Accidental fruit fly culture in cricket breeder tank!

[Guenhwyvar]

I'm breeding crickets so I can have tiny crickets for my tiny pacific chorus frog. The bigger ones are fed to my pacman. My crickets breed just fine in the summer, but they refuse to breed in the winter even with heat and lights. All my breeders suddenly died but when I went to clear the tank, there were these tiny ant-like bugs crawling around. I picked up the cricket's food dish and got a closer look at them. They turned out to be fruit flies, but they had absolutely no wings! My pacific loves these things. I can't find any live cultures anywhere around here, so I thought I'd have to breed only crickets and feed the tiny ones to my tiny frog. I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else? and how can I keep them this way? Were they attracted to the dead crickets or the crickets food?

[flybyferns]

I'm breeding crickets so I can have tiny crickets for my tiny pacific chorus frog. The bigger ones are fed to my pacman. My crickets breed just fine in the summer, but they refuse to breed in the winter even with heat and lights. All my breeders suddenly died but when I went to clear the tank, there were these tiny ant-like bugs crawling around. I picked up the cricket's food dish and got a closer look at them. They turned out to be fruit flies, but they had absolutely no wings! My pacific loves these things. I can't find any live cultures anywhere around here, so I thought I'd have to breed only crickets and feed the tiny ones to my tiny frog. I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else? and how can I keep them this way? Were they attracted to the dead crickets or the crickets food?

Hi,
I raise my own crickets as well. I have found fruit flies ,in the summer , in the bins. However, they always have wings? I guess the little buggers are attracted to any decaying matter. You are lucky can use them!!

As far as the breeding thing: In my experience the females ( and/or males) just don’t “do it” forever (lol). I recycled after ONE batch of eggs. In your case you can just feed them to your pacman after they have done their duty. Once I have lots of eggs , I remove the grownups and create the nursery in that same bin, repeating the process about every 3-4 months. I find that - always dampened -tropical soil makes a great egg laying bedding. I use little plastic containers ( for egg laying) with holes poked-in all over for ventilation and escape holes for the pin heads. I have found that about 3 inches of soil is adequate. Once they start to hatch I tip the containers of soil as the eggs will continue to hatch for a few weeks. If it gets dry a -VERY LITTLE- fine mist spray will help to hydrate the soil/eggs, being careful not to drown the pin heads that have already hatched. It's virtually impossible to avoid the causalities- right! I use cotton balls to provide water on the floor of the baby bin as they can not climb onto anything. I do not feed fresh veg. for cricket food , I have found that it just make a mess and gets moldy very quickly.
Fruit Fly culture by mail:
Johs’ frogs
Fruit Flies and Culturing Supplies - Feeder Insects & Supplies | Josh's Frogs

Great cricket food. I have used only the ‘gut load’ and feed my own recipe as well to stretch out the $
Insectivores : Purrs and Waggs Healthy Pets

I dust with these 2 products:
Herptivite Multivitamin - Rep-Cal Supplements | Josh's Frogs
Herptivite Multivitamin - Rep-Cal Supplements | Josh's Frogs

Lynn

[Guenhwyvar]

I always recycle my breeding bunch. They breed once then they get fed to my greedy little pacman. This batch refused to breed, but I got a nice batch of mutated fruit flies out of it. I've had to go back to buying crickets because of this setback. What you do with your crickets sounds like what I do. Sometimes I'll give them a piece of carrot, but they eat it fast so no mold problems. I'm noticing some difference between 2 places I buy crickets from. The first place is great, I get babies out of the adults there, but it's really far from my house. The second place is a 20min walk, but I've never been able to get those crickets to breed. They have the same type of crickets too. I like to go to the first place because they don't sell puppies; I wish that were illegal...but that's a whole other thing to get mad at.

[flybyferns]

"I like to go to the first place because they don't sell puppies; I wish that were illegal...but that's a whole other thing to get mad at."


You know it !! Sigh