# Springtails as live food for fish



## parotet (12 Jul 2014)

Hi all

I've seen this video about breeding springtails for feeding fish, in that case for feeding Nannostomus fry.


Looks easy (nothing to do but keep the container wet), clean (much more than having worms or vinegar eels), fish seem to love them and a small plastic container can give me much more food than needed...
Any experience?

Jordi


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## Firefly (12 Jul 2014)

Looks interesting, but where could we get a starter culture?


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## OllieNZ (12 Jul 2014)

Should be easy to get a starter as alot of dartfrog keeper's seed their vivariums with them


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## BigTom (12 Jul 2014)

Look under any rock or branch at this time of year and you should find plenty. They're pretty much the most numerous macroscopic animal order on the planet iirc.


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## parotet (12 Jul 2014)

BigTom said:


> Look under any rock or branch at this time of year and you should find plenty. They're pretty much the most numerous macroscopic animal order on the planet iirc.


Have you tried with wild ones?


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## Greenfinger2 (12 Jul 2014)

Hi Parotet, What a great idea  My Grandson will love to keep these  Plus free fish food  What more could one want  Great video too i loved the jumping fish


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## BigTom (12 Jul 2014)

parotet said:


> Have you tried with wild ones?



Nope I've never bred any. Worth a shot though I reckon, I can't imagine there'd be vast differences between wild ones and whatever the preferred type is for cultures. Could be wrong though!


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## DTL (12 Jul 2014)

http://www.rickslivefood.co.uk/vmchk/Tropical-Springtails/View-all-products.html


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## weejoe (13 Jul 2014)

I used to get these by the thousand in my whiteworm cultures they are a great food for livebearers, and all surface feeders .  if I mind right I fed the cultures on moist bread at that time  Joe.


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## parotet (13 Jul 2014)

In the video it is explained that there is no need to do something special. The plastic container has some gardening substrate and pieces of bark. It needs some humidity and vent, but nothing more. In some other spanish videos I have seen folks adding some fish flakes.

jordi


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## TOO (13 Jul 2014)

As mentioned, springtails are cultivated by dart frog keepers. I did it too when I kept darts, really simply, some kind of moist substrate, ventilation when you occasionally open the box, and basically you can feed them with anything, just not too much or you get fungus. Fish flake is probably the easiest for most of us here. Dart frog keepers use a special vitamin enriched food to gutload the springtails before feeding them to the frogs. For feeding fish it would be excellent too, but probably only for fish that have some kind of orientation towards the surface in relation to food seeking (most have I guess).

Thomas


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## Gruff (13 Jul 2014)

What a great video thanks for sharing


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## dw1305 (13 Jul 2014)

Hi all, 





weejoe said:


> I used to get these by the thousand in my whiteworm cultures they are a great food for livebearers, and all surface feeders .  if I mind right I fed the cultures on moist bread at that time  Joe.


 Same as Joe really, I always have some in the Grindal Worm cultures, and they are good for small surface orientated fry.

cheers Darrel


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## Adam humphries (13 Jul 2014)

My angels will love these...


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