1st attempt at FF culture

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Here is a culture I started on Jan 19. So this is the 2 week mark. Doing well and starting to pupate.

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Super simple.

1/4 cup instant potatoes, 1/4 cup HOT water, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 Tablespoon powdered sugar, 1 Tablespoon brewer's yeast "plus" from health food store (it has added "healthy" stuff).

Combine dry ingredients well and add the hot water and vinegar (I just heat them both together in the microwave). Mix well and tap media down on the counter. Let it stand to cool and absorb the liquid. When it cools down to "warm" just a pinch of active yeast on the top and add excelsior. When completely cool add fruit flies and wait. I have never counted how many flies I put in the new culture, but just not too many. I think it is recommended 40-50. Also I have heard you get better results if using the flies from the first "bloom", as the females will mature faster and be more plentiful to add to the new culture. This is what works for me and I have only purchased fruit flies 2 times in one year. The only reason I bought another culture was because I slacked off in my making of new cultures and needed a bump for new nymphs. Just don't let yourself run out and you're good. In my opinion, it's better to have too many ff than not enough. If you find you have too many ff to feed off, make an emergency culture or 2 with the excess flies. You might end up needing them if a culture crashes unexpectedly which can and does happen occasionally.

 
My potato culture is full of mold. According to your recipe I didn't add enough vinegar. And I only placed about 8-10 FF in each. I just ordered some new cultures that should be loaded with FF, so I am going to start from scratch again with your recipe and more FF. Hopefully my new mantids will outgrow them soon. Two already molted since they arrived.

 
patrickfraser said:
Super simple.

1/4 cup instant potatoes, 1/4 cup HOT water, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 Tablespoon powdered sugar, 1 Tablespoon brewer's yeast "plus" from health food store (it has added "healthy" stuff).

Combine dry ingredients well and add the hot water and vinegar (I just heat them both together in the microwave). Mix well and tap media down on the counter. Let it stand to cool and absorb the liquid. When it cools down to "warm" just a pinch of active yeast on the top and add excelsior. When completely cool add fruit flies and wait. I have never counted how many flies I put in the new culture, but just not too many. I think it is recommended 40-50. Also I have heard you get better results if using the flies from the first "bloom", as the females will mature faster and be more plentiful to add to the new culture. This is what works for me and I have only purchased fruit flies 2 times in one year. The only reason I bought another culture was because I slacked off in my making of new cultures and needed a bump for new nymphs. Just don't let yourself run out and you're good. In my opinion, it's better to have too many ff than not enough. If you find you have too many ff to feed off, make an emergency culture or 2 with the excess flies. You might end up needing them if a culture crashes unexpectedly which can and does happen occasionally.
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Good to know. Thanks for the warning; maybe I should start another as a precaution

 
Had to feed the remaining D. Hydeis from my first banana culture to my mantis. My potato culture is still filled with mold but there are some huge maggots in it and only one FF still alive. Does anyone know if i should scrape the mold off of the top or leave it for maggots to eat? it's about a quarter inch of mold covering most of the top of the media.

 
I'd say just leave the mold. You may do more disruption to the culture trying to remove it. If you see maggots, it's a good thing and I would let it sit and see how it goes.

 
I left the mold in my potato culture and I think the maggots ate most of it. I noticed today that there were about 30 D. Hydeis in it. These guys are BIG. I mean they are 1.5 times the size of any FF I purchased in the store or online. Not sure if it was the steady diet of mold or what, but the mold definitely did not hurt it. So why is mold so bad? Obviously the maggots like to eat it.

So from start to finish it took about a month to see any FF. I started with about 8-10 FF. Is this how long it takes usually?

And I can see the lone FF that stayed alive through all of this. I can tell which one it is because it is so much smaller than the other ones. Didn’t know these guys lived that long.

 
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Not all mold is bad. I havn't had any bad mold in any of my cultures (mostly because I use a commercial brand ;) ) but I have seen tons of different "good" molds... with different colors too!

How long it takes all depends on what temp you kept them at and how old the FFs were that you used to start it. I think the young of older flies take longer to mature.

 
patrickfraser said:
Super simple.

1/4 cup instant potatoes, 1/4 cup HOT water, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 Tablespoon powdered sugar, 1 Tablespoon brewer's yeast "plus" from health food store (it has added "healthy" stuff).

Combine dry ingredients well and add the hot water and vinegar (I just heat them both together in the microwave). Mix well and tap media down on the counter. Let it stand to cool and absorb the liquid. When it cools down to "warm" just a pinch of active yeast on the top and add excelsior. When completely cool add fruit flies and wait. I have never counted how many flies I put in the new culture, but just not too many. I think it is recommended 40-50. Also I have heard you get better results if using the flies from the first "bloom", as the females will mature faster and be more plentiful to add to the new culture. This is what works for me and I have only purchased fruit flies 2 times in one year. The only reason I bought another culture was because I slacked off in my making of new cultures and needed a bump for new nymphs. Just don't let yourself run out and you're good. In my opinion, it's better to have too many ff than not enough. If you find you have too many ff to feed off, make an emergency culture or 2 with the excess flies. You might end up needing them if a culture crashes unexpectedly which can and does happen occasionally.
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Can i use regular sugar instead of the powdered variety?

