Housefly (Musca Domestica) rearing
- Thread starter Jay
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So far the preliminary part of this experiment has consisted of a smaller trial in which I am using powdered milk as an ingredient in my fruit fly cultures. It was added to the warm water water/yeas t solution and then yeast was allowed to establish in milk solution and then poured onto culture and allowed to absorb into potato flake culture. Adult flies have been surviving in culture and laying eggs for over a week now. Melanogaster have already made new flies, and Hydei maggots should appear within next few days. No mold to speak of. Smell produced is of a typical rancid milk stench at first and then changes to more of a sour cheese smell.
With more milk powder mixed into the potato flakes mixture and yeast solution in a similar culture, I am sure a viable housefly culture could be produced.
With more milk powder mixed into the potato flakes mixture and yeast solution in a similar culture, I am sure a viable housefly culture could be produced.
I have some interesting news about my findings from my recent test involving a hydei culture made with milk solids as an ingredient. While it is rather easy to come up with powdered milk, the majority is of a powdered skim variety wheras my experiment was conducted using powdered whole milk.
7 fruit fly cultures were established using potato flakes as the main ingredient during a period of about two weeks. Five of cultures were created first using water and fruit juice as the wetting agent. All cultures were loaded with a warm water / yeast solution and allowed to incubate for several hours before the addition of fruit flies. The last two of the five were made using one tablespoon of powdered milk to one cup of warm water and 1/8 teaspoon of bakers yeast. The solution was allowed to sit for 30 minutes before being split between the two cultures. Beforehand, however the potato medium was made not by mixing potato flakes with warm water, but rather by adding the dry flakes to the container and then slowly adding warm water until the entire meduim had become moist. Then, once the solution was absorbed by the potato meduim, a thin layer of dry potato flakes was added to the surface of the medium to promote a dry surface for the flies to lay in. I would like to point out again that the milk cultures were the last to be made, and they are also the first to hatch. The cultures were all made from the same flies, and have been kept in identical conditions, consisting of high humidity and a steady 85F within a small disconnected refrigerator.Fresh air is constantly pumped into the minifridge via an aquarium air pump, and a single 15 watt light bulb provides all the heat. All of the cultures have large numbers of parent flies, and all are surviving within the cultures with very low mortality rates. Nevertheless, the milk cultures have exploded with maggots, and have already begun to pupate, whereas the five cultures made with either plain water and yeast solutions or water/fruit juice/yeast solutions have yet to even show signs of maggots.
Not only is this data tremendously promising in the search for a decent smelling housefly culture (They kinda smell like sourdough bread now) but the production rate for D. Hydei is phenominal in the milk cultures. I think I just found my new standby recipe for fruit fly medium. I would greatly appreciate it if some of you other breeders who make your own culture medium would follow these directions with a culture of your own to see if the same results can be reached under the conditions that you typivally keep your cultures in. I'd like to know that this isnt just a fluke.
7 fruit fly cultures were established using potato flakes as the main ingredient during a period of about two weeks. Five of cultures were created first using water and fruit juice as the wetting agent. All cultures were loaded with a warm water / yeast solution and allowed to incubate for several hours before the addition of fruit flies. The last two of the five were made using one tablespoon of powdered milk to one cup of warm water and 1/8 teaspoon of bakers yeast. The solution was allowed to sit for 30 minutes before being split between the two cultures. Beforehand, however the potato medium was made not by mixing potato flakes with warm water, but rather by adding the dry flakes to the container and then slowly adding warm water until the entire meduim had become moist. Then, once the solution was absorbed by the potato meduim, a thin layer of dry potato flakes was added to the surface of the medium to promote a dry surface for the flies to lay in. I would like to point out again that the milk cultures were the last to be made, and they are also the first to hatch. The cultures were all made from the same flies, and have been kept in identical conditions, consisting of high humidity and a steady 85F within a small disconnected refrigerator.Fresh air is constantly pumped into the minifridge via an aquarium air pump, and a single 15 watt light bulb provides all the heat. All of the cultures have large numbers of parent flies, and all are surviving within the cultures with very low mortality rates. Nevertheless, the milk cultures have exploded with maggots, and have already begun to pupate, whereas the five cultures made with either plain water and yeast solutions or water/fruit juice/yeast solutions have yet to even show signs of maggots.
Not only is this data tremendously promising in the search for a decent smelling housefly culture (They kinda smell like sourdough bread now) but the production rate for D. Hydei is phenominal in the milk cultures. I think I just found my new standby recipe for fruit fly medium. I would greatly appreciate it if some of you other breeders who make your own culture medium would follow these directions with a culture of your own to see if the same results can be reached under the conditions that you typivally keep your cultures in. I'd like to know that this isnt just a fluke.
i havent read about musca domestica rearing in a long time so im not sure if i remember rightly but the impression i got was that it was difficult/impractical because they need different conditions at each stage of their lives, ie the adults need certain conditions to thrive and the larvae need different conditons to grow and pupate and hatch, and it was difficult to provide this in one container. i thought this was the problem as opposed to a non-smelling medium. but if your musca domestica maggots grow pupate and hatch out in this same container without any problems then i might give it a go. thanks for experimenting.
petoly
Well-known member
I hate to bring up a really old topic, but I rear my houseflies and larvae all in one container and have been successfull consistently. I keep them outside too. I just have a 5 gallon bucket with stocking on top of it. Inside the bucket I have my adult houseflies, water and sugar/honey. I mix dry dog food with water till it's mushy in a shallow tupperware plastic container and place it in the bucket I don't add milk because it makes it less stinky. my flies have never had a problem laying their eggs in there. And it has always gone in cycles since I also feed the adult flies to my mantids out of this container. I notice it's waves. lots of houseflies, then they dwindle down, then a few days later new ones start popping up, and within a week it's bustling with flies again. the bucket gets messy and it's hard to do maintenance in the bucket (I use one of the stocking legs as entrypoint kept closed by a clip), but it hardly stinks at all, and I have had consistent flies on a small scale.
Termite48
Well-known member
Sounds good, I will have to give it a try.
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fleurdejoo
Well-known member
I wonder if Petoly would post some pics of this?
petoly
Well-known member
just noticed your post. I'll see if I can post a few pics tomorrow.
