My Fruit Fly Cultures

[ukfan1976]

My first try at culturing fruit flies was a success! Holy **** its full of flies!! Made it on 3/9 and as my other culture I had bought was just running out this one is thriving I made my second one tonite How many should I be keeping on hand?

I used 4 parts instant potatoes, 2 parts powdered milk, and 1 part sugar. Also added a splash of cider vinegar for good measure

As an update on my frogs:

My original little guy has taken to his new Viv nicely. He's out and about exploring but still remains in hiding most of the time haha. I've been able to keep the temp a constant 75 and humidity stays around 85%. Haven't had to use my Reptifogger at all.

The frog in quarantine is doing well also. She's so active in her little tank! Can't wait to add her. Its been 2 weeks now so hopefully soon!

[flybyferns]

Hi Jeremy,
I make them about every 10 days to 2 weeks.
I have a lot of little mouths to feed- I keep about 36 cultures going.

What species of FF are you culturing ,and for what species PDF?

I culture hydei, turkish gliders and melanogaster.
Heads up- hydei take twice as long to start to produce.
I put extra culture medium in so their food lasts.

The "turkish glider" thing is really confusing, it looks like a larger D. melanogaster.
This species(?) does move differently than melano. They hop
Having said that, I have mixed the -TGs- accidently with menano --- and they took flight.
So, I have been separately culturing this 'so-called other" species separately.
It's best to keep different suppliers flies separate, as the very least.

ie don't mix ( seed) different suppliers melano flies into one new culture;
otherwise you will be moving the fruit bowl !!! NOT FUN !

Glad to hear things a going well.
As a rule of thumb - I make new cultures from cultures that are producing for about 2 weeks.
After a month ( often still going ) I move these older cultures away from the new ones, just in case.

Mites will appear in the older cultures ! They will ruin all the new ones if they get in.
The cultures will crash and you will be left with no food.
This only has to happen to you once Last summer I had a mess . It happens !
Keep an eye on the interior rim of the culture container lid. The are tan and about this ( . ) big.

Best, Lynn

[DigitalPunk]

I always try to have twice as many cultures going as I will need to feed my frogs. This gives me at least a little room for an oops if mites were to happen. I also keep small crickets on hand for feeding them also and could switch to just crickets if a huge fly problem were to occur.

I was making new cultures every 7 days, but now I have 4 cultures booming with flies and 3 of them i haven't touched yet so I think I will switch to 10 - 14 days now and see how that goes lol.