Fruit Fly Culture Lid Modification

[wesleybrouwer]

I always use this cup for my cultures.
It;s a 1 litre cup with some plastic fly screen glued into it..

[Lynx]

I've finally tried the mod, and it's BRILLIANT! I made more work for myself by not having the small drink cup as a template, but Mike, this is fantastic, and thanks so much for sharing this. The only possible issue, and it's not really an issue, is that sometimes the flies pile up against the lid instead of funneling down the spout, but if your culture is teeming with the little buggers, believe me, more than enough will pour out. No more squished against the rim or crawling out faster than you can tap them back in!

[Guenhwyvar]

i'd like to try this, but the photos aren't showing up for me. I really like to look at the thing i'm reading about. Is this just me?

[DonLisk]

Photos are showing up here. Try viewing them in Mike's photo album.

[poison beauties]

nice ideas, but if your just trying to manage loose flies it may be easier to just line a cabinet or shelf in mite paper with fly paper and keep them in there. Also keeping the excelsior or coffee filters further away from the top will slow their escape atleast in numbers when you open the cup but tapping ithem down should be fine. kill the escapees with fly paper or a cup of beer or wine and limit the amount of work put into it. FF cups just seem so much easier to deal with.

Michael

[MikeM670]

I've finally tried the mod, and it's BRILLIANT! I made more work for myself by not having the small drink cup as a template, but Mike, this is fantastic, and thanks so much for sharing this. The only possible issue, and it's not really an issue, is that sometimes the flies pile up against the lid instead of funneling down the spout, but if your culture is teeming with the little buggers, believe me, more than enough will pour out. No more squished against the rim or crawling out faster than you can tap them back in!

Sorry for the late reply. I never saw any updates to this thread until this morning. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Just one issue I have encountered with this. Make sure you screw the cap down all the way because those little buggers for some reason can work their way out of the top. I've had it happen a couple of times. Usually after I prep a new culture and forget to tighten the cap.

No squished flies and I don't have that mass escape when trying to get some out. These guys are fast!

[MikeM670]

I've finally tried the mod, and it's BRILLIANT! I made more work for myself by not having the small drink cup as a template, but Mike, this is fantastic, and thanks so much for sharing this. The only possible issue, and it's not really an issue, is that sometimes the flies pile up against the lid instead of funneling down the spout, but if your culture is teeming with the little buggers, believe me, more than enough will pour out. No more squished against the rim or crawling out faster than you can tap them back in!

Sorry missed the part about the flies piling up. When the flies pile up against one side I just rotate the container and they tend to fall through the spout!