add a little food. A tiny pinch of yeast or a few grains of rice, and a light misting if the moss or substrate feels dry, gives the springtails a reason to come to the surface and starts them breeding. Within a few days the population is usually visibly picking up.
In short, do not judge a springtail culture in the first five minutes after it arrives. Judge it after it has warmed up, settled and been fed, by which point the "dead" culture is almost always visibly thriving.
Getting the culture going
Keep it damp. Moisture is the single most important thing for springtails, because they dry out fast. Keep the moss, charcoal or substrate consistently damp, misting as needed, never flooded.
Keep it warm enough. Room temperature in a heated home suits the temperate varieties; warmth drives reproduction. A tropical variety such as Thai Reds wants it a little warmer to get going.
Feed lightly. A pinch of yeast, a piece of mushroom or a few rice grains, and never too much: uneaten food grows mould and sours the culture. Add a little, let it go, then add more.
Give it time. A newly arrived culture needs a week or two of settled conditions to hit its stride. Our guide to culturing springtails at home covers the charcoal and substrate methods, and keeping a springtail culture alive long-term covers watering, feeding and splitting a crowded tub.
How we send our springtails, and how we got here
What follows is Daniel's account from the summer of 2025, kept much as he wrote it, because it explains why our tubs are packed the way they are.
This is something that we get queries about from time to time, and because of that I thought it would be good to put together a short article explaining the reasons why springtails can appear dead when shipped and what you can do to help them.
Springtails are harder to post (in my opinion) than isopods, for the most part because you are limited in how you can add ventilation to the tub: they are often able to escape even the smallest of holes. One of the main reasons they can appear lifeless during transit is diapause (a period of suspended development in an insect or other invertebrate, especially during unfavourable environmental conditions), brought on by the build-up of CO2 in the container. Although springtails can survive with minimal ventilation, they still need some level of air exchange to survive and thrive, so at points where they don't have it they can shut down as a defence mechanism.
During the shipping process the springtail containers can get quite warm inside, which can also lead them to go dormant, into diapause, as a way to cope with the environmental factors.
Another issue we found when speaking to friends in the hobby is air pressure: when you press down the lid of the container, and with the changes of temperature and the CO2 increase (basically everything above), the air pressure in the tub can increase too.
We never really thought too much about this, because in our experience we had always had springtails sent the same way we sent them to you, in a 2 oz tub with the springtails in the substrate we grow them in. Until one day we had three people report the same issue (this was the day we sent out two weeks' worth of orders in a single day). We knew we couldn't leave this to chance again, given the above, and wanted to do what we could to fix it as soon as possible.
We asked a few of our friends in the hobby how they ship springtails. One friend who only sells springtails sends them the same way ours were sent. Another puts food on a piece of wood and, when the springtails gather on the wood, brushes them off with a make-up brush and counts them into a tub with moss and a little fish flake, which we thought was a great idea. This may stop them getting crushed in the soil if the parcel is bashed about in shipping, and give more space for air, but it wouldn't fix the build-up of CO2 or the other issues.
We have the leather hole punch we have always used for our isopod tub lids, and more recently we have started to punch holes around the sides of the containers too for more ventilation, so we could use this; however, we felt the holes it makes may still be too big, so we needed another line of defence for the springtails.
After a short search we saw that people had used 400 mesh organza to stop mites entering springtail enclosures, and as springtails are generally larger than mites we thought this would be a perfect addition to our tubs.
Credit to Ben Glover for the photo below, which shows a mite and its eggs sat on top of the 400 grain organza mesh (his original post).
With all this ordered, we began the task of preparing lids to test the new method of posting out our springtails for sale.
First I added springtail food to a piece of charcoal to try to lure the springtails onto a smooth surface.
Then, while I patiently waited for the springtails to join the party, I used my leather hole-punching wheel to make small holes in the top of the tubs and covered them with the 400 mesh organza, using a hot glue gun around the holes to secure it.
The springtail food party unfortunately didn't work too well, so in the end I got a few on a spoon and, using a fine make-up brush, brushed them into the tub, trying to get as little soil in as possible.
Once I could count around 30 springtails into the tub (to cover the 25 plus the overcount) I added moss.
As you can see, the springtails quickly started to explore it. Then I added the lid, taped it round and posted out the orders, and waited to see how the new method went down, including for the customers who had issues the day before and were being replaced.
Early the next day I received the email below from someone who had previously ordered 50 orange springtails that had, most unfortunately, been dead the first time around.
For me, although I was anxious and nervous when I had the issues, overcoming a problem for the long term and keeping customers updated on the process is what makes the hobby so exciting. As mentioned, lots of people send them out the way I did before, so it wasn't wrong; but now that I have found a better way I hope to keep doing it this way. The only change I hope for is to get quicker, because packing six tubs of springtails this way took over two hours.
October update: I have made one small change. I still use the make-up brush, but I also add a little soil from the enclosure, as I find this gives them somewhere better to hide than the moss alone and something to eat too (the decaying material in the substrate mix). It makes packing quicker, which matters on mornings when I have to pack before work, and by using only a little soil and mainly moss we avoid the issues that may come with a soil-only tub. We have seen no problems since, which is great news, because our springtails are becoming increasingly popular.
When to get in touch
The whole point of this page is reassurance: a quiet culture on arrival is normal and almost always healthy. Give it the benefit of the doubt first. Look closely, let it warm and settle, add a little food, and wait a day or two. If after that you are still convinced something is wrong, get in touch and we will put it right; that is what the live arrival guarantee is for. Our guide to shipping isopods in the UK explains how live invertebrates travel, and the principles apply to springtails too.
The short version
A springtail culture that looks empty or dead on arrival is almost always just quiet. The animals are tiny and easy to miss, and they pause, slow up and hide after the journey, especially if the tub has been warm and sealed or cold. Look closely in good light, let the culture warm to room temperature and settle, add a little food and moisture, and give it a few days. If you are new to them, start with our guide to what springtails do and browse the springtails collection for the varieties we keep.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are my springtails dead if nothing is moving?
Almost certainly not. A sealed tub warms up and its carbon dioxide builds during the journey, and springtails answer by shutting down; a cold journey does the same. Open the tub in good light, tilt it gently and watch for a minute or two, then leave it at room temperature and look again the next day.
How long before a new culture looks busy?
Usually a few days once it is warm, damp and lightly fed, and a week or two to reach full stride. Feed a pinch at a time and let it go before adding more.
What if they really are dead?
Then the live arrival guarantee covers you. Give the culture a day or two first, because nine times out of ten the message we get a few days later is that the "dead" tub is now shimmering with life; if it is not, get in touch and we will replace it.
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