White Temperate Springtails — Folsomia candida

Springtails don't hunt anything — no pests on the list. What they consume is decaying organic matter: mold and mildew on the soil surface, fungal hyphae, algae, biofilm on the pot wall, decomposing leaf litter, frass, shed skin, and uneaten feeder insects.

They aren't fungus gnat control. The overlap looks convincing — same soil layer, some of the same fungus — but competing for food doesn't reliably suppress a gnat population, and springtails don't feed on gnat larvae. For gnats, the right animals are Stratiolaelaps scimitus or Steinernema feltiae nematodes.

Temperature. 65–75°F is the productive range, which is to say a normal house without a heat mat. Reproduction peaks there and continues below 60°F at a slower pace. Above the low 80s it slows down. This is what separates Folsomia candida from the tropical species the terrarium trade usually sells — those want heat and stall at room temperature.

Moisture. The one real requirement. Springtails exchange water through the body wall, so they need substrate that stays consistently damp. Moist, never saturated, and they'll hold indefinitely. A pot that goes fully dry between waterings loses its population.

Light. Irrelevant. They live under the surface and come up at night.

Who they can't share a pot with. Stratiolaelaps scimitus is a generalist soil predator, springtails are prey, and both establish well — so the mites hold the pot and the springtail population thins out over a few weeks. Give them separate pots or separate enclosures. Same goes for other soil-dwelling predatory mites.

Everything else in the catalog is fine alongside them: foliar predatory mites (californicus, andersoni, swirskii, cucumeris), lacewings, ladybugs, Aphidius, Cryptolaemus, and beneficial nematodes.

Prop boxes, sphagnum, and semi-hydro. Constant humidity, constant organic input, and a chronic surface-mold habit. Their natural habitat, essentially. This is where they're most obviously worth it — the conditions that make cuttings root are the conditions that grow mold, and springtails work that surface without you opening the box.

Pots with white fuzz on the soil. They graze it off the surface and off the pot wall. Bark, coco, and chunky mixes with a lot of undecomposed organic matter are the ones that benefit most.

Tissue culture coming out of the jar. Deflasked plantlets are the hardest case in the collection: sugar and agar residue on the roots, no established microbiology, and a humidity dome they can't come out of yet. Mold moves fast in there. Springtails graze the surface film and agar residue while the plant hardens off — they won't touch the plantlet itself. Rinse the agar as well as you can first; springtails are cleanup, not a substitute for washing.

Bioactive terrariums and vivariums. Waste, frass, shed skin, and uneaten food, processed before it becomes a mold situation.

Dart frog and small reptile keepers. The standard feeder culture for anything too small for fruit flies.

Not the right pick if you're after fungus gnat control, or if the pot is already running Stratiolaelaps scimitus.

Rate. One culture seeds several standard pots or one mid-size enclosure. Wide and thin establishes faster than all in one place. One culture per enclosure is the whole intervention — nothing to reapply.

1. Tap the jar. They jump when disturbed. Small, white, easy to spot — this is one of the few things we sell where you can see the animal without a loupe.

2. Scoop or float. Scoop portions straight onto the soil surface; the substrate carries eggs along with it. Or add water to the jar, wait a minute, and pour off the top — springtails are hydrophobic and rise. That's the standard harvest method and it spreads them thin, which is what you want.

3. Feed once, if there's nothing to eat. A pinch of brewer's yeast, a couple grains of uncooked rice, a scrap of mushroom. Soil with visible mold or real leaf litter already has dinner covered.

4. Keep it moist and let it run. Establishment takes a few weeks and looks like very little while it's happening. You'll start noticing them at night, on the surface, after a watering.

Ongoing. In an established terrarium, nothing — the enclosure feeds them. In plain potting soil with little organic matter, a pinch of yeast or a rice grain every few weeks keeps the population up.

Ships as a living culture by volume — adults, juveniles, and eggs together in an 8 oz jar on charcoal. Sold by volume rather than count, because density shifts daily as eggs hatch.

Room temperature, start to finish. Refrigeration isn't a storage step for this culture. Keep the jar somewhere ordinary with the lid on and slightly loose, mist lightly if the substrate looks dry, and deploy within a few days of arrival.

A jar can look sparse on opening. Tap it and watch for movement, which is far easier to spot than the animals sitting still — and a good share of any culture at a given moment is eggs and juveniles down in the substrate. Movement means it's ready to go. The population grows after it lands, not before.

Ships Monday through Thursday. Orders placed on or after Wednesday often ship the following Monday.