How I make fruit fly medium!

Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Advertise with us
Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Some while ago, Christian mentioned using vinegar in his hydei cultures. Mija and I have used this routinely with no spectacular results and last month when the issue of "vinegar flies" came up, we wondered if he was using "old fashioned" vinegar, so recently, I bought a bottle of "cloudy" vinegar from a health food store with the "mother of vinegar," which contains the microbial culture that converts alcoholic apple cyder to vinegar. Nowadays, cyder vinegar is filtered and pasteurized before being bottled for supermarket stores. I got a pint (~1/2 liter) for about $6.00 and titrated the top fluid off and used the gunk at the bottom. The medium consisted of potato flakes, brown sugar and two mushed bananas to make eight cultures. I added about 1 tablespoonful (15ccs) of the vinegar to the top of the medium and let it soak in. Each culture also got a thin slice of apple and a sprinkle of dried yeast.

I prepared eight pots, four of "pure" mels and four "pure" hydei from bought stock. Three of each species had the vinegar added and one did not. The flies were introduced on the third of this month.

The hatch was a huge success, one of the best I remember, but the mels in the vinegar-free pot did as well as those that had it!

The situation was different in the hydei series. Here, the hydei in the three pots with vinegar had all eclosed yesterday, after only eight days, while those in the control pot are all still in the larval/pupal stage with a preponderance of the former. This, too will yield a good number of flies, but the vinegar seems to cut down substantially on the life cycle of this species, at least in culture.

I'll repeat the process today with a variation. I shall set up another eight pots as before and introduce the flies tonight (so as to prevent the chances of conmtamination). Last time, though, I let the pots stand for two days while awaiting a shipment of fresh flies, so I shall set up another eight pots and let them stand for two days before introducing the flies. It may well be that I have accidentally discovered a method of speeding up the flies' (particularly hydei) life cycle! :D

Incidentally, Christian, if you read this, can you tell us what type of vinegar you are using and what success you are having with your hydei cultures??

 
With hydei, I discovered that the potato flakes made all the difference. I always got the cheap kind, but not all cheap kinds are the same. There was this one kind that was giving me huge success. When it ran out, I used another kind and didn't work at all.

With that going on with the hydei, my melanogaster cultures experienced no difference.

 
OGIGA said:
With hydei, I discovered that the potato flakes made all the difference. I always got the cheap kind, but not all cheap kinds are the same. There was this one kind that was giving me huge success. When it ran out, I used another kind and didn't work at all.With that going on with the hydei, my melanogaster cultures experienced no difference.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I plan on making my own mashed potatoes soon and trying them instead of the flakes. They should be cheaper and provide more consistency. I wonder if anyone has ever given up raising mantids so that they could just concentrate on raising fruit flies? :D

 
PhilinYuma said:
Interesting. I plan on making my own mashed potatoes soon and trying them instead of the flakes. They should be cheaper and provide more consistency. I wonder if anyone has ever given up raising mantids so that they could just concentrate on raising fruit flies? :D
Click to expand...
When I started this hobby roughly 3 months ago I got my first FF culture from a reptile shop down the street. They charged me $14.95 for a 32oz FF Culture. I still have it and it's still going. No, not as strong as it was originally going and actually.. it doesn't smell bad at all. It was producing a not-so-great number of fruit flies and the lid and the sides of the cup were so dirty, I could barely see inside. So, I pulled out my foam plug and used my misting bottle to spray inside of the fruit fly culture to get some of the gunk off. It actually worked OK. No, it wasn't perfectly clean but... it did clear it up quite a bit. More interestingly, the water caused the fruit fly culture to re-explode with life. I found a few days later that the culture was filled with baby fruit flies! It's never been back to Day #1's population count but it's still alive and I like to use it first before I hit up my new culture.

Now, I have tried the mix here in this forum thread and it was terrible. Since the instructions are missing some specifics which are crucial to manti-noobs like me, I poured a whole packet of yeast into 1 batch of the mix. This caused the mixture to produce too much gas, killing off the 40-something fruit flies I had added. Then, I re-made the mixture and found that after a week it smelled like nasty old wine even though I simply sprinkled a pinch of yeast on the top surface.

After two failures, I've given up on this recipe. The one I bought for $15 that's lasted me 3 months is only mashed potatoes with a bit of blue methane? added to it. I'll ask the guy at the reptile house again... I can't remember the name but it was something like Methane or Methynal 5? anyone know?

Well, I might go out and buy a box of powder mashed potatoes and try to figure out what this anti-mold chemical is.

I just got off the phone with the guy from the reptile house and he said it's a "secret recipe". lol what a dork, his boss told me it was those 2 things.

Anyhow, I'll just buy the pre-made stuff. I'm getting tired of puttering around with something so inconsequential.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Update: Just got off the phone with the OWNER of the Chicago Reptile House and this is what is in the mix:

1. Mash Potatoes (dry mix)

2. Water

3. Vinegar

4. Methylene Blue

You all know where to get the top 3 ingredients, here is where you get #4 http://www.shop.edsflymeat.com/product.sc;...mp;productId=73.

He says that 2-3 drops of the methylene blue is enough for a 32oz cup and misting the culture once every week is enough to keep it alive. He claims to have seen cultures dwindle down but survive for 6 months. The key is to use the powder instant mashed potato mix because it contains preserves in it that will also help fight mold.

