I keep finding myself saying this one, over and over. I forget where I first heard it but boy does it make sense....
Simply put, whenever you obtain a culture of virtually any feeder insect and then get them home, do NOT just dump them into a viv or otherwise use them all up.
Instead, try to make at least one, if not two NEW cultures from each and every newly acquired insect culture. This ensures that you will always have some in case of a crash, mite infestation, trade or help out another hobbyist, recoup your inital purchase ect ect.
What I do , in the case of Isopods and Springtails, is to try to make the "split" culture medium basically the same as the "host" culture medium. For springtails cultures made with soil and leaves, I would try to split 1/2 of that culture into another culture container container of a similar size.
The same can be done with fruit flies, bean beetles and others.
I am trying out some new feeders and when I received them, I split them up. They are Folsomia springs (supposedly more productive that tropical springs), dwarf white isos and striped isos.
Not a bug expert but will give them a try and see what happens.
Thanks Jason.
Getting late and my eyes are tired but will read it in more depth tomorrow.
I will tell you they look and act different (much more active) than my tropical springs. They are in a large sterlite now so will see what happens over time.
I would love to get my hands on some of those globular springs.
I keep cultures of everything I get. 3-4 tropical springs, black springs, pink springs, dwarf white iso's...I tried bean beatles but let them crash...looked to big and hard to feed to my thumbs. I just made 3 new starter cultures from my white isos and gave them out.
I agree 100% Phil.
You can't have enough feeders or backup feeders. FF crash/slow... break out the springs, pins and Iso's.
I def wouldn't feel comfy without a lot of extra food items...
I sleep better at night...
I transferred 6 Isopod cultures to a buddy at Hamburg today and gave him some free extra deli cups and soil for being such an awesome client / customer. He tried to refuse the extra (empty) cultures and soil - saying that he was going to just dump them all into his Vivs to seed them.
Whoa
Whoa, whoa, whoa !
I was like....dude.....dude !
Split those bad boyz up when you get home. Make 6 or even 10 new cultures from the 6 ya got from me today and then dump the 1/2 size portions into the viv. NEVER get rid of 100% of a culture of anything. Always keep some back - keep on splittin.
Way back in 2005 - I bought some Spanish Giant Orange and Dwarf white Isopods for $8.00 each . FOUR cultures total.
Take a guess at how many cultures I've sold / transferred - made from those EXACT same original cultures ?
WELL OVER 100
Did I recoup my initial investment? Yup. Did I provide a service to the hobby, helping to spread pill-buggy happiness to many others. Oh yeah.
Just my .02 on splitting.....
Can't agree more! keep splitting them, don't let your cultures get too overcrowded! In my experience they seem to be more prone to crashing when you have that "sea of white" of springtails. Either feed them out or split the cultures. Another tip is to not keep all of your eggs in one basket, keep cultures in more than one place ( with all mite precautions). This way if mites do get in your cultures for some reason, you still have springs to feed your froglets.
Never go 'full culture'.
Don't ever just dump a culture into a viv. Split it -save some for re-culture / another day.