# I wonder how this is going to turn out...



## JoeCapricorn (Feb 27, 2010)

Last night I figured I would try to make my own experimental fruit fly medium. I took 3 whole bananas and mashed them up, mixed it with spring mix (then later took the spring mix out since that was a dumb idea), bread crumbs (to soak up moisture) and added a couple spoonfuls of vinegar. I predict it will start to smell rather bad in a couple of days and might not work as intended, but we'll see.. if little maggots start appearing in the cultures that would be great.

I have a culture set aside with the regular blue stuff, just in case this new homemade medium is a fail.


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## Katnapper (Feb 27, 2010)

JoeCapricorn said:


> Last night I figured I would try to make my own experimental fruit fly medium. I took 3 whole bananas and mashed them up, mixed it with spring mix (then later took the spring mix out since that was a dumb idea), bread crumbs (to soak up moisture) and added a couple spoonfuls of vinegar. I predict it will start to smell rather bad in a couple of days and might not work as intended, but we'll see.. if little maggots start appearing in the cultures that would be great.
> 
> I have a culture set aside with the regular blue stuff, just in case this new homemade medium is a fail.


What is "spring mix," Joe? Just curious... never heard of it. Good luck with it!


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## sbugir (Feb 27, 2010)

I'm sure it'll be fine. W/o the spring mix of course, (is that spring mix salad)?


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## Rick (Feb 27, 2010)

Spring mix is like mixed baby greens for salads. Think lettuces.


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## JoeCapricorn (Feb 27, 2010)

There is already a thin layer of mold in two of the cultures. Will this affect anything? Would it be safe to feed these flies to my mantises?


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## Katnapper (Feb 28, 2010)

I'm not sure if mold would do any harm, but it might take over and kill the culture. Since you just made this yesterday or the day before, I'd scrap it and make new... with more vinegar. Also add a very small amount of dry yeast to the top. If you're looking for something to soak up the liquids with, use dried potato flakes (proven to be a good medium solid), or buy a cheap 10 lb. bag of potatoes and microwave, then mash them up and mix into medium. But you either need more vinegar for the amount of media you made (2 spoons is not enough in my opinion.... I use 2 or 3 Cups in a large popcorn bowl), or buy some methyl paraban to prevent mold.

Edit: Or do as Phil suggests and buy a commercial medium mix.


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## PhilinYuma (Feb 28, 2010)

JoeCapricorn said:


> There is already a thin layer of mold in two of the cultures. Will this affect anything? Would it be safe to feed these flies to my mantises?


Let me break the sad truth to you, Joe, you are wasting your time and setting back your fly culturing program. Have you ever seen how a chunk of mashed banana, with or without lots of vinegar, looks after ten days? Rotten pretty much describes it, plus dried out, plus covered in fungus. Bite the bullet, buy some fruit fly culture from Carolina. It has lots of Good Things including a mold inhibitor. Your mantids will thank you.

On a much more important topic, I see that one of the fascinating names that you have given to your mantids is "Nereid" and I thought that I would refer you to Wikipedia for the names of those 50 nymphs, daughters of Nereus. To my my surprise, I found that the list included many false names and omitted some of the true ones. This is part of the Catechism and should be learned by rote. Here is the correct list:

Agaue, Aktaia, Amphitrite, Autonoe, Doris, Doto, Dynamene, Eione, Erato, Eugaore, Euarne, Eudora, Eukrante, Eulimene, Eunike, Eupompe, Galateia, Galene, Glauke, Glaukonome, Halia, Halimede, Hipponoe, Hippothoe, Kymo, Kymodoke, Kymothoe, Laomedeia, Leiagora, Lysianassa, Melite, Menippe, Nemertes, Nesaie, Neso, Panopeia, Pasithea, Pherousa, Ploto, Polynoe, Pontoporeia, Pronoe, Proto, Protomedeia, Psamathe, Sao, Speio, Themisto, Thetis and Thoe.

And there you are. All their names have meaning, of course. One is the guardian of Malta, another looks like a silvery grey fish, another is "first sorceress" and yet another, "journey across the sea", "sweet victory" "lovely companion", I'm sure that you can work out most of the rest for yourself. Good luck.


