How to catch Springtails in your apartment

How to catch Springtails in your apartment

Buy Springtails locally on Craigslist: 

https://newyork.craigslist.org/search/sss?userpostingid=7391919122

 or buy Springtails on Amazon (paid link): 

https://amzn.to/3wfnfuJ

I've been culturing scuds in 5 gallon jars. 

You may notice many tiny white spots on the water surface. 

Those are springtails. 

And you can see them jumping from the walls of the tank too. 

The speckle sized springtails can jump very high!

 Springtails walk pretty confidently on the water surface - they don't sink. 

It's well known that springtails live in a high humidity environment and are attracted to water. 

What is really interesting is how they get in these jars. 

Springtails have amazing abilities of sensing the presence of water from far. 

And these tiny springtails can walk and jump to cover great distances proportionally to their size.

 There are hundreds of springtails on the water surface.

All of them managed to escape from air tight sealed jar terrariums where I normally keep them. 

They escaped from the terrariums when I opened them for no more than 2 minutes of feeding time! 

I put terrariums on a floor for feeding springtails - pretty far and below aquariums. 

I keep 3 types of springtails in each terrarium - orange, silver and white. 

Orange springtails are the largest and they cannot jump. 

Silver springtails are medium sized moving fast. 

I've never seen them jumping yet.

 White springtails are the smallest and they are jumpers. 

The tiny size and the ability of jumping allows them to escape unnoticed in short feeding time.

 Springtails should not be trying to escape from the comfort of high humidity terrariums. 

And yet, they do... 

Noticeably, I found only white jumpers on the water surface of my tanks. 

White springtails often start jumping when they get scared. 

They may get scared by brighter light when I open the jar. 

Or get scared by crumbles of food fallen on them.

 Springtails that get out of the terrarium find their way to the nearest open water body. 

Here you can see springtails in a jar with aged water I keep for refilling my aquariums.

Any open jar with water can be used as a trap for catching white springtails.

 Have fun and happy Springtails :)