Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i recently found a culture of fruitflies that was packed. There were over a 3000 of flies. I remember putting in very little amount of fruitflies in that culture. My question is how would i get the fruitflies out of the culture without any spilling. Right now i only have a a juvi brazilian cobalt but hope to expand it. I wouldnt need that many fruitflies either to feed to one frog.

>>i recently found a culture of fruitflies that was packed. There were over a 3000 of flies. I remember putting in very little amount of fruitflies in that culture. My question is how would i get the fruitflies out of the culture without any spilling. Right now i only have a a juvi brazilian cobalt but hope to expand it. I wouldnt need that many fruitflies either to feed to one frog.

Use some of them to start a new culture, and dump the rest of the flies if you don't have any use for them. If you leave too many adults in the culture, then it will crash when they die. And remember, their lifespan is only about 7 days as adults. What you might try doing is dumping them into a dry culture bottle, and just feed them off instead of feeding off the ones in the medium bottle.

Seriously, only about half of my cultures that I start produce and even with three "good" cultures going I still don't think I produce enough to feed my three tincs (I supplement with spring tails which I AM good at culturing). I end up buying a new fruit fly culture every once in a while to try to supplement my frogs and get new cultures going, but for some reason, they don't like me all that much. I'll trade you problems
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles (Stumpy (M)), and the rest remain nameless.
2.2.0 green tree frogs (Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake (Popcorn)
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)
0.0.1 Giant African Millipede
2.4 Domestic house cats (Bad Boy (m), Bart(m),Sasha(F),Little Bit(F),Spirit(F)
1.0 Rottweiler (Jake)
1.2 Rats (new additions with no names yet)
1.0 Husband (David, who loves all my critters too)

What process do you use to make fly cultures, and how big are your cultures? One or two cultures of melanogasters should feed your 3 tincs no problem. If you need a good recipe for fly media let me know.
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0.0.3 D. azureus
0.0.7 P. bicolor
0.0.7 D. auratus (polka-dot)
0.0.3 D. auratus (blue)
0.0.3 D. auratus (kahlua and cream)

Shannon

I usually use pre mixed media. If I follow the directions, it usually drys out before the culture can be established (it's dry here in Colorado), if I make them moister, they may establish, but I have a problem with the media running when I try to knock out the flies OR it molds on me. The best luck I've had was using either baby food jars or large prescription bottles with holes punched in and a coffee filter. The larger holes in the lid tend to make it dry out too fast. I'm still playing around with different techniques to perfect what it takes to raise them in my house and I get about half of my cultures to produce. My biggest problem is having enough flies to start new cultures and still keep my frogs fed without having to usually buy a new culture from the local reptile store to supplement it. I've used everything from 32 oz. deli cups to glass jars (which worked GREAT for producing but again, the media was TOO moist and fell out when I tried to get the flies out). Oh well. Spring tails I have no problem raising so it's good that I have a few great cultures of those which have been producing for several months and just keep going which I use to supplement my tincs. But if you have a good homemade media I may try that. But I don't have access to mold inhibitor, they don't sell it around here and that seems to be one of my obstacles.
Thanks for the help offer.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles (Stumpy (M)), and the rest remain nameless.
2.2.0 green tree frogs (Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake (Popcorn)
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)
0.0.1 Giant African Millipede
2.4 Domestic house cats (Bad Boy (m), Bart(m),Sasha(F),Little Bit(F),Spirit(F)
1.0 Rottweiler (Jake)
1.2 Rats (new additions with no names yet)
1.0 Husband (David, who loves all my critters too)

The mix I use is

32 oz box of instant potato flakes (the cheapest they have)
1/3 cup powdered sugar
4 tsp mold inhibitor
misc protein additive (I have used brewers yeast, powdered fish flake food, and a few other things)

Brewers yeast is working well, you can usually get it at health food stores. You can get mold inhibitor off the net all over the place. I got mine at Doc Frugals. It is a large container, but since I know I will need it I might as well buy it, I just won't run out for a while. Mix the water you use with vinegar in a 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water solution, this will keep mold down too.

The trick with fly culture is keeping them wet enough to produce, but not too wet so they stay in the container. I mix 1/3 cup of dry media with 1/2 cup hot water. This seems to hold well, if it starts to dry out too much, I just mist it with two sprays from a mist bottle and put the lid back on. A little water usually stops mold in its tracks early too.

The last key to success is to use newly hatched flies. Always set up your next cultures with flies that are just hatching out of your previous cultures. If you do this you will be setting up cultures about every two weeks.

Lastly, the jars worked great for me but the disposable insect cups have always worked the best. The holes are in the right proportion to let the culture breathe enough, but not dry out too quickly.

