How I make fruit fly medium!

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iv just received 3 cultures from livefoods for good..all the mixture has fallen out its a right mess..the mixture is that runnie soon as the package has been turned upside down by the postmen its all come out the inner tub so theres just a mixture of water caters and maggots..Theres a few maggots in there but no flys..that cause they all drowned because there mixutre is to runnie..these are the 1st ones i have had from them that are this poorly made..im about to email them i expect a refund or replacement or i wont be using them again http://www.livefoodsdirect.co.uk/products.asp?dept=1009

 
its ok there sending me out some replacement cultures..there going to make sure in future the cultures they sale are not as runnie..

 
How much sugar per how much apples does it have? It should be written on the box ;) thanks ;)
My jar says 25g of sugar per 1/2 cup of apple sauce, but it doesn't say how much of that is natural and how much is the added corn syrup that my particular brand contains. I wasn't thinking about it when I bought the apple sauce, so you might want to check with others to see if they use the all-natural kind. I don't know how much it matters.

 
I am doubtful that it matters at all... I always add honey to my mix as an antibacterial agent, and here lately I have been using orange juice as the wettener for the potato mix and replacing vinegar with lemon juice. The key is for sugars and starches to be broken down by the yeast through fermentation, providing uber simple carbohydrates for the maggots to eat. Micromanaging the ingredients down to the grain of sugar doesnt seem worthwhile considering all the other variables at play in determining whether the culture is successful.

 
iv just received 3 cultures from livefoods for good..all the mixture has fallen out its a right mess..the mixture is that runnie soon as the package has been turned upside down by the postmen its all come out the inner tub so theres just a mixture of water caters and maggots..Theres a few maggots in there but no flys..that cause they all drowned because there mixutre is to runnie..these are the 1st ones i have had from them that are this poorly made..im about to email them i expect a refund or replacement or i wont be using them again http://www.livefoodsdirect.co.uk/products.asp?dept=1009
If you still want these flies, you can take the maggots and put them into another culture or just another container. By the time you read this, they're probably already taken care of...

 
If you still want these flies, you can take the maggots and put them into another culture or just another container. By the time you read this, they're probably already taken care of...
well i have few cultures on the go..the ones i made my self are thriving..i wont be buying them again now i have 2 bags of masa. :) i didnt want to mess around with messy cultures full with maggots..i just left the culttures in a room 75f..hoping they sort them selfs out.if not il bin them..thanks for the info tho.. :)

 
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So i made mine, but i used mashed apple and corn flour - I hope it will work ;)

Anyway I've put like 10-12 flies in there.

The only thing that wories me is that the coffee filters drained some moisture out of the medium, and they are all wet now - is that normal?

And the yeast has grown since yesterday - is that normal too?

 
I have been very pleased with the last batch I whipped up. I used potato flakes, strawberry sunny delight, lemon juice and yeast. I ended up making it a little too wet, and once fermintation set in, I guess the alcohol and water produced rose to the surface. I remedied that by sprinkling potatoe flakes on top. The flies didnt seem to mind, and actually seemed to enjoy the dry surface. After a day or so the new flakes had absorbed the moisture and were a perfect breeding / laying area. So far no sign of fungus has been seen and none of the flies have died. Funny, the culture itself actually smells like dunny d and vodka

 
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The only thing that wories me is that the coffee filters drained some moisture out of the medium, and they are all wet now - is that normal?
Should be normal. One adds the filiters to increase surface area for the flies and to keep the medium from getting to wet (runny).

Tell us how it goes....

 
This seemed relevant for search purposes...

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.
 
I will try it in the twilight hours ... I made some this weekend with a mix of potatoes and masa, it has risen like bread :lol: , not real sure what is gonna happen with them, but sure makes me wanna take some butter in the Bugatorium with me :p . So I was thinkin that I will leave those cultures alone and just use the flies in the one u suggested. If the maggots show up it was successful and it does not need the flies if they laid in it any way, so I will give em a new culture to breed in and will let u all know what happens.

 
I made some culture from the apple sauce/maize mix and put a load of FFs in about 2 weeks ago. Still no sign of maggots though.

How long should it take for them to start to show?

The flies have been mating and are constantly full looking having fed on the yeast <_<

 
I made some culture from the apple sauce/maize mix and put a load of FFs in about 2 weeks ago. Still no sign of maggots though. How long should it take for them to start to show?

The flies have been mating and are constantly full looking having fed on the yeast <_<
should see small maggots in a few days at a decent temp, say 25 -30c. try raising the temp.

 
Both of my milk powder cultures with hydei were a success. The one with Melanogaster was a failure.... my fault tho <_< ... we had a hot day and consequently the temp inside the garage and minifridge I keep the cultures in rose above 100. The high temp killed all the parent flies in the hydei cultures and the melanogaster, as well as the maggots and pupae in the melanogaster culture. The hydei maggots and pupae survived though and now I got loads of new flies. I never had any mold in the three cultures and I have already started three more milk cultures.

One strange thing I observed... We had run out of our heavy duty kitchen paper towels, but we had a whole pkg of those square dinner table napkins, and I used them in the hydei cultures for the maggots to pupate on. After I added them to the containers, the napkins soaked up alot of the moisture that was within the medium... The maggots then decided to eat the napkins :blink: ... I actually had to add another to each container because the maggots completely devoured the first napkins I put in. Wierd little things. :huh:

 
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I made some culture from the apple sauce/maize mix and put a load of FFs in about 2 weeks ago. Still no sign of maggots though. How long should it take for them to start to show?

The flies have been mating and are constantly full looking having fed on the yeast <_<
I see maggots after 2 weeks. If not, it's probably not good anymore.

 
I made some culture from the apple sauce/maize mix and put a load of FFs in about 2 weeks ago. Still no sign of maggots though. How long should it take for them to start to show?

The flies have been mating and are constantly full looking having fed on the yeast <_<
I have been timing mine, and the mel take seven days to see maggots and the hy's 10!!!

 
DARKSPEED: How much lemon juice do you use (as a ratio to the other ingredients)? The vinegar is the only thing that bothers me about my mediums because it stinks up my closet, so I'd like to remove that if I could. I enjoy the smell of lemon juice, on the other hand. :)

Also, I have to use a 1:1 MASA to apple sauce ratio in order to prevent it from drying out within the first few days. I might even have to start putting in more apple sauce than MASA.

 
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