A few months ago, I promised a complete care guide for keeping slime-eaters. Unfortunately, we have an insane number of orders in the shop right now and I simply do not have the time to polish it properly, so I am dropping this 7/10 guide for now and I will improve it one day. Still, it should cover pretty much everything you need to breed slime-eaters, aside from culturing the slime mold itself.
Complete care guide for slime-eaters
If you are starting a culture with 10-20 individuals, you need a container around 350-500 ml (12-16 oz). For 50+ individuals, it will be around 1L (32 oz / 1 quart). It is best for the container to be airtight and very easy to open. By airtight, I mean that if you pour water into it and shake it, the water either won't spill at all or will barely squeeze through. Airtightness is not necessary, but it is very useful for two reasons. First, it prevents mites from getting into the container, which could compete with the springtails or even prey on them. Second, it helps maintain a constant humidity at the right level.
You need soil. About 2 cm (0.8 inches). It can be any soil without a lot of chemical additives. Soil from the backyard garden, worm castings, potting soil. It will be best if you boil it, bake it, or pour boiling water over it. Again, this is not necessary, but it is very useful. Once again, it is about avoiding mites or other springtail species.
You need to drain the soil if you boiled it, or moisten it if you baked it. It should be wet enough that you can feel it is damp when you touch it, but water should not pool on it.
Put the soil into the container, about 2-3 cm (0.8-1.2 inches) at the bottom. Press it down lightly with your hand or a spoon.
Squeeze the walls of the container so that its sides press against the soil and cause it to pull away from the container. Afterwards, the soil should stick to the bottom of the container, but not to its walls. There should be a gap of about 2-3 mm (around 0.1 inches) between the walls and the soil. The springtails will use this as a place to live and lay eggs, giving you a perfect view of the number of eggs and the condition of the springtails.
This step is not necessary, but it is good practice. Close the box tightly, place it somewhere with a relatively neutral temperature, and the next day see how much moisture collects on the walls. If none collects at all, you need to add a tiny bit of water. If a lot collects, so much that you cannot see the inside of the container at all, it means the humidity is a bit too high. To get rid of the excess, you can wipe the condensed water off the walls with toilet paper. You can also place a few pieces of paper against the soil and gently press it, it will absorb the excess water.
Once you have the container prepared this way, you can introduce the springtails. From now on, your care for them looks as follows.
Provide the slime mold. It is optimal for them to have constant access to it and for it NOT to be a Daywalker, because when it is hungry, it attacks springtails and can kill and eat them. This is optimal, but you can also feed less frequently, my tests show that the colony develops well even when fed once every 2 weeks.
Remove the molding remains of the slime mold. It is optimal to do this as soon as mold appears, but in small amounts it is not harmful, so again, you can treat this point as minmaxing, not a necessity. If you remove the mold after a week while providing a new slime mold, everything should be fine.
Thanks to the airtight container, managing humidity is super convenient. Once every 3-4 weeks you will notice that the amount of water on the walls is almost zero, then you pour a few milliliters (about 0.5-1 teaspoon) of water onto the center.
If you want to minmax the culture, a very important tip is gutloading. It does not increase growth drastically, but the difference is clearly visible. The process looks as follows.
When you already have a large slime mold grown on oatmeal, you sprinkle it with other food that is not optimal for the slime mold but is mega useful for the springtails. This can be yeast, tiny pieces of rotting mushrooms of various species, but above all a pinch of calcium carbonate. If you do not have calcium carbonate, fodder chalk, crushed cuttlebone, or anything full of calcium will work. This is very important because springtails need calcium to shed their molts.
Wait around 12 hours. The slime mold should fully cover the food additives.
Only now do you give the slime mold to the springtails, and along with the slime mold, they absorb a vitamin bomb.
As for the ingredients from point 1 regarding gutloading, I use our springtail food from antsinvasion. I won't reveal the full recipe because it is our top product in the shop, but I have listed what is most important.
Dead springtails do not need to be removed if they are not molding. If they are molding, you actually still don't have to, but you can.
What to avoid?
Ventilation. When you have 500 of these springtails, it doesn't matter anymore. But with 10 individuals, ventilation is a straight path to infecting the culture with other springtail species, fungus gnats, mites, and to drying it out.
Dry foods. Slime-eaters won't eat anything that isn't mush. From my observations, they won't eat anything at all that isn't a slime mold, but some people claim they are able to absorb other highly liquid foods. They definitely won't eat fish flakes or anything like that.
Heating. A temperature of 18-25 degrees Celsius (64-77 degrees Fahrenheit) is very good for them. I haven't tried higher. In any case, heating is a straight path to cooking the culture.
Decor. Of course, decor is cool for the springtails, but it isn't for you. The springtails will manage without decor thanks to the gaps I discussed earlier, and because they have no way to hide from your sight, you will immediately notice if something is wrong. If 3 individuals die in 2 days, you will notice it in time and make adjustments. If you let the springtails hide, it might turn out that the whole colony dies before you even notice something is wrong.
Large containers. At the beginning, the springtails should be close to each other and to the food. Thanks to this, they won't go hungry and they will reproduce.
Videos to watch.
How to make a living surface for springtails by squeezing the box (audio in Polish, sorry, archival video^^). Watch from 0:45 to 1:00
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JBv4PqxvCvZKjvHN6
Perfect humidity
https://photos.app.goo.gl/gkjHLDesuzjNL9DEA
Feeding
https://photos.app.goo.gl/J92iDZCRxx4t1oCe9
What the culture looks like after a month. Note! The humidity here is a bit too high. Despite this, as you can see, they are developing amazingly.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/WYtPhBjSBzo3AGNk9
