Hello everyone, I was feeding my new Creo nymphs and Ghost nymphs FF today and I was wondering what's the best way to take the flies out of the culture and feed them to the mantis since I don't want to keep accidentally killing dozens of FF when I open and then close the lid and making a mess of them.. Any tips?
Best way to give nymphs fruit flies?
- Thread starter Plex
- Start date
Help Support Mantidforum:
Malakyoma
Well-known member
I have no solution for killing a ton when closing the lid, but I kill less now that I use a home-made bug vacuum type thing. Its a water bottle with a straw in each end, one straw covered in gauze at the tip and hot glued for a seal. Point the non-covered straw at a FF and suck on the other straw and it sucks them into the bottle. Easy to count how many FFs you get this way, and dont have to give ten to a nymph that only needs 2.
That's brilliant. I'll try to make something similar to that in the morning-another issue I was having was way too many FF being dumped in the nymph containers too, so that'll definitely help.. thanks for the idea!
Ranitomeya
Well-known member
I believe Malakyoma means you suck on the straw to vacuum the fruit flies in and you blow on the straw to evacuate them into the mantid containers.
Another method you can employ is the refrigerator. If you dump a bunch of flies into another container, seal it, and put it in the refigerator for a few minutes, the flies become sluggish. If you place them in there for a few minutes longer, they'll completely stop moving and appear to be dead, but will revive when they warm back up. When they're immobile, you can easily parse out specific numbers of fruit flies into separate mantid containers with a cold spoon to prevent them from reviving during the transfer. One tip for preventing the flies from getting out when you open the culture and from getting crushed when you close it is to tap the container a few times, this will dislodge the flies that're on the lid or on the walls of the container. You'll have to move quickly as they'll start swarming up again, but if the culturing container is large enough, it shouldn't be difficult.
Another method you can employ is the refrigerator. If you dump a bunch of flies into another container, seal it, and put it in the refigerator for a few minutes, the flies become sluggish. If you place them in there for a few minutes longer, they'll completely stop moving and appear to be dead, but will revive when they warm back up. When they're immobile, you can easily parse out specific numbers of fruit flies into separate mantid containers with a cold spoon to prevent them from reviving during the transfer. One tip for preventing the flies from getting out when you open the culture and from getting crushed when you close it is to tap the container a few times, this will dislodge the flies that're on the lid or on the walls of the container. You'll have to move quickly as they'll start swarming up again, but if the culturing container is large enough, it shouldn't be difficult.
Termite48
Well-known member
Michael's method oulined above is the way I do it. I even go as far as to emply the freezer for one minute and that stuns then long enough to distribute them as I wish. Good luck and waste no more.
Last edited by a moderator:
Malakyoma
Well-known member
Actually I just open the cap on the water bottle and tap them into the enclosure. At this point maggots and pupae are the ones getting crushed most in my lid, but after the FFs surge back up I have crushed a couple and vacuumed up escapees with the bottle.
Newflvr
Well-known member
I have a 3/4 hole in all my containers that gets plugged with a cork. Then for fruitfly feeding I remove the cork and insert a small funnel. Tap on the top of the fruitfly container this will knock them to the bottom, remove top and shake some into the funnel. Tap the FF container to knock the flies down and add the lid, very little dead flies. The key to this method is moving quickly
Please do a search as this has been discussed numerous times.
I'll still give you my technique. I raise the flies in 32 oz cups. Each cup has a hole in the side blocked with a foam plug (same set up for mantids in the cups). I have a small funnel as well. I normally put the funnel in one of those small fruit fly vials and remove the foam plug from the ff cup. I tap flies from the culture into the funnel. Tap the vial and funnel to make the flies fall to the bottom, remove the funnel and put a plug in the vial. Now I can use the vial and funnel to transfer flies into the mantid enclosures. You can also transfer directly from the culture into the mantid enclosure, but sometimes the cultures are heavy and it isn't as easy to do.
This is a very old pic. What is missing is the large 32 oz culture as I was not using them at the time. The small vial is the type I am talking about. In the above technique the vial would be emptied and the flies from the large culture would be transferred into the vial and then distributed to the mantis enclosures:
I'll still give you my technique. I raise the flies in 32 oz cups. Each cup has a hole in the side blocked with a foam plug (same set up for mantids in the cups). I have a small funnel as well. I normally put the funnel in one of those small fruit fly vials and remove the foam plug from the ff cup. I tap flies from the culture into the funnel. Tap the vial and funnel to make the flies fall to the bottom, remove the funnel and put a plug in the vial. Now I can use the vial and funnel to transfer flies into the mantid enclosures. You can also transfer directly from the culture into the mantid enclosure, but sometimes the cultures are heavy and it isn't as easy to do.
This is a very old pic. What is missing is the large 32 oz culture as I was not using them at the time. The small vial is the type I am talking about. In the above technique the vial would be emptied and the flies from the large culture would be transferred into the vial and then distributed to the mantis enclosures:
