How to Make a Springtail Climbing Barrier
- Ryne Pavy
- Apr 11
- 3 min read
A frustrating aspect of keeping springtails is that many species will gather on the walls and lids of their culture containers. This means that despite using gasket-sealed airtight containers and ultrafine mesh over your ventilation many of your springtails still escape whenever you open a culture. The solution? Climbing barriers!
A climbing barrier applied below the lid of your culture prevents springtails from walking up to the top of the wall and lid. Vaseline is an often thought of solution but unfortunately springtails can either walk right over it or get trapped in it. The barrier in this post is dry and allows absolutely no movement beyond it.
The climbing barrier I’ll be discussing here was taught to me by the springtail hobbyist Ben Gruver. Through his research into advancing springtail husbandry he heard of a hydrophobic fumed silica based barrier using 95% Everclear as a solvent. Below I will outline my own method with links to ingredients, but you can swap out my choice of alcohol for his if you like.
Warning:
Hydrophobic fumed silica is composed of extremely fine lightweight particles that go airborne very easily. To avoid any health risks I highly recommend wearing a dust mask and working in a well ventilated area while working with hydrophobic fumed silica. Once mixed with the alcohol it is safe and will no longer go airborne. It will also be safe after being applied to the culture container. With the introductions out of the way let’s jump into how to make your climbing barrier!
Ingredients/Tools:
Small Paintbrush
2-4oz Deli Cup or Small Dish
Isopropyl alcohol will not work and non-hydrophobic fumed silica will not work either. This is unfortunate because both isopropyl alcohol and ordinary fumed silica is much easier to source, though those products I linked above are affordable and reliable and will produce practically a lifetime supply of climbing barrier.
Instructions:
Add a small amount of hydrophobic fumed silica to a 2-4oz deli cup (or similarly sized dish). Deli cups are best for storing leftover climbing barrier.
Pour in a small amount of 95% denatured ethanol and mix. You want the solution to be not much thicker than water, add more alcohol as needed to achieve this. I find that exact ratios aren’t too important, but a ratio of 1g silica to 20g alcohol is a good starting point if you’d like to be precise.
Use your paintbrush to apply a very thin layer of the climbing barrier along the wall of your culture container just below the lid. Too thick of a layer will allow the barrier to flake off once dry.
Allow the alcohol to evaporate and you are good to go! To be safe wait an hour before adding springtails to ensure the alcohol has fully evaporated.
Additional Notes:
The dried climbing barrier wipes off very easily so be careful not to touch it.
After months of use some springtail species will wear away at the climbing barrier.
It helps to experiment to find the best consistency of the wet barrier. Too thick and it can flake off once dry, too wet and the layer on your culture walls may be too thin.
Mixed climbing barrier stored in deli cups can very slowly dry out, be sure to mix in extra alcohol as needed or store in a tighter container that will not allow evaporation.
This barrier recipe likely works well for many bugs besides springtails, but I can make no guarantees.
Please be safe and follow my recommendations when working with the powdered form of hydrophobic fumed silica!