 
I just powder my own using a spice/coffee grinder. I don't know if there is a difference, but this is the recipe I found when I started and have never strayed, as it works fine.

 
Just wanted to update you on my cultures. Patrickfraser, great recipe. I noticed that there was no mold in this culture at all. right amount of vinegar. Another thing i notice is that my FFs are much smaller. The culture bloomed like crazy. However, the FFs were much smaller. Not sure if is because it is a later generation? I have a ton of FFs though. I am going to make two cultures with it. One with less vinegar. I want to creat some mold in it for the maggots to feed on and see if they grow larger. I'll keep you guys updated.

 
I recently ran out of vinegar and ended up making one culture out of 3 without vinegar. That thing got very moldy and very quick. The culture was doing ok, but the mold took over and crashed it. I will not be doing that again. Also, for no apparent reason(obviously something) one group of 4 cultures never even produced maggots. Just kind of dried up. It was very strange, as I made them just the same as always. :huh: The cultures made before,after, and ever since have been fine. I have noticed, also, the size of the ff differing. I believe it has to do with the how many there are in there. In a slow producing culture with fewer flies they have more to eat and develop fully(and FAT). Whereas in a swarming culture the food is not as readily available and they may pupate earlier due to lack of food and the adults are competing for food, as well. You either get fewer and fatter or more and smaller.

 
Yes. I was afraid that that was the ratio. More smaller vs less fatter. I want to produce a ton of fatties. I will add a little vinegar to the other one as to not overwhelm the culture with mold. Maybe just enough mold to feed em. I'll let you all know how it goes. Otherwise, your recipe worked very well, Patrickfraser. My culture produced a ton of FFs; more than enough to sustain a colony of young mantids.

 
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I figured i would post how i do my cultures for people that need it on a much smaller scale as to not waste as many flies or if you just have 2 or 3 nymphs. I just use washed out medicine bottles, size of the container will help define how many ffs u will get. In these containers i just smoosh a bit of banana and throw in a couple of drops of vinegar, as a growing surface throw in a strip of unprinted cardboard and the flies ( usually between 5 and 15 depending on container size). Sure production may not be as big as the setups mentioned in this thread, but its sufficent enough for me, you just have to make more cultures more frequently, but its easy enough since its just banana. I definitely get plenty of ffs for 4 nymphs. I have been going steady this way for 6 months now without having to buy a new culture. This works for hidey and melanogaster

 
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I started two cultures of my own using very cheap ingredients (I call it the college man's culture). Banana, vinegar, and applesauce. And for the first culture, a little bit of apple. I dumped maybe 20 mels in this culture and so far in less than a week, I'm seeing maggots of good size eating away at the stuff. I make sure to put napkins and tissue in the culture to soak up a lot of the liquid and make it to where the ffs don't drown, and so far so good. I've always used vinegar for my homemade cultures and have never had a problem with mold. So either the vinegar works, or something else is keeping me from getting mold. I used to add oatmeal flakes and baby cereal (I knew I was forgetting something last week when I made the cultures) into my cultures, but since the cultures appear to be doing well, I guess yeast is forming on its on.

 
Mantidlord, did they let you keep mantids in college. I'm back in school and was wondering if I can take my guys with me when I transfer?

I should probably update you guys on my cultures. The mold culture grew a lot of mold. The flies all died before they could reproduce. The cultures I added vinegar to had no mold at all and did fine. FF are still small, maybe smaller because I noticed some of them got through the screen and running out of the enclosure after feeding time. Another strange thing is I noticed some flying around the room after feeding. Not sure if it was a wild one or not. There was a bin of old beer cans close by. My friend said you can breed the flightless out of them after a few cultures. Has anyone heard of or experienced this?

 
Hey,

I live in a program house that allows pets, I didn't choose to live there for the mantids though, but for my tarantula. Honestly my college is pretty lax on pets, and thank goodness most people see mantids as merely bugs rather than "pets" so next year I'll be able to get away with it since I have a cool roommate and the mantids don't take up much space. I don't know how it would be if i had exotic species that require large net cages, humdifiers, heating lights, etc. probably be a lot less conspicuous.

Another thing you may be able to look into, depending on your major, is get together with a professor or researcher or something and get a corner of a room (not even a lab room) to yourself and your bugs. That way you can keep them there and not worry about school policy. Obviously you can't check up on them as much but they'd be fairly safe until break.

 
I didn't realize you were so young mantidlord. That's cool that you like all the classic grung toons that I see on the "music behind the username" thread. If I transfer to florida I will most likely get my own place. Southern Illinois I will live on campus. In that case I will definitely get in touch with the entomology department. Never thought of that. Thanks.

 

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