Springtails in Your Ant Terrarium: What They Do and Why You Need Them

If you keep ants in a naturalistic terrarium, springtails are one of the most useful additions you can make. They are small, mostly invisible, and they solve a problem that every terrarium keeper eventually runs into.

What Are Springtails?

Springtails (Collembola) are tiny arthropods, typically between 0.5 and 2mm in size, that live naturally in soil and leaf litter. They are found in almost every terrestrial ecosystem on earth. In a terrarium they occupy the substrate, the surface layer, and any areas where organic matter accumulates — exactly the places where problems tend to develop.

What They Actually Do

Springtails feed on mold, fungal growth, decaying organic matter, and dead microorganisms. In a terrarium that means uneaten food residue, dead ants, plant debris, and any mold spores starting to take hold. Without them, these things build up quickly and create conditions that stress the colony and eventually require you to intervene manually. With a healthy springtail population, the terrarium manages much of this on its own.

Do Ants Bother Them?

In most cases, no. Ants and springtails coexist comfortably in a well-sized setup. Springtails are fast and small enough that most ant species do not consider them worth hunting. In a planted terrarium with plenty of substrate they have ample places to move and hide, and the ants largely ignore them. The two groups occupy different niches in the same space and rarely conflict.

How Many Do You Need?

Start with a healthy starter culture and let them establish in the substrate before introducing the ant colony. In a well-planted terrarium springtails will reproduce and maintain their own population as long as organic matter is available. You rarely need to add more once they are settled. Introducing them a week or two before the ants arrive gives them time to spread through the substrate and start working before the setup is disturbed.

Getting Them Into Your Setup

Our Springtails are a captive-bred culture ready to introduce directly to your substrate. For full guidance on building the terrarium they will live in, see our ant terrarium setup guide. And if you are looking for a species that pairs especially well with a springtail-supported terrarium, Myrmica rubra is an excellent choice.