Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 3 cultures of the Melanogastor already and 4 hydei culturs coming next week.
Is their a negative of mixing the species?
Is Aqua Plus ok (pet store didnt have Aquamel) to de-chlorinate the water I use for misting? They sell R/O water at .80 a gal just seems easier to use drops.
If I think of any other questions (smile) that I couldn't find in the archives or elsewhere I'll post.
Gday..

I sometimes put both hydei and megs in the tank together at feeding time.. but you don't want to culture them together, for several reasons. Mainly.. they develop at a different rate, hydei are much slower, and the megs will likely wipe your culture out before the hydei are going good. There are some possible genetic issues as well.. You want to keep them seperate.. you also don't want to mix flies of the same species with other blood lines.. i.e. hydei from 2 seperate groups.. it will likely result in flies that fly..

The problems with aqua plus, aquamel and the other similar products, it nuetralizes the chroline and chrolorimines.. but it does nothing for the heavy metals found in tap water. I get distilled water usually from the grocery.. it is about $0.60 a gallon here.. I have an RO machine and a distiller here.. but the filters and time is a pain.. it is easier to just grab a couple of gallons when I go to the store..
-----
photos.xtremecombatsports.com

Thanx Tim. I guess I will mark the cups with different colored markers to keep separated. I bought from 3 different people lol.

As for the water I will buy RO water from the pet store since it's only .80 a gal. I also bought some spring water for back up.

I want to make my own media using the mashed potato recipe (seems easiest). What is the recipe if you know and where do you get the Methylparaben (is it something you can get locally?)
I want to make it in 1lb batches so how do I figure how much of each to add?
Thanx for your time Tim and anyone else..