Wild Springtails ok ?

[Azurel]

I was out at my mothers yesterday which has a huge woods a couple of ponds etc... I was looking around to see what I could find and came across a bunch of springtails. It looks like there are 2 kinds, I have looked and looked for some springtails and could never find them. One type looks to be very small blue/gray colored and the other kind which is a bit bigger are blackish colored. There is no pesticides or other chems used around the area or the wood I found them on....I tried looking for a species list on google and couldn't find one, I found a bunch of pics but nothing that showed a pic and species name....If someone has a link let me know.

I have about 100 or sitting in a small plastic container with some paper towel and a couple pieces of mushroom. Since I didn't find them in an overly moist area and everything was or seemed quite dry I have not put them in a culture that most whites are used in....

[Michael Lawrence]

Many people have taken on native springs to use even as recent as the last day or two. They are not tropicals and do not need the amount of humidity the tropical whites do. I keep mine in moist media but its nothing like the tropicals where there is pooling water in the bottom of the culture.
However when I took some on I was worried about it being more than one species so I sat as a table for hours with a mag glass and corralled them into a new cup one at a time and started them like that. this was my way of making sure nothing else was in the new culture. Ive done this with mite infested ff cultures as well and ended up with great results. Its just a headache to do. Mixed species cultures usually dont fair well in the long run.

Michael

[Tony]

I'm working on collecting a native species that my girl found yesterday while she was weeding. They are pretty cool, intermediate in size between a tropical white and temperate black and striped in dark and light brown. If they culture well I will be sure to spread them around.

[Azurel]

Thanks Mike.....


Yea I kinda had the thought of waiting till there was a bit more then taking out some of each into separate new cultures. Honestly I am not even 100% sure that they are differant and have only based that on what looks to be color differences. I figured I would give them a week or so in the container they are in and go from there.....I figured at some point I would have to separate although I did find them all together in the same spot.....Will update once I see something happening...There was a couple big black ones but when I brought them home he had disappeared. Not sure if someone opened the container while I was sleeping.....Will probably go look for more as well this week in the same location.

The larger of the ones I found seem to be striped as well but I don't think they are as big as the ones you found Tony.

I will do that as well...Hopefully they start to jump off.(no pun intended)

[JimO]

Is there a real risk of introducing chytrid or parasites by using native springs?

[Philsuma]

I believe so....Chytrid.

[Michael Lawrence]

I guess it would depend on the area. I actually test for chytrid and havent ever had it show up in an established viv even from using native springs. Like I said though I have put the time into removing the springs from the native soil into my own baked and boiled mix. I see the chances though as slim. There is just as big a chance of it getting into cultures bought from anyone on the boards as sterile husbandry practices are not as good as they should be. If it can spread from viv to viv in a collection it can in feeder cultures.
Many people go out in the woods and seek out pieces of wood for viv that are full of micro fauna.

[Azurel]

The springs I got were only springs no soil or anything with them. In fact what I did was hold the wood and knocked on it so the springs would fall into the container. There maybe a thimble amount of some sand in the container but other then that they were collected without and substrate or wood.