 
Hey, "Lectric! You really have been working hard! I think that methylene blue is the "dye" mentioned at the beginning of this thread. A similar dye is available in one of the commercial mixes, and is Heavily Used in the Petco vials. It seems to be possible to get good cultures with or without it though, and I wonderif the extra trouble/expense is worth it. Also, in addition to limiting mold growth, it is mildly bacteriacidal and I wonder if it doesn't retard the fermentation of the yeast. Mija will almost certainly know, so I'll get back to you on that.

Down here, the air is so dry that mold is not much of a problem. Have you had trouble up there in Chi?

Boy, my dog food house fly cultures, which I keep much moister, get really grungy, though!

Keep us updated!

 
Don't be afraid of vinegar. My flies actually seem happier with vinegar in the mix. Just don't overdo the vinegar because that might not turn out so well. I've simplified my recipe a lot (to save time) and it still works:

Masa + potato flakes + honey + vinegar + water + yeast + flies

I do this all in a water bottle with a modified cap. I used to put substrate in but got lazy and skipped it. Still works fine!

 
OK I thought that Mela's breed faster, but my Hydei are the faster of the 2 it's freaky how many they are makeing . The mela's I have are the yellow wingless ones, the hydei I have are the black with rusty eyes with wings, so I dont know why the mela's aren't wining the race.

A note to get my hydei to take off faster, I take maggots from a older culture, and I sill put ff in the new culture, it take off fast, so if you are ever in need of a fast culyure there you go.

Danny

Ps with my mela's and hydei's I did start them @ the same time no quick start.

 
Well, I use a little of everything anymore, my cultures scare me cause of the amount of flies in them, not sure, but I think it is the brewers yeast. I use Calcium Propionate for mold control. I am going to sell on my site, ....someday along with the water crystals and the brewers yeast...yea someday when I get the new site done :(

 
Last edited by a moderator:
PhilinYuma said:
Some while ago, Christian mentioned using vinegar in his hydei cultures. Mija and I have used this routinely with no spectacular results and last month when the issue of "vinegar flies" came up, we wondered if he was using "old fashioned" vinegar, so recently, I bought a bottle of "cloudy" vinegar from a health food store with the "mother of vinegar," which contains the microbial culture that converts alcoholic apple cyder to vinegar. Nowadays, cyder vinegar is filtered and pasteurized before being bottled for supermarket stores. I got a pint (~1/2 liter) for about $6.00 and titrated the top fluid off and used the gunk at the bottom. The medium consisted of potato flakes, brown sugar and two mushed bananas to make eight cultures. I added about 1 tablespoonful (15ccs) of the vinegar to the top of the medium and let it soak in. Each culture also got a thin slice of apple and a sprinkle of dried yeast. I prepared eight pots, four of "pure" mels and four "pure" hydei from bought stock. Three of each species had the vinegar added and one did not. The flies were introduced on the third of this month.

The hatch was a huge success, one of the best I remember, but the mels in the vinegar-free pot did as well as those that had it!

The situation was different in the hydei series. Here, the hydei in the three pots with vinegar had all eclosed yesterday, after only eight days, while those in the control pot are all still in the larval/pupal stage with a preponderance of the former. This, too will yield a good number of flies, but the vinegar seems to cut down substantially on the life cycle of this species, at least in culture.

I'll repeat the process today with a variation. I shall set up another eight pots as before and introduce the flies tonight (so as to prevent the chances of conmtamination). Last time, though, I let the pots stand for two days while awaiting a shipment of fresh flies, so I shall set up another eight pots and let them stand for two days before introducing the flies. It may well be that I have accidentally discovered a method of speeding up the flies' (particularly hydei) life cycle! :D

Incidentally, Christian, if you read this, can you tell us what type of vinegar you are using and what success you are having with your hydei cultures??
Click to expand...
[SIZE=14pt]Hey Phil did you every find anything out about the vinegar, also are you still useing this same way of makeing culture?[/SIZE]

 
lemmiwinks said:
Hey,If i grind cornmeal into a fine powder, will that essentially be masa?
Click to expand...
No. Masa can be made from a variety of cereals, corn, wheat and maize, but it has to be treated with slaked lime. Don't even try it! :D

If you keep a number of nymphs, you will be making up pots of ff formula every week, at least. You want the process to be as simple as possible and the materials to be easily available. I still think that it is hard to beat Orin's formula in the sticky at the beginning of this section, though you can make the procedure even simpler -- at a price -- by buying a prepared medium like that sold by Carolina Biological. One item that might be useful and is only mentioned by Hibiscusmile, is brewer's yeast (not to be confused with active yeast that is always used). This has been used by labs that need ffs for nearly 100 years.

 
PhilinYuma said:
No. Masa can be made from a variety of cereals, corn, wheat and maize, but it has to be treated with slaked lime. Don't even try it! :D If you keep a number of nymphs, you will be making up pots of ff formula every week, at least. You want the process to be as simple as possible and the materials to be easily available. I still think that it is hard to beat Orin's formula in the sticky at the beginning of this section, though you can make the procedure even simpler -- at a price -- by buying a prepared medium like that sold by Carolina Biological. One item that might be useful and is only mentioned by Hibiscusmile, is brewer's yeast (not to be confused with active yeast that is always used). This has been used by labs that need ffs for nearly 100 years.
Click to expand...
Thanks Phil for the very informative answer ;) , way to be educational! I've been using Orin's staple recipe and it seems to be doing well. I'll just stick to that for now. I've only got 7 nymphs whom i feed every other day so it ain't too bad. Anyway, Thank you very much Philinyuma, very much appreciated :)

 

Latest posts

Top