First fruit fly cultures

[hjoe1112]

Hoping to get some expert advice. Made my first culture but 2-3 days later I have some white mold or fungus on the surface of the medium. Flies are still running around. I realized I didn' t mix 50/50 water and vinegar and just used water.

Do i need to throw the batch out?

Can i still feed these to my grey tree froglets? I know I can't use them for future cultures.

Thanks for any advice.

[MikeM670]

Lets start off with what type of mix did you use? I use the fly mix recipe from our very own frog forum. Take a look at the article by John called "Fruit Fly Culturing". If your culture is only a few days old I highly doubt you have mites at this time. All cultures will end up with mites. The big white ones are not nearly has bad as the smaller brown ones. I have seen my cultures with what sounds like the same as you have but they were fine. It could be some mold starting but that also sounds too early.

If in doubt just make up new cultures and follow the recipe exactly so you have some backups. You can never have too many fruit flies but certainly can not have enough!

If you can take a closeup photo and we might be able to give you a better answer.

[guppygal]

If there isn't any mold inhibitor like vinegar in the liquid, you will get mold. To be on the safe side, prep a few more cultures and make sure you add 1:1 vinegar to water to the dry ingredients.

As Mike mentioned, all fruitfly cultures eventually end up with mites. The older the culture, the more likely it is to get mites. There's mite paper that you can set your cultures on that should help.

I make my cultures a little differently than most folks. I use empty plastic water bottles rather than the culture cups. I cover the bottle opening with black pantyhose so that I can see if I have a mite problem. I use the basic potato flake/brewer's yeast/powdered sugar dry ingredients mixed with an equal amount of liquid. I also use the broad excelsior which gives the flies more space to sit and the larvae to pupate. I drink a lot of water, so the containers are never in short supply.

On a side note, the plastic water bottles are useful for others stuff: cut the top half off an use it as a funnel; use the bottom half as a catch cup for your frogs; invert the the top half and tape it to the bottom half that has a piece of banana in it for a fruitfly trap.

So, there ya go ~

[hjoe1112]

Using Harvey Petersen Medium with 1 part white sugar, 2 parts instant milk powder and 4 parts instant mashed potatoes.

Can I still feed these flies to my froglets?

[guppygal]

I'm not familiar with this recipe, so I'm not sure what the white stuff is. The flies look ok, though. I'd be inclined to prep new cultures using these flies.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your frogs will be okay eating the flies.

[hjoe1112]

Thinking about it now - my instant mash potatoes actually had butter "flavor" added, could it be that separating to the top? I had made another culture with the vinegar/water using the same mash potatoes powder and it didn't do this.