How I make fruit fly medium!

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MikhailsDinos said:
Yes, i've tried this & I did get flying fruit flies. It does take two or three generations through.
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Okay, well, 1 generation has just passed. I have lots of hydei but very few melanogaster in the container. They don't fly yet. Should I add more melanogaster or should I just leave it?

 
albedoa said:
DARKSPEED: How much lemon juice do you use (as a ratio to the other ingredients)? The vinegar is the only thing that bothers me about my mediums because it stinks up my closet, so I'd like to remove that if I could. I enjoy the smell of lemon juice, on the other hand. :) Also, I have to use a 1:1 MASA to apple sauce ratio in order to prevent it from drying out within the first few days. I might even have to start putting in more apple sauce than MASA.
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One or two ounces max... like half a shot glass... but it really isnt necessary if you use a warm water / yeast solution and pour it in top of the culture after you mix it up and add it to the container. It will absorb from the top and establish itself before any mold has a chance to.

I'd also like to reiterate that the recipe posted recently still doesnt have any fungus, and is already into its second generation.

 
ive just to experimented with a few milk powder dm ff cultures. the mixture i made was basically rhubarb /apple heated in a pan with skimmed milk powder and a bit of sugar. lots of yeasty water was sprinkled on top. i only used a very thin 5mm layer in a jam jar as they dont seem to go down v deep into it. about 40 adult flies and kept at about 30c. some blue mold formed but basically theyve exploded up the sides like ive never seen before and the molds gone (eaten?). they are the biggest ff maggots ive seen too. :p

maybe the protein in the milk is a boost to growth

 
not sure why people would want to experiment with culture medium when mash potato yeast and water is all u need to make amazing cultures.

 
the fact of the matter is everyone swears by their own recipes, yet when followed "to the letter" by someone else, they can fail miserably. i too use mash potato sugar and yeast and it works great for me, but before settling on it i tried plenty of "guaranteed" recipes which all failed. so ig euss what i am saying is it is sometimes necessary to experiment a little to find one that works well for you (regardless of how well it works for other people).

 
I have tried the milk in my cultures,and they seem to be doing good, do not know if it is anything extra yet, and I just made some new turkish gliders today, so I will see how these go.

 
I'm still experimenting, trying to get it right. My latest culture is:

8 tbps apple sauce

6 tbsp masa

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 pinches yeast

My last culture had only one tbsp of lemon juice, and mold is forming pretty rapidly after just four days. Think the extra tbsp will fix that? Also, it still seems to dry a bit fast, even using 4:3 sauce to mesa. What proportions do you guys use?

 
Sorry to bump this thread, but I have problems no matter what recipe I use. I just switched to a potato flake recipe:

1/2 cup potato

1/2 cup water

2 tbsp. vinegar

pinch of yeast

I've tried this recipe with varying amounts of vinegar, but mold grows rapidly on the surface and kills all of the flies. I haven't heard of anyone else having that problem with potato flakes, and some people said they don't even use vinegar. What could be causing this? I like the potato flakes better than the mesa because it doesn't dry out as fast, but this mold is a real issue.

Edit: Hmm, it looks like the extra tbsp on vinegar is doing the trick. I was only putting 1 tbsp in before.

 
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Happy Mantis said:
Hi,Can you use apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar. And how much yeast?

Regards :rolleyes:
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Yeah, you can use that kind of vinegar. And umm, I really don't know how much yeast I put in. It's less than a gram... Umm, I sprinkle until each piece of yeast is about 1mm away from each other, average.

 
Hi everyone,

I have been using a new medium. I found it online and it works very well and without the smell.

But I have found you have to use 1 tablespoon of agar and not 1 teaspoon, otherwise it's to runny.

RECIPE #2

"Raising Fruit Flies", Nancy Nehring

Reptiles Magazine, October 1995, pp. 26-28, 30

1 cup water

1 tablespoon cornmeal

1 teaspoon powdered agar

1 tablespoon molasses

1/8 teaspoon calcium proprionate (optional)

1 package bakers yeast

Mix all ingredients except yeast, then heat until boiling. Quickly pour mixture into clean culture jars. Cap and let cool to room temperature. This mixture can be stored in the refridgerator with a tightly capped lid until ready for use. When ready to use, sprinkle a couple granules of baker's yeast on the surface and add fruit flys. Calcium proprionate is a mold inhibitor used in bread.

 
MikhailsDinos said:
Hi everyone,I have been using a new medium. I found it online and it works very well and without the smell.

But I have found you have to use 1 tablespoon of agar and not 1 teaspoon, otherwise it's to runny.

RECIPE #2

"Raising Fruit Flies", Nancy Nehring

Reptiles Magazine, October 1995, pp. 26-28, 30

1 cup water

1 tablespoon cornmeal

1 teaspoon powdered agar

1 tablespoon molasses

1/8 teaspoon calcium proprionate (optional)

1 package bakers yeast

Mix all ingredients except yeast, then heat until boiling. Quickly pour mixture into clean culture jars. Cap and let cool to room temperature. This mixture can be stored in the refridgerator with a tightly capped lid until ready for use. When ready to use, sprinkle a couple granules of baker's yeast on the surface and add fruit flys. Calcium proprionate is a mold inhibitor used in bread.
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Hi,

Here is my favorite off the web from: Fruitfly culture @ Petfish.

Home Made Culture Recipe:

½ Cup Instant Mashed Potato flakes.

4 tsp. Cornflower.

2 tsp. Active yeast.

½ tsp. Sugar.

Apple Cider Vinegar.

I mix all the dry in a larger portion and when needed add in the Apple Cider Vinegar before I use this. The Apple Cider Vinegar has 2 uses, first it is a good mold inhibitor, and second it helps bind the items together. When ready to mix the dry with the Vinegar you will want to mix it in a 1:1 ratio, it will be the consistency of a dry paste. You don't want it to be too wet, or it will foul your culture.

Regards :p

 
All the recipes are good, I started using the calcium proprionate in my cultures because no one here other than me could stand the vinegar smell, I am going to offer on my site to, because if your family is not into feeder bugs, they will whinnnnn every time you use vinegar! <_<

 
Ive been using mashed potatoes yeast and Sunny D. There was a thread around here where one of the elite original members of the board was talking about how to add the yeast to warm water to "jump start" it into growing quickly and out competing any chance of mold. I have searched for that thread for hours using every keyword in the thread to no avail, But I suspect that allot of threads on this board become victims of the delete button for one reason or another. Nevertheless, I went one step further and heated the sunny d in the microwave, providing the yeast with moisture, heat and an instant sugar source to grow like crazy. It works well and so far no mold without vinegar. Since I am currently also using wild fruit flies I had several escapees recently and found them hovering around a glass of koolaid a while later. So I decided to get the lil buggers to work for me and set up an open culture using a empty 20 oz bottle. There are now maggots in the culture, so at least the fugitives weren't a total loss.

 
I found that mash potatoes, masa, honey, vinegar, and yeast with melanogaster works way too well and doesn't mold. The hydei didn't so well with this though. :mellow:

 

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