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## Rick (Feb 28, 2010)

I don't think the mold will hurt when feeding mantids, but it will likely crash the culture as it eats up all of the medium. Commercial mixtures cost money but they do work.


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## hibiscusmile (Feb 28, 2010)

Gotta agree with the others, lettuces are not good for the culture, will just rot, and while they like rotton fruit, vegies are not their choice, as in vegie flies,,,, :tt2:


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 6, 2010)

I remade the culture just a couple of days after this experiment. What I did was basically potato flakes, water and I added some wheat germ since it was the only protein source I could find. As of right now, there are indeed maggots in the culture!

I got a couple spare fruit fly cultures just in case, but I believe that I now have a large scale colony of my own!

Also, since my mantises are getting bigger, I invested in a large number of crickets today. In all I have over one hundred ranging from sizes pinhead to medium and I put them in an old medium-sized Kritter Keeper.

Yesterday I completely ran out of crickets (except for Dot, my pet cricket, who is not going to be a feeder) when feeding my mantises. Fortunately all mantises got something to eat, and tonight they will eat well!


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 6, 2010)

I think it is cute u got Dot! Sometime s when I feed off my crickets, I feel bad for them, especiallly when I grab their back by mistake and they are trying to reach whatever is holding onto them. thnakd now I feel really bad


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 7, 2010)

hibiscusmile said:


> I think it is cute u got Dot! Sometime s when I feed off my crickets, I feel bad for them, especiallly when I grab their back by mistake and they are trying to reach whatever is holding onto them. thnakd now I feel really bad


Sad to say, Dot died  - cause unknown but might be dehydration or might be starvation (I only gave him spring mix and he might not have eaten any of it)

But that just leaves room for Dot 2, perhaps? All I did was separate a cricket and give it some sort of individuality by giving it a name. This name and separation from the colony is all that distinguished Dot from the rest.

I also got this new dry gut-load with all sorts of vitamins. Now the crickets will be even better for the mantises ^_^ - plus, this may resolve the problem I had with Dot. Even the smallest crickets are eating this stuff, some even take a piece and drag it with them and eat it somewhere else. I think I even see a cricket with its own horde pile. Hahahaha!

Since I am likely to figure out the cause of death for Dot, I can learn from this and better sustain the life of the colony crickets, which will in turn better benefit my mantises. Dot's death is not in vain. Neither is the death of each cricket and fruit fly that gets nomnomnom'd by the mantises.


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 7, 2010)

Yea, they like grain, but they do eat veggies, so maybe it was just sick. Try keeping two together, maybe like dogs they need a freind?


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 8, 2010)

Oooo... I am excited about this now! The culture is going full speed. No pupations yet, but there are massive amounts of maggots.

I decided to supplement the culture with larger sized maggots as well from a fresh Hydei culture. This seems to have turned out better than I thought because the "blue stuff" is now spread evenly across the top.

I spun off two experimental cultures as well. One with the remains of a fresh culture and one that I mixed the cricket gut-load stuff with. I want to see if this cricket feed can be added to a culture. Both cultures are heavily maggotted.


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## Katnapper (Mar 8, 2010)

Sounds promising, Joe... I'm glad!


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 9, 2010)

Now there are pupae in at least two of the cultures. There is one pupae in the large culture that I could see and several large maggots. There was also one pupae in the experimental "cricket feed" culture, so at the very least this culture will result in flies. My eventual goal is to standardize the process of medium creation so that I can have a constant culture going. The third culture, which is a very small culture, will probably be merged with the large culture today since it seems to be drying out too easy (There is really not much medium in there, because a lot of it was scattered, yet now it seems it has all coalesced into one lump on the side) - a quick spray literally awakened at least 50 maggots. Well, now they are crawling all over the place so I might scratch that plan and see if I can just let them mature on their own.

There are maggots scattered in the big culture... and they are HUGE! For D. Hydei maggots, at least. I may just end up with the largest, juiciest fruit flies I've ever seen! Hahaha!