If you have any more questions just let me know.
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1.1.3 D. azureus
0.0.8 P. bicolor
0.0.7 D. auratus (polka-dot)
0.0.3 D. auratus (blue)
0.0.3 D. auratus (kahlua and cream)

Shannon

Using a 1 to 1 ratio of vinegar to water will take care of the mold, and is alot cheaper than buying mold inhibitor.
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Randy

I got this from the archives on this board by the way, from the excellent people who post here:

Start by cleaning your FF containers really well and also I use a 25% bleach mix, letting it sit for 10 minutes, then rinsing until the smell is gone.

Then mix this:

2 cups instant potato flakes
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup baby cereal (fine, granular, couscous type cereal in baby section of grocery store- I really think this helps)
1/2 cup brewers yeast, and even more if you dont mind the expense, up to 1 cup...they love this stuff

Now here is the trick, and what I messed up on until I learned by trial and error...
Mix vinegar and spring water 1:1 as your master mix.

Put some dry mix into your FF container, after its bleached and rinsed. Pour a little of the vinegar mix in and stir until the mixture gets the consistency of slightly runny guacomole, but not quite applesauce

Wait ten minutes with the medium covered.

Then go back and add a little more of your vinegar mix until you obtain the same consistency mentioned above.

Then sprinkle a pinch of active yeast on top...voila!

When I did this, the amount of larvae it produced actually scared me...

I have so many larvae and flies from these mixtures, I only need 1-2 active cultures at any one time for 4 frogs (auratus).

I also like to put a little bit of chlorella/spirulina mix to give it a pretty green color, this is supposed to help with frog coloration too, but I havent convinced myself of that yet. It does help you see the larvae better if you want though.

Hope this helps.

Kevin H.

Thanks guys, I'll try those out and see how they work.

Question though, can I substitute brewers yeast for bakers yeast? I have lots of bakers yeast still left.
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles (Stumpy (M)), and the rest remain nameless.
2.2.0 green tree frogs (Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake (Popcorn)
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)
0.0.1 Giant African Millipede
2.4 Domestic house cats (Bad Boy (m), Bart(m),Sasha(F),Little Bit(F),Spirit(F)
1.0 Rottweiler (Jake)
1.2 Rats (new additions with no names yet)
1.0 Husband (David, who loves all my critters too)

I'm not sure...if bakers yeast is "active" then I would say no...just a pinch is all you need, or your culture will go bad.

Brewer's yeast is inactive, yet very nutritious for the larvae. I know its the most expensive part of the recipe, but I think its one of the most important.

Kevin H.

I usually only put the bakers yeast on top on top of the culture before adding the flies. That's what it said to do in the directions, maybe I'm adding too much and that's why they are dying before they produce. Hey there's an idea . And yes, bakers yeast is active, that's what you use to make bread rise and exposed to a moist warm environment it starts to grow.

I guess I'll just have to break down and go get brewers yeast. They sell that stuff at the health food store correct? About how much does it cost (you said it was expensive)?

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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles (Stumpy (M)), and the rest remain nameless.
2.2.0 green tree frogs (Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake (Popcorn)
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)
0.0.1 Giant African Millipede
2.4 Domestic house cats (Bad Boy (m), Bart(m),Sasha(F),Little Bit(F),Spirit(F)
1.0 Rottweiler (Jake)
1.2 Rats (new additions with no names yet)
1.0 Husband (David, who loves all my critters too)

www.bulkfoods.com sells it at bulk rates.
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Randy

Those are some nice Tincs!
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0.0.5 Blue Dendrobates Auratus
3.2.1 African Dwarf Frogs (Hymenochirus boettgeri)
2.2.0 Asian Floating Frogs (Occidozyga Lima)
1.1.0 White's Tree Frog (Litoria caerulea)

Yep, its the kiss of death to add too much active yeast to your cultures.

Brewer's yeast isn't too expensive actually, when you compare that to having to order new fruit flys every month

I bought a big jar of it from Whole Foods (any other health food store will have it), for about $11.00 and based upon the number of cultures I've already made with it, it will probably last me six months or more.

Nice froggies by the way!

Kevin H.

$11.00 I can handle. I'll go get some this weekend and start a few new batches with that.

Thanks for all the help guy!!!
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Chantel a.k.a. sillygirl
"I came, I saw, I adopted"

2.4.0 green anoles (Stumpy (M)), and the rest remain nameless.
2.2.0 green tree frogs (Romeo & Juliet, Bonnie & Clyde)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius (Cobalt froglets)
0.0.1 Anerythristic 'B' (Charcoal)corn snake (Popcorn)
0.0.1 Snow Corn (KandyKorn)
0.2 Amel Corns (KornSilk & KornMuffin)
0.0.1 Giant African Millipede
2.4 Domestic house cats (Bad Boy (m), Bart(m),Sasha(F),Little Bit(F),Spirit(F)
1.0 Rottweiler (Jake)
1.2 Rats (new additions with no names yet)
1.0 Husband (David, who loves all my critters too)