Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone.

My fruit fly cultures using the recipes I found on this forum are absolutely booming, I just wanted everyone to know that. Much better than the bought culture I received (whose culture material easily fell out, making it hard to feed my frogs, by the way).

Anyway, I was thinking about ordering a flour beetle culture to store away in case my fruit flys have any "dry spells", which I hear they are known to do from time to time. I hear that these beetles can be stored for months in case you need them with very little care.

To tell you the truth though, I am worried that these things might accidently escape and invade my house (I hear these things can be very bad pests in the kitchen!)

Does anyone have experience with these? Are these easy to keep and feed without them getting loose in your house?

Any other suggestions for a long-lasting, self-sufficient food source that requires extremely little care? (culturing fruit flys is about all I have time to do).

Kevin H.

I have had flour beetles for over a year now. They can not climb up plastic, so the only escapees that I have had are the ones that escaped when transfering them from their container to the frogs. As for easiness to raise... my dog could do it. It really is as easy as dumping in the pre-made culture mix (or you could make it I guess, but it lasts forever practically, so I would just buy the mix), then dump in the beetles, and about 1 month later you have a booming population of larva. Absolutely zero maintenance in them. I am still using larva and beetles from my first batch over a year ago.

The only problem I have found with them is that it is challenging to transfer them from their container (plastic shoe-box container) to the frogs. I could share some tricks later if you need them, but I am pretty sure that it just sucks any way you try to do it.
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Thanks and Gig Em,
Cliff
0.3 Sipiwlini Tinc's

Thanks for the info, Cliff.

Have you had a problem with your occasional escapees infesting your house?

Kevin

Not at all.. even if one does get loose it is rare anyway. I am pretty sure that they would either die pretty quick or wouldn't find a good breeding spot. I really wouldn't let that be a concern with these guys. However, if you do want to be careful, just do the "straining" outside and you shouldn't ever have escapees inside. I actually did that early on but got sick of it during the winter time
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Thanks and Gig Em,
Cliff
0.3 Sipiwlini Tinc's

An easy way to separate the adults from the larvae, is to not really do it. Let me explain. I've had a culture going for a few months now. I let the adults stay in a culture for about 2 weeks. They lay eggs in the media. After about 2 weeks I strain out the adults and any large larvae with fine mesh strainer. I then move the adults to a new culture. After about a week or 2 any larvae from the 1st culture will be large enough to strain out and feed to your frogs, NO adults around, no need to separate and no worry of escapees. I can then strain out the other culture wich contains the adults and either move to a new one or put it back into the culture that I took the pure larvae from.
This method works well with 3 or 4 cultures going, so you don't have to wait as long to use the larvae. If you forget to strain out any larvae, then you will get adult beetles, just strain them out and add to the culture that your adults are in. I have found this system makes it easy to keep the adults and larvae separate as opposed to picking out the adults which are of fairly low food quality for your frogs.
Hope this helps.
-Ben

I bought my original culture from eds fly meat about a year ago and that is still producing well, but I made 2 more using the media recipe on doylesdartden, that media produces just as well as eds fly meat and it is definitely cheaper, they have little care just replacing the media after it gets used up which takes forever, you dont even need to put water or moisture in there for them like mealworms
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1.2 Leucomelas
1.1 Green and Bronze Auratus
0.0.2 Imitators
0.0.1 Vents (more soon)
0.0.4 Nicaraguan Green and Black Auratus
0.0.3 Powder Blue Tincs (soon)

I found a method that at is really good at taking larvae away from beetles without worrying about mixing the too. First I take a normal mesh fish net (for aquariums) and sift an area of flour. I shake it while straining constantly, this will remove all larvea that are small to grow to a bigger size. When you get to the point where their is no more flour left just a clump of larvae and a few beetles at the bottom dump it into very fine mesh netting, the kind used to top FF cultures works well. Do not try and remove any larvea stuck to the sides of the fish net simply throw the net into a big plastic bag till youj can deal with it after feeding. When you have the larvae with a few beetle in a fine net hold the net vertically so it is going straight up and down over the culture, this will allow cacoons to fall out as well as loose larvae. Then knock off the beetles with your finger into the culture so you have just larvae on the fine mesh. shake the mesh into a feeding bowl throw on some some supplements and place in teh cage this will yeild enough larvea from an established culture to keep 4 adults leucs fed to the point they don't need food for a few days. Take the original net IN THE BAG and shake it violents knocking off all Larvea and beetles into the bag, return all occupants from the bag back to the culture, this will keep the population stable.

It sounds confusing but it will take you about 3 minutes to complete when you get good at it but it is worth it's wieght in gold as it will provide a stable, pretty much, uncrashable culture.

Hope this helped
Danny

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2.2.3 Orange Leucs
1.0 ventrimactulatus Blue leg
0.0.4 Orange galact

Always looking for female vents and plants

Flour beetles couldn't be easier to culture, and they're pretty easy to separate (in my opinion). My starter cultures came from a 1 gallon pickle jar culture my dad had on the floor of the basement (he's been raising the same culture for about 6 years for killifish). He pays attention to the cultures about once every 3-6 months.

The only media I use is unbleached flour, which I put in some 1/2 gallon plastic jars. I cut a hole in the top of the lid and stuffed a bit of foam in the hole. My wife bakes a LOT, and my frog paraphenalia is in the next room . . . we've never had a problem with infestation/cross-contamination of flour beetles into the dry goods.

Now, for feeding, I use a bowl-shaped sifter made of steel mesh that I bought as a set of 3 for $1 at one of those dollar stores. I sift out a big bunch of flour, shake it through the strainer, and sit it over an empty container. The larvae wriggle through the holes and fall into the container while the beetles either stay in the sifter or cling to the other side. When I have collected enough to feed, I shake the beetles and the rest of the larvae back into the culture. I get very few beetles in my feeding container that way, and it's a cinch. The trick is to find a strainer with the right sized holes/screen. A little bit makes all the difference.

Good luck,
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

My problem with rice flour larvae is none of my frogs will eat them. They just don't provide the challenge of movement that attracts the frogs. Maybe I'm overfeeding them on more challenging stuff and they are spoiled, but they won't even look at the barely squiggling larvae. Separating the larvae from the fine flour media is also a pain. If you could feed the beetles themselves, now that would be different. Maybe neither I nor the frogs have gotten the "hang of it" yet.
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Patty
Lost River, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
3 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
4 D. leukomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos

That really surprises me, Patty. My tinc not only eats the larvae with great relish, but has even scarfed down the one stray beetle that made it through the sifter (and it didn't seem to bother her one bit). I would feed the larvae more often, but I'm concerned about the high fat content that some have warned about. However, I have heard testimonials that some say the larvae are the best thing for conditioning tincs for breeding.
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Homer W. Faucett III, esq.
Purveyor of Trivialities and Fine Nonsense

It may be that they have so much else hopping around that they haven't become attracted. I'll try serving them after a day of fasting.

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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
3 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
4 D. leukomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus pending