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## mythal (Mar 13, 2010)

I've actually experimented a bit and made up something that has worked quite well with Melanogaster. Insofar I've had no trouble with mold, but I've only made less than ten batches of the stuff. Does not smell too bad either.

My own concoction:

- fresh apple or banana mashed up

- some potato starch / cornstarch

- some apple vinegar

- tablespoon of running honey (helps to prevent mold, too)

- some flour to thicken the stuff

- a sprinkle of dry yeast on top

- and a toilet paper roll

I haven't really paid much attention to how much of everything I put in it, but it should not be too hard to make it on the fly. I'm not quite sure if I properly translated all the ingredients to English, though..


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 13, 2010)

mythal said:


> I've actually experimented a bit and made up something that has worked quite well with Melanogaster. Insofar I've had no trouble with mold, but I've only made less than ten batches of the stuff. Does not smell too bad either.
> 
> My own concoction:
> 
> ...


That looks like it should work. I think the fresh apple would work better since I've read somewhere it naturally inhibits mold. The starch provides energy for the flies/maggots, the vinegar convinces the female flies that fermentation has taken place, therefore they lay eggs, the honey as you said prevents mold and provides food - as well as possibly adding nutrients to the flies that are later provided to the mantises. The yeast further helps the fermentation, which is important for egg laying and the flour thickens it as you said - I may indeed apply some of these ingredients to future mediums.

My medium is potato flakes and water (uncooked instant mashed potatoes) with wheat germ (for protein) and a shot of Smirnoff Passion Fruit flavored Vodka. The alcohol of the liquor also provides a fermentation product, which female flies like to lay eggs in. This was successful, there are now tons of maggots and pupae in the culture.

Also it does not look like you "translated" anything until you said you did, when I noticed some slightly odd word combinations - "running honey" could also be said as "runny honey" or something but both are correct, or at least good enough for this native English speaker to understand exactly what you mean. Other than that your English is perfect.

Where are you from?


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## PhilinYuma (Mar 13, 2010)

JoeCapricorn said:


> Now there are pupae in at least two of the cultures. There is one pupae in the large culture that I could see and several large maggots. There was also one pupae in the experimental "cricket feed" culture, so at the very least this culture will result in flies. My eventual goal is to standardize the process of medium creation so that I can have a constant culture going. The third culture, which is a very small culture, will probably be merged with the large culture today since it seems to be drying out too easy (There is really not much medium in there, because a lot of it was scattered, yet now it seems it has all coalesced into one lump on the side) - a quick spray literally awakened at least 50 maggots. Well, now they are crawling all over the place so I might scratch that plan and see if I can just let them mature on their own.
> 
> There are maggots scattered in the big culture... and they are HUGE! For D. Hydei maggots, at least. I may just end up with the largest, juiciest fruit flies I've ever seen! Hahaha!


Congratulations! You have achieved what everyone strives for, Joe. Lock in your system and stick with it!


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## mythal (Mar 14, 2010)

JoeCapricorn said:


> That looks like it should work. I think the fresh apple would work better since I've read somewhere it naturally inhibits mold. The starch provides energy for the flies/maggots, the vinegar convinces the female flies that fermentation has taken place, therefore they lay eggs, the honey as you said prevents mold and provides food - as well as possibly adding nutrients to the flies that are later provided to the mantises. The yeast further helps the fermentation, which is important for egg laying and the flour thickens it as you said - I may indeed apply some of these ingredients to future mediums.
> 
> My medium is potato flakes and water (uncooked instant mashed potatoes) with wheat germ (for protein) and a shot of Smirnoff Passion Fruit flavored Vodka. The alcohol of the liquor also provides a fermentation product, which female flies like to lay eggs in. This was successful, there are now tons of maggots and pupae in the culture.
> 
> ...


Thank you!

Yours actually seems to be quite a bit simpler, so maybe I'll give it a shot, too.

I'm from Finland and have actually studied English a bit at the University of Joensuu. Still, it's not always easy to use all the proper terms, but I guess it helps that not even all native speakers do so.


