Tropical White Springtails For Sale

Tropical White Springtails are a plain white cleanup culture sold for warm, humid setups: tropical vivariums, dart frog tanks and heated isopod tubs. Adults are a few millimetres long at most and pale enough to overlook, and they spend their time in the damp top layer of the substrate, working through the fine waste that larger animals leave behind.

What the name covers

"Tropical white" is a trade name rather than a species, and more than one springtail has been sold under it. This culture has not been identified to species, so it is listed as Collembola sp., which says only that it is a springtail. That is less tidy than a species name, but it is accurate. If your room runs cool and unheated, the Temperate springtails, Folsomia candida, are the better choice; this one is sold for warmer setups.

What they do in an enclosure

They graze fungal films, yeasts and mouldering scraps, and they break down frass and uneaten food before it sours, which keeps the surface of a damp substrate turning over. They sit alongside isopods with little overlap: the isopods take the leaf litter and larger material, the springtails the fine particles and surface films, which is why the two make the classic bioactive pairing. They also make a small live food for dart frogs and other little insectivores.

What they are not is a mould treatment. Nobody has tested whether adding springtails to an enclosure reduces visible mould, and light grazing can even stimulate some fungi, so a bloom calls for its cause to be found rather than for more springtails. The guide to mould in isopod enclosures goes through what the research does and does not show.

Keeping a culture

Any tub with a snug, lightly vented lid will hold a culture. A damp charcoal base or coco coir both work, and coir makes sense for springtails even though it has no place under isopods or millipedes. Keep the culture damp at all times, around 85 to 95% humidity in the tub, and pour off any water that pools: drying out is the usual way a culture is lost, and standing water is the other. Keep it between 18 and 27°C.

Feed a few grains of rice, a pinch of brewer's yeast or a dedicated springtail food, a little at a time, and lift out anything left to go off. The springtail feeding guide covers the options, and charcoal, substrate and culturing supplies are in the accessories collection.

Seeding an enclosure

Tip a portion of the culture onto the damp substrate and they will find the moist layer themselves. In a vivarium they manage in drier air higher up, as long as the substrate they live in stays damp. Seeding a week or two before the other animals go in lets the population build before the waste does.

How it is supplied

The 250ml culture seeds one small to medium enclosure, 500ml a larger one or a couple of setups, and 1000ml several enclosures or a culture to harvest from. Whichever size you choose, the population keeps growing once it settles. Cultures are posted Monday to Thursday, packed so the medium keeps its moisture, and live arrival is guaranteed. As with every livestock order, we add 20% extra.

The rest of the range is in the springtails collection, including the Pink springtails, another culture for warm setups.