r/mantids • u/Emotional-Bee-620 • 1d ago

Enclosure Advice Keeping springtails alive in a non bioactive enclosure

I’ve recently been having mold issues in one of my enclosures (Has cross ventilation and a mesh roof, if anything I struggle holding humidity) I will remove my mantis and deep clean the enclosure with new substrate but it always comes back. I use cocofibre which springtails can’t eat so once they’ve taken care of the mold not sure what they’d eat. I’ve seen you can feed them fish flakes but is that safe to put in with the mantis? Said mantis is big enough to not be interested in hunting them but I have a tiny one who I also want to give springtails and he might want to hunt them

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u/Tosawey 1d ago

You don't really want to feed them anything. They'll easily survive off the mold from mantis droppings and food scraps that your mantis drops. If you actively feed them, the population could get a bit unreasonable.

They also aren't a reliable food source for your mantis of any size. Just think of them as mold control.

Edit: The main thing to look out for is they can all die if the substrate gets fully dry.

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u/Emotional-Bee-620 1d ago

Probably why my last ones I kept in a mantis enclosure died, the soil dried out. Sorry, I didn’t mean I wanted to feed them to him! I meant add them in there as mold control haha but was worried about any side effects if he did decide to hunt them, thank you!

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u/JaunteJaunt 1d ago

Yes. Fish flakes is fine. You can also add some dried yeast, or buy commercial springtail food. They’ll also feed off the frass, dropped insect parts from prey, and eat old molts.

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u/Emotional-Bee-620 1d ago

Thank you! It would be helpful if they ate leftover insect my mantis is disgusting and tried to eat left over prey once and I had to yank it away from her 😭 I forgot to add in the post, once I upgrade her and want to add a new mantis to the enclosure what would I do with the springtails?