Curly wingged flies

[captainmerkin]

Hi I am having real problems with my fruit fly cultures at the moment, they just will not hatch (livefoods.co.uk).

the place I bought them from have been superb with sending new ones free but the last 2 lots I have recieved seem to just not hatch at all..

what can I do to help them (apart from sugar and a little water on cotton wool)

I have them on a shelf at room temperature in the tub they came in and not a single one will hatch, they get 15 hrs light a day and the rest dark, temp around 20 degrees C

Also how can I use these one they hatch to keep a continous culture going? fruit & sawdust in a tub or?

many thanks!

 

[Kevin]

Not quite sure from our description what is going wrong but here are a couple of suggestions. First light is not that important. The ambinet light in any room should be fine. Make sure the cultures never get hit by direct sunlight. That will kill the cultures very quickly. To make a culture use about 1/3 cup of plain mashed potato flakes and 1/2 cup warm water. Mix in the bottom of a roughly 32 ounce container. You must sprinkle a pinch of dried active yeast granules on top of the potato. The flies wo't breed without it. You do not need to feed the flies sgar water r anything else. Some people place excelsior or nylon mesh for the flies to settle on or larvae to pupate on in the container. You need some air exchange like a foam plug in the top. About 50 flies is needed to start a good culture. Room temperature wll work but 75 degrees farenheight is a good temperature.

 

[Rick]

Kevin pretty much covered it. I find fruit flies very easy to culture and I have few problems. I prefer to buy the commercially made medium because it has mold inhibitor in it.

 

[yen_saw]

Also how can I use these one they hatch to keep a continous culture going? fruit & sawdust in a tub or?

Here are couple of links for rearing flies (if you plan to breed them)

House fly

http://spiderpharm.com/Docs/housefly_kit.pdf

fruit flies

http://spiderpharm.com/Docs/fruitflyculturetechniques.pdf

 

[Jwonni]

I'm confused.

The title is curly wing flies and then fruit flies are mentioned then everyone else mentions fruit flies.

I am going to assume the title is right due to my experience.

I loved curly wings for a long time found they were perfect not a great hatch rate but always got some. Then recently (last couple of months) none have hatched i have had about 10-15 tubs in a row with not a single curly wing hatching.

I kinda gave up on them and got pinkies (smaller maggot species) which turned into lots of flies success rate HUGE but they fly so many escaped its hard to get em into a mantis cup (although i have not cooled em down to slow em down)

But seriously bag of maggots £1-2 HUNDREDS OF FLIES

tub of curly wing flies £2+ NO FLIES

if the curly wings started hatching again i'd be back on em but the amount of time and number of tubs this has gone on for i feel there are problems further up the chain

 

[captainmerkin]

yeah its the curly winged not the smaller fruit flies.

am now having real problems finding food large enough for my p.paradoxa which are ignoring most small flies.

5 tubs and only 2 live flies so far (first tub was full of live ones!)... told them to stop sending replacments as its just getting rediculous.

bought a culture of smaller ones from elsewhere that were great.. but now the mantids are getting hungry and I cannot find food!

anyone suggest what to feed them and where to buy it in the uk? they are tackling house flies easily and sometimes bluebottles, but I would prefer flightless ones as the mantids like to be lazy.

 

[Jwonni]

I am feeding P.Paradoxa as well

Currently i am buying maggots (last time was pinkies) and letting them change into flies. although not flightless they walk all over the mantid homes (once you manage to get one in) so they do go to the mantid so is ok if they are lazy.

Between hatching i am feeding them locust (small) that a few are taking and Crickets (i have to pull the back legs off or the mantids will not take them)

And when i cant find a small enough cricket and dont have any locust i have given them the occasional maggot to munch on.

I buy my locust and crickets from livefood.co.uk or livefoodsdirect.co.uk

My Maggots come from the angling and hiking centre in my home town (fishing shop) they can take a week or a bit more to change

 

[captainmerkin]

thanks bud.

think I will try and get some young locusts they tend to go down well with the smaller mantis at the zoo, hopefully these guys will take to em, and the locusts do like to climb around!