Josh's FrogsTemperate Springtail (Collembola) Culture (32 oz)

This arrived to me during the cold of January. We had a random 40-50 degree week so I ordered. It arrived and ended up sitting on the porch much of the day since we never saw or heard the delivery driver. I brought it in and opened the top and saw nothing. I put the top back on very loosely and waited some more. After several days I saw one or two springtails but that was it. I ordered the springtail food from the same brand and spritzed the charcoal with some unchlorinated water. When I finally received the food, I had had the colony for going on two weeks. It looked absolutely dead. I added the food and waited a few days. When I opened it back up I had springtails. I have repeated the feeding and watering and about 3 weeks on, it is thriving.If you receive this and it looks dead, be patient...and add some type of food. Don't overdo the food, just the tiniest bit works. Keep the environment moist, but don't drown them. Wait and you will see your colony begin to grow. Glad that I puchased this because the Petco/PetSmart prices are ridiculous. Now I have an endless supply, instead of paying $10 for a few at a time.

I am a longtime - and serious - reptile and isopod aficionado. I take my bioactive setups VERY seriously. I had read mixed reviews on these springtails, but I always take reviews with a grain of salt. I decided to order this culture because I was in desperate need of 32 oz+ of springtails.The weather was great when they arrived, and it wasn’t bad when they were in transit. Since I am fairly-recently disabled they were brought indoors immediately. I de-gassed them right away, but I was disappointed to see absolutely no signs of life. (I have 20/15 vision, thanks to LASIK, and I have eyes trained to detect the smallest life forms.) I have purchased springtail cultures that [initially] appeared to be subpar, so I gave this culture the benefit of the doubt.We came upon 24, 48, 72 hours and beyond...nothing. I waited 1, 2, 3+ weeks…nothing. No signs of life. It has now been >2 months since I received my order. This culture has been kept under perfect conditions, and yet it had failed to produce a single living springtail! (If anyone wants to question me - yes, I waited instead of asking for a refund immediately. Springtails often pop up out of nowhere, and a few days is not enough time. To know whether a culture will succeed or fail. If I had made a premature judgment it would have been irrelevant.)I can recommend a few Amazon sellers if you are looking for springtails, but I will never recommend these. I have a solid reputation in the reptile community, and I always seek to lift others up, but I will always call out bad sources when I encounter them.Do your research. Please go bioactive - but make the best choices when it comes to your scaly companions!! I am happy to provide resources to whoever needs them.

The media could not be loaded. Don't listen to the negative reviews! You need to understand that you're probably not going to get live springtails if there's extreme weather, but you are going to receive a bunch of eggs. I received my culture with one half dead springtail, I listened to the instructions and opened up the container to release the gas build up. I also added some more water (just an inch high) and a few rice grains at the top for food. I opened the container everyday in the morning and in under a month the culture is booming with life. I'm very pleased, thank you! Just remember the springtails eat the mold that grows on the food, so you just need two or three rice grains at first, but when you have a large colony you can add a little more after they finish up their food. I add more food every two weeks.

When the springtails first arrived I thought they were dead, so I cracked open the container and left it for an hour. No activity as far as I could have seen, but you'll never know! These guys are small and fast so you may have to look real closely!Either way, I didn't give up hope and took a sterilite shoe box made one hole at each end of the container with a hole punch and this is vital because it lets the culture breath but also at the same time keep in all the moisture so you don't kill the culture. After that I filled it with close to an inch of coco fiber and dumped the whole culture in (mixing the dirt and charcoal) plus adding plenty of water. Now the most important part to having a thriving culture is heat. So I placed the box on a heat pad and made sure the temp was around 80° fahrenheit inside (set to 90° if you want it to get to 80° btw). Now a tip is to not open the container frequently because it won't mold properly. So let the culture cook!What you feed your springtails depends on you, but what I use is chestnuts and before I received the springtails I let the chestnuts mold first for a little before placing them in the culture. Combined with the needed heat, moisture, and nice moldy food not even a month later I have thriving springtails compared to before when they arrived half dead with no adults seen moving. So be very patient when you get your culture and have everything to properly set it up to thrive. Also don't give up! You'll never know if the eggs are still alive!