Well Saturday I had to attend a funeral (my wife's aunt), and figured why not try to find some fruit flies on the 150+ mile trip (each way) for my ooths I'm hatching.
After calling nearly every pet store from my town to the city I was going to, I found a few places, but by far the best deal was from Chris at Coco Hut Dart Frogs.
Chris sells them for $5 per 32oz container with a producing culture. In the end I bought 1x Drosophila Hydei (large fruit fly), 2x Drosophila Melanogaster (small flies), 1x Turkish Gliders, and 1x Springtails. He gave me a new empty culture and directions to use it, and gave me two more fruit fly cultures near end of their cycle (good to start new ones).
I asked if he would ship, but he said due to the heat or cold packs, and his low sell price it isn't worth it - so sadly no. Anyway if you are in the Lafayette Indiana area, or at one of the reptile shows stop by and see him he's great. Heck, he about got me and my wife sold on a Dart frog before we left, but I'm sticking to just mantises for now.
Anyway I now have plenty of feeders for any mantis nymphs that may hatch. I was curious if anyone has any caresheets or details for creating new cultures? I've been reading what I can find but feel a bit lost, as it's hard to say what is accurate when found online (and I don't want to crash all the cultures).
Especially when it comes to the Turkish Gliders - which appear to be a medium sized feeder compared to the fruit flies. It seems that this is a less common feeder so there isn't as much data.
I did however find a great list of various homemade fruit fly recipes (with many that do not require brewers yeast), I found here.
Now that I have Springtails for cleaning my tanks, I went back out in my backyard and found plenty more Isopods to add to my tanks as well. I added about 50 to my mantis habitat earlier and Susanna, my mantis, snatch a isopod and ate it. She also caught a few Hydei that I added in too - although she misses them from time to time as they are so dang small.
After calling nearly every pet store from my town to the city I was going to, I found a few places, but by far the best deal was from Chris at Coco Hut Dart Frogs.
Chris sells them for $5 per 32oz container with a producing culture. In the end I bought 1x Drosophila Hydei (large fruit fly), 2x Drosophila Melanogaster (small flies), 1x Turkish Gliders, and 1x Springtails. He gave me a new empty culture and directions to use it, and gave me two more fruit fly cultures near end of their cycle (good to start new ones).
I asked if he would ship, but he said due to the heat or cold packs, and his low sell price it isn't worth it - so sadly no. Anyway if you are in the Lafayette Indiana area, or at one of the reptile shows stop by and see him he's great. Heck, he about got me and my wife sold on a Dart frog before we left, but I'm sticking to just mantises for now.
Anyway I now have plenty of feeders for any mantis nymphs that may hatch. I was curious if anyone has any caresheets or details for creating new cultures? I've been reading what I can find but feel a bit lost, as it's hard to say what is accurate when found online (and I don't want to crash all the cultures).
Especially when it comes to the Turkish Gliders - which appear to be a medium sized feeder compared to the fruit flies. It seems that this is a less common feeder so there isn't as much data.
I did however find a great list of various homemade fruit fly recipes (with many that do not require brewers yeast), I found here.
Now that I have Springtails for cleaning my tanks, I went back out in my backyard and found plenty more Isopods to add to my tanks as well. I added about 50 to my mantis habitat earlier and Susanna, my mantis, snatch a isopod and ate it. She also caught a few Hydei that I added in too - although she misses them from time to time as they are so dang small.
Last edited by a moderator:
