How to get blue bottle spikes to pupate?

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Charoozz520

Charoozz520

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Hey all so I been trying to culture my own blue bottle flies with some success. I used a 32oz container with fruit fly media and dog food and have gotten a good amount of larvae. 
From what I understand once the maggots start crawling towards the top of the container they are ready to pupate. I put the 32oz container inside an old critter keeper bin with a layer of dry cocofiber but it has been two days and I am only seeing one or two pupae and the rest are still crawling all over. Am I doing something wrong? I hate to have gotten so far only to fail if they don't pupae :(  

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@MantisGirl13 thanks, I am going to transfer all the larvae that crawl out into a 32oz container with cocofiber then, the housemates are okay with my hobby but they weren't ecstatic to know some maggots got out through the cracks of the kritter keeper  ;)  

 
Ok! Ya, they'll figure out that maggots got loose once flies start buzzing around!

- MantisGirl13

 
My larvae have been pupating easily without a substrate. Ive tried placing larvae and pupae in with moist coco fibre, not so succesful. Dry coco, definitely nothing.

So long as I mist them very lightly I get a few or more per day. I cut up some of the ones that dont eclose, and they're bone dry. I think they do need to be in moist air.

 
hysteresis said:
My larvae have been pupating easily without a substrate. Ive tried placing larvae and pupae in with moist coco fibre, not so succesful. Dry coco, definitely nothing.

So long as I mist them very lightly I get a few or more per day. I cut up some of the ones that dont eclose, and they're bone dry. I think they do need to be in moist air.
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Okay if that is the case I think I will put them into a 32oz container with paper towels and mist lightly. I always thought they needed dry substrate to pupate.

The least smelly option would be dog food, I grabbed the cheapest bag and soak it over night and they were all over it. They ate the fruit fly media I had but wasn't as quick with it as they were with the dog food. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Great idea. I'll prolly try that. Or a small test of a couple dozen, with wet fish flakes? Something like that?

I just know that my BSF were drastically different in size and eclosure speed after a good feed.

 
hysteresis said:
Great idea. I'll prolly try that. Or a small test of a couple dozen, with wet fish flakes? Something like that?

I just know that my BSF were drastically different in size and eclosure speed after a good feed.
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Wet fish flake will probably work since they are high in protein, but I think that is pretty expensive in the long run compare to dog food.
I breed BSF last year for my reptiles (before I got into Mantises, will probably try again now since the flies always went to waste but now I can feed them!) and from what I researched and used the cheapest is non medicated chick feed (make sure it's non medicated), not sure if this will work for BB as I think they rely more on protein to develop vs BSF. 

 
Funny aside...

I took a couple dozen older spikes and fed them for a day in wet fish flake. Not only did they gorge, but they're pupating nicely. Hopefully they eclose well too!

 
Teamonger said:
Using the soaked dog food did you get flies to lay eggs or did you have spikes to begin with?
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No spikes. They lay eggs, the whole process took about two-two half weeks. I now have my first set of flies emerging from the pupaes I got.  So I use a layer of Josh's frog fruit fly media since it has molt inhibitors and also smells nice and top it with a layer of soaked dog food. In one culture I put a TINY piece of raw chicken and the other I didn't put any and I got eggs and spikes from both culture. The one with the chicken only smelled when I opened it...I think the fruit fly media helped to cover the smell.

 
Charoozz520 said:
Do you have better results with cat food? I will try this with my next batch. (Does it smell worse than dog food since its more "fishy' ?)
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Not that I've tested this but I would think cat food would be more smelly. Cats are carnivores while dogs are omnivores. While that does not stop the pet food industry from putting all manner of non-meat nonsense into cat food but at least it should have a higher percentage of nice smelly meat goodness then dog food.

 

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