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## JoeCapricorn (Mar 14, 2010)

mythal said:


> Thank you!
> 
> Yours actually seems to be quite a bit simpler, so maybe I'll give it a shot, too.
> 
> I'm from Finland and have actually studied English a bit at the University of Joensuu. Still, it's not always easy to use all the proper terms, but I guess it helps that not even all native speakers do so.


Finland is an awesome place! A lot of my favorite bands are from Finland - Thergothon, Skepticism, Shape of Despair, Demilich, many many others.

Also, the proper terms depend on the dialect. In America alone there are a lot of regional dialects of English that have distinct (but small) differences. I live between Pennsylvania Dutch country and the city of Philadelphia, each has their own dialect. Philadelphia, for example, call sandwiches "subs" and plural second-person pronoun "youse" or "yiz" (which is like Southern US "y'all" or you all, or German "ihr"). Pennsylvania Dutch has a distinct German influence, from the language Pennsylvania Dutch (which is closer to High German than Dutch), for example if I say "The candy is all", which means "The candy is all gone", this is cognate from German "Die Süßigkeiten sind alle" - with "sind alle" being "is all" - I've also heard some terms such as "Spritzing" (light rain) or "Mox Nix" which are phrases and words borrowed from Pennsylvania Dutch. Therefore, the way I speak English is influenced by both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Dutch dialects of American English.

Some trivia, the modern language most closely resembling English is Scots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language - This is almost what English would look like with all the French influences taken away. The second most related language to English is Frisian, which itself looks more like Dutch/Swedish than English. There is also a language called "Yola" which existed in Ireland, essentially the Irish version of Scots, but it is an extinct language.

So back on the topic at hand, huge number of pupae in the culture. The experimental culture is still going but not developing pupae as fast. The third culture is just remnants of that blue stuff, and is drying out - I've been misting it every so often. In the big culture it will only be a matter of time before flies start hatching out. This will probably coincide with Dio's molt to L6. I will also look into ways to provide the first group fruit flies, but it will likely involve a mashing together of lots of flies instead of single flies one-by-one. Mantis treats! I'll research methods to make these treats and post them here as well.


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## Sparky (Mar 14, 2010)

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but... HONEY. 100% pure honey works well as a safe anti-fungal/mold agent.


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## PhilinYuma (Mar 15, 2010)

"Some trivia, the modern language most closely resembling English is Scots: http://en.wikipedia..../Scots_language - This is almost what English would look like with all the French influences taken away. The second most related language to English is Frisian, which itself looks more like Dutch/Swedish than English. There is also a language called "Yola" which existed in Ireland, essentially the Irish version of Scots, but it is an extinct language."

No. They lied to you son. In fairness, this nonsense was not invented by the Wikipedia contributor. I remember that my late sister Patty's husband, a lowland Scot said the same thing about highland Scots fifty years ago. . It betrays a long outmoded way of looking at language. Take "standard" (home counties!) English, remove the French borrowing since the arrival of the Normans in 1066, remove the German words which were integral to the Saxon language, remove the C19th colonial borrowings, principally Indian (which of course is not a language) and you will have what, certainly not English, Highland Scots? I have traveled all over the Western Highlands and don't believe it for a moment. Take that darling of the Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720-1788). The Highland Scots referred to him in their own language, not English but Gaelic, as Teàrlach Eideard Stiùbhair*t*, (Charles Edward Stuart) but in "English" he was "the young pretender" from the French "pretendre" to claim. 

Even Wikipedia never claims that Yola is "essentially the Irish version of Scots", because it isn't. The ancestral language of the Scottish Highlands is Scottish Gaelic, or E_rse_, and its Irish Gaelic equivalent is not extinct Yola (about which I know absolutely nothing) but living _Gaeilg._

I am frequently impressed by your enthusiasm and imagination, Joe, but sometimes they run away with you. Here, with the best of motives, you gave someone with only an academic knowledge of English (though your English is quite correct, mythal!) information that was imbued more with wonder than accuracy. I think that you have said that you are in college. I am sure that you can find a professor in the English department who can suggest some appropriate texts on the subject. If not, please feel free to contact me.


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