# fruitfly cultures



## iceman1609 (Apr 26, 2008)

hi guys, might sound silly but is there any care you need to take with fruitfly cultures &amp; roughly how long will they last.i bought a few cultures from exotic pets website but no info with them.


----------



## Malnra (Apr 26, 2008)

Not much care to them other than dont get them too cold or too hot. As long as there is a layer of the food on the bottom they will reproduce and keep going for a couple months. Just do not use up all the flys in the container to keep the cycle going.


----------



## macro junkie (Apr 26, 2008)

i bin mine after about 1 month

dont bother buying any more cultures..tbh there a waste of money because there never made right..them always come in small tubs and last another 2 weeks..tbh iv never bought one from exotic pets..u got a camera?can u take a pic for me?ever now and then i get desperate and have to order 1..i ordered 1 from http://www.livefoodsdirect.co.uk/products.asp?dept=1009 and they have started using small new containers..oh man do they suck or what..the amount the exssor they have put in is that little theres maggots all over the lid and side..its a mess...did u have to wait a week for it to turn up?


----------



## asdsdf (Apr 26, 2008)

Yah, if you can estimate how many you need, you can make as many cultures as you want with just the one you got. Also, when the cultures are showing signs of aging, you can make new ones from the old ones.


----------



## iceman1609 (Apr 26, 2008)

hi yeh tbh i wouldnt recommend exotic-pets,the packing was really poor and as for delivery time well it must have taken 2 1/2 weeks to arrive.i didnt know about livefoods at the time of order just that newborn mantids like the fruitfly so rushed into placing my order.i am planning on trying out livefoods next as they cannot be as bad im sure. i think exotic pets prolly just good at pets.if this forum at some point will aloow me to upload pics again lol i will post a pic of 1 of the cultures from them so you can see how it compares to livefoods.


----------



## OGIGA (Apr 26, 2008)

Yeah, some of the ones at pet stores really suck. They're only good for taking the flies and making your own cultures. However, PetCo recently started selling a different kind of culture. The medium looks like it's potato based and looks like something you'd make at home.


----------



## Kalemaster (May 21, 2008)

OGIGA said:


> Yeah, some of the ones at pet stores really suck. They're only good for taking the flies and making your own cultures. However, PetCo recently started selling a different kind of culture. The medium looks like it's potato based and looks like something you'd make at home.


I never really cared for potato cultures. I prefer oatmeal &amp; molasses ones, because the molasses prevents mold. I have seen honey used as well, though the old molasses and oat ones were always what worked best for me. I believe that I originally got the recipe out of a book called Odd Pets, but I could be mistaken. Whichever book I got it from, it worked marvelously. It didn't mold, it smelled a little, but wasn't horrible, and the D. melanogaster cultures I raised for my pets did better than the ones that my father raised in the lab.

We kept our cultures going 365 days a year, but started new cultures every few months at least.


----------

