D. hydei - Age of flies seems to affect start of culture

[yeatzee]

Hey, so both my Hydei cultures have a couple pupae on the sides of the container. When should I start a new culture with the ones I've got currently?

 

[Katnapper]

Hey, so both my Hydei cultures have a couple pupae on the sides of the container. When should I start a new culture with the ones I've got currently?

I'd do it 10-14 days after you started the last one.

 

[yen_saw]

Yen> In that case, I would move those flies to a new culture and use some sort of mold inhibitor like vinegar and/or honey in the media. If it's moldy now, it won't be better in two weeks.

yes that will do. The problem I had was moldy media before the flies starting to mate, i think the excess yeast might have ruin my media too so cut down on the yeast.

 

[kamakiri]

More imperical evidence supports 8 to 10 days minimum to sexual maturity.

Started a pair of hydei cultures on the same day, 2/2 PM. One was started with 'aged' flies, no younger than 7 days (separated from a culture 1/26 PM and fed apple sauce for a week). The other with flies from 0 to 2 days old. Both used the same batch of media, tub size (16 oz.) and about 50+ flies. The culture of 'new' flies is approximately 8 days behind in production start in both visible maggots and pupae observed on coffee filters.

Minimum temp observed was 71, maximum was 80.

So I've concluded 8 minimum days, but 10 is likely considering the 'new' group also included flies up to 2 days old.

I'll try to repeat the experiment once I am in a position to use 50 flies hatched within 24 hours. It might be harder to 'tap clean' a culture producing more than 50/day, but we'll see.

 

[Katnapper]

More imperical evidence supports 8 to 10 days minimum to sexual maturity.Started a pair of hydei cultures on the same day, 2/2 PM. One was started with 'aged' flies, no younger than 7 days (separated from a culture 1/26 PM and fed apple sauce for a week). The other with flies from 0 to 2 days old. Both used the same batch of media, tub size (16 oz.) and about 50+ flies. The culture of 'new' flies is approximately 8 days behind in production start in both visible maggots and pupae observed on coffee filters.

Minimum temp observed was 71, maximum was 80.

So I've concluded 8 minimum days, but 10 is likely considering the 'new' group also included flies up to 2 days old.

I'll try to repeat the experiment once I am in a position to use 50 flies hatched within 24 hours. It might be harder to 'tap clean' a culture producing more than 50/day, but we'll see.

Thanks for reporting your results, Kamikari... good info that backs up the hypothesis.

 

[robelgado]

I used some flies from a really old culture, low on food, started to dry out.

And when I started a new culture (gen 2)

The population more than doubled in less than a week.

 

[nasty bugger]

Check out some poison dart frog sites, and read up on dendrobates. I've found some good info on food and culturing and nutritional value dealing with fruit flies and other food sources for dart frogs. Interestink, verrryyy interestink....

 

[Katnapper]

When making up new cultures recently, I've been "mixing" all the old and new flies at whatever various stages, from all the previous cultures (even ones that I've made previously that haven't started producing yet). I collect all the flies I can from each previous culture, putting them all together into one "holding" cup as I go. Then I use about 50-100 of the mix to start new cultures. I sometimes add some back from this mix to the previous, but recent, cultures that haven't started producing yet... just for insurance.

Oh, and it goes without saying... but thought I'd mention, just in case... I only mix flies of the same species together.

 

[kamakiri]

nasty, thanks for the interestink suggestions ...I know *I* need to read more! Reading would probably have kept me from having to finger things out for myself :lol:

Katnapper> I also like mixing the ages of (same species) flies. I haven't done any performance measurement, but it does help to ensure a more consistent production than the 'waves' that are produced when flies that are too new or too old are used.

 

[nasty bugger]

I like figuring things out also, that's how we find out little items that may have been overlooked or not mentioned.

When I am working alot, or have alot on my mind though I read and go with what's already proven to cut down on the time invested and stress of keeping super tight records, or which I'm totally lame at nowadays.

Too much on my mind with trying to catch up on what I got behind on when I broke my leg last year.

I read and get on here to forget about the other pressing affairs, and that's why I ride my harley too.