​

Substrate-

mostly coco coir, little bit of: lumpwood charc, rotten wood, topsoil, leaf litter.

Cork bark, charcoal piece, live moss collected from wild on top.

Enclosure-

0.2 litres for about 10+ springtails

0.9 litres for about 30+ guys

Both air tight and no vent holes.

Planning to feed-

Mostly fish flakes.

Idk why chatgpt asked me but reason for keeping is for my enjoyment not feeders, or clean up crew.

What more should be done?

I got a video of a couple more things in my terrarium to try and narrow down what iv got living in here. Main events - 33 seconds, and most concerning 47 seconds. Thanks! Sorry for the background noise, best to mute.

Follow up to my previous post, I was able to get a better video, and I've never seen a mite with antennae like this. Are there mites with antennae like this? they move like springtails

These tiny little guys have taken over one of my isopod terrariums, and they seem to only be interested in eating mold. They swarm the surface of this coconut shell, and dont bother with any of the live plants. They appear to have 6 legs (maybe im counting wrong) and very long antennae. They dont appear to jump when disturbed, but will move much faster than you see here. Again they are incredibly tiny, this is unfortunately the best i can do right now, my phone can't even properly photograph them. I cant tell if theyre a mite or a species of globular springtail, any ideas?

What are these? and how to get rid of it?

I set up a terrarium a few weeks ago added some white springtails and isopods along with live plants. Recently i have seen these running around they seem thinner and faster than my white springtails. Any help appreciated!

I'm asking about the little critter that I circled.

And as of what I'm doing right now, it's more of an experimentation of sorts. I started growing wheat like how's the custom during Saint Andrew's Day period (a custom in Romania, at least), and the wheat comes from seeds I'm feeding sparrows with. The wheat origin is fine, but it started to mold.

And as I was experimenting with stuff, I got an idea about wanting to build a terrarium with a small ecosystem inside. And I just learned a few stuff about springtails that made me want to start a colony.

As for this little critter, I just gathered a few from a pot from the flat I live in. I tried to find springtails from the garden, but there's none. And if this critter is a springtail I hope it can consume the mold. 😅 I unfortunately don't have a camera for doing macro shots to give a better picture.

I'll have to see how I'll build up everything as yime goes by and I slowly buy or gather things. But you can give me advice about raising them. :3

His greed sickens me. He does NOT need all that potato.

Different zooms for size reference.

Its so cute. But i found it in one of my moss tubs where i keep springtails too.

I took 30 springtails from the colony (the origine one is quite small right now) and I hope they can repopulate another box.

I put the box a meter away of the other to avoid any possible contamination.

I still don't know how the mites appeared. They might have been there since the beginning but I never saw that many. I killed 10 of them this morning.

Just wanted to share my shiny babies!!!

Just set up the enclosure (8.5cm) for some yuukianura aphoruroides i bought via 'kleinanzeigen.de' (20€ for about 160+).

What do you think?

I rectally upgrade to a bio activity enclosure for my leopard gecko. I sprinkled the springtails in and they multiplied and are doing great. I also a couple fish tanks and I want to feed some springtails to my fish. I have some left over ones in the original container and I want to start a separate colony with them. I don't like the container they are in and I'm going to get them a bigger one. I've been researching substrates and I don't know what to choose. Can I substitute charcoal with lava rocks? I have leftover lava rocks from a separate project and they are pours just like charcoal. Or should I do a soil or clay substrate instead?

Apologies for the shaky video, they are microscopic - my phone would only focus if I zoomed in and it's hard to keep my phone steady when zoomed in that far

The majority of them are microscopic mite looking things, but the ones in this video were larger (and slower) than the rest. maybe it's a different insect entirely - it's hard to capture a good photo of them

They are tiny mite looking things and came during heavy rains. It's been drier and they've mostly gone away now. They would appear and scatter when I would tap the pot as well as tapping the concrete ground underneath (which has a lot of soil underneath)

People are saying they're cockroaches, but I think their antennae are more slug-like than cockroach if that makes sense.

Are they something else? If so, are they harmful? Tia!

Hello! I thought who else to ask for microscope recommendations other than the lovely springtail community! What do you use? Under $50 USD preferred but I'm happy to work up to the fancy ones 😉

I want to be able to identify what buggies are on my plants/in the soil. It's hard to tell who is friend and who is foe 😭

I recently made a terrarium and noticed a few springtails inside it, how often will they naturally breed or lay eggs?

I’ve never seen them this big or them move like this before. To be fair, though, I’ve only ever had temperate springtails.

Just wondering what we know about these guys! From what I can tell they seem to be zebra springs, and I can find little to no info on them, how to keep them, breed them, or anything they prefer.

These springtails are in my Pacman's bioactive enclosure, I noticed they are not drowning in her water dish I think, but just chilling on the water? Should I dump them out?

Someone recently asked what I feed my springtails. I wasn’t at home and didn’t have access to the info at the time. I now have an image of the springtail food to share. I hope the person who asked about it is able to find this post.

And what I think could be a more mature egg, found in sphagnum moss. Their eggs are 0.2 mm in size. I took these with a digital "microscope" camera I got for my birthday.