Fruit Flies - What do you use

[flybyferns]

I've been using a left over roll of "deer block" / mesh barrier ( home depot or agway )
Originally purchased to cover some berry bushes in the yard.

It's actually working really well, and will last forever.
I'm on my 3rd week in a row of cultures batches ....no problems

I'm sick of vacuuming up the excelsior mess

[packer43064]

When I used to make cultures it was excelsior.

[Vivariums In The Mist]

I'm sick of excelisor too, honestly I would give up a little production for less mess, but just my opinion.

I've been using a left over roll of "deer block" / mesh barrier ( home depot or agway )
Originally purchased to cover some berry bushes in the yard.

It's actually working really well, and will last forever.
I'm on my 3rd week in a row of cultures batches ....no problems

I'm sick of vacuuming up the excelsior mess

[DigitalPunk]

I have been using excelsior, but like many others I am tired of vacuuming up the mess and picking the excelsior pieces out of the flies I am going to dump into the frog tanks. I found a nylon mesh online and have used it for the last couple weeks to setup cultures. So far it looks like it is working great. I will keep testing this and let you all know.

[Vivariums In The Mist]

Definitely, keep us posted Paul. Very interested in how mesh is working out for others. I'll let you know how I like it also.

I have been using excelsior, but like many others I am tired of vacuuming up the mess and picking the excelsior pieces out of the flies I am going to dump into the frog tanks. I found a nylon mesh online and have used it for the last couple weeks to setup cultures. So far it looks like it is working great. I will keep testing this and let you all know.

[DigitalPunk]

Definitely, keep us posted Paul. Very interested in how mesh is working out for others. I'll let you know how I like it also.

I setup a 2nd round of cultures this week using the same mesh but added more to the culture this time. Just want to see how the flies use it with the jar half full versus 3/4 full of mesh. Hoping we all have luck with the mesh! Would love for my cultures to become 100% reusable.

Currently I use 32oz Glass Mason Jars and Green Scour pads for the vented lids. Hoping the Mesh will work and I can rinse it off and get multiple uses out of it.

[Vivariums In The Mist]

Sounds good, it seems promising!

[Tzunu un]

It's important for me to have something that I can throw into the compost bin.

After trying a few things, I use both coffee filters and excelsior in a modified manner.
(Maybe someone else has posted this before but I'm not sure.)




I tried excelsior alone and it worked but was tired of the bits falling out into the flies when feeding and also having liquid in older cultures coming out.

I tried coffee filters alone and the yield was lower and also they cultures would eat them....especially the hydei cultures where the filters would turn to mush.

I tried combining them with the filter in the bottom and the the excelsior, but this still led to problems with bits of excelsior falling out.


The solution I found that works best for me was to use both, but to invert the set up and also cut a hole in the center of the coffee filters as well:

- Take 3 coffee filters, stack and fold in quarters and snip off the point by 1/2 inch to 1 inch.
- Unfold the filter stack and put a baseball sized ball of excelsior in the center. The filter paper stack is like a cup (looks like cupcake liner) around the excelsior.
- Invert this and put in container with media, pressing until it touches the media.


The flies emerge from the hole in the center of the filter. The filter acts as a cap to keep the excelsior in, while the folds of the filter along the sides of the container absorb any excess liquid.

This solves the excelsior problem, the liquid problem, and the coffee filter disintegration problem while keeping production high.


I tried adding pics from my computer to show what it looks like, but for some reason the forum site won't let me do this today.
I get an "This is not a valid image file" message even though it's the same format I've used before (also changing the format / size doesn't work today).
Any one else have have this problem recently?