I wonder how this is going to turn out...

[JoeCapricorn]

Last night I figured I would try to make my own experimental fruit fly medium. I took 3 whole bananas and mashed them up, mixed it with spring mix (then later took the spring mix out since that was a dumb idea), bread crumbs (to soak up moisture) and added a couple spoonfuls of vinegar. I predict it will start to smell rather bad in a couple of days and might not work as intended, but we'll see.. if little maggots start appearing in the cultures that would be great.

I have a culture set aside with the regular blue stuff, just in case this new homemade medium is a fail.

 

[Katnapper]

Last night I figured I would try to make my own experimental fruit fly medium. I took 3 whole bananas and mashed them up, mixed it with spring mix (then later took the spring mix out since that was a dumb idea), bread crumbs (to soak up moisture) and added a couple spoonfuls of vinegar. I predict it will start to smell rather bad in a couple of days and might not work as intended, but we'll see.. if little maggots start appearing in the cultures that would be great.

I have a culture set aside with the regular blue stuff, just in case this new homemade medium is a fail.

What is "spring mix," Joe? Just curious... never heard of it. Good luck with it!

 

[sbugir]

I'm sure it'll be fine. W/o the spring mix of course, (is that spring mix salad)?

 

[Rick]

Spring mix is like mixed baby greens for salads. Think lettuces.

 

[JoeCapricorn]

There is already a thin layer of mold in two of the cultures. Will this affect anything? Would it be safe to feed these flies to my mantises?

 

[Katnapper]

I'm not sure if mold would do any harm, but it might take over and kill the culture. Since you just made this yesterday or the day before, I'd scrap it and make new... with more vinegar. Also add a very small amount of dry yeast to the top. If you're looking for something to soak up the liquids with, use dried potato flakes (proven to be a good medium solid), or buy a cheap 10 lb. bag of potatoes and microwave, then mash them up and mix into medium. But you either need more vinegar for the amount of media you made (2 spoons is not enough in my opinion.... I use 2 or 3 Cups in a large popcorn bowl), or buy some methyl paraban to prevent mold.

Edit: Or do as Phil suggests and buy a commercial medium mix.

 

[PhilinYuma]

There is already a thin layer of mold in two of the cultures. Will this affect anything? Would it be safe to feed these flies to my mantises?

Let me break the sad truth to you, Joe, you are wasting your time and setting back your fly culturing program. Have you ever seen how a chunk of mashed banana, with or without lots of vinegar, looks after ten days? Rotten pretty much describes it, plus dried out, plus covered in fungus. Bite the bullet, buy some fruit fly culture from Carolina. It has lots of Good Things including a mold inhibitor. Your mantids will thank you.

On a much more important topic, I see that one of the fascinating names that you have given to your mantids is "Nereid" and I thought that I would refer you to Wikipedia for the names of those 50 nymphs, daughters of Nereus. To my my surprise, I found that the list included many false names and omitted some of the true ones. This is part of the Catechism and should be learned by rote. Here is the correct list:

Agaue, Aktaia, Amphitrite, Autonoe, Doris, Doto, Dynamene, Eione, Erato, Eugaore, Euarne, Eudora, Eukrante, Eulimene, Eunike, Eupompe, Galateia, Galene, Glauke, Glaukonome, Halia, Halimede, Hipponoe, Hippothoe, Kymo, Kymodoke, Kymothoe, Laomedeia, Leiagora, Lysianassa, Melite, Menippe, Nemertes, Nesaie, Neso, Panopeia, Pasithea, Pherousa, Ploto, Polynoe, Pontoporeia, Pronoe, Proto, Protomedeia, Psamathe, Sao, Speio, Themisto, Thetis and Thoe.

And there you are. All their names have meaning, of course. One is the guardian of Malta, another looks like a silvery grey fish, another is "first sorceress" and yet another, "journey across the sea", "sweet victory" "lovely companion", I'm sure that you can work out most of the rest for yourself. Good luck.

 

[Rick]

I don't think the mold will hurt when feeding mantids, but it will likely crash the culture as it eats up all of the medium. Commercial mixtures cost money but they do work.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Gotta agree with the others, lettuces are not good for the culture, will just rot, and while they like rotton fruit, vegies are not their choice, as in vegie flies,,,, :tt2:

 

[JoeCapricorn]

I remade the culture just a couple of days after this experiment. What I did was basically potato flakes, water and I added some wheat germ since it was the only protein source I could find. As of right now, there are indeed maggots in the culture!

I got a couple spare fruit fly cultures just in case, but I believe that I now have a large scale colony of my own!

Also, since my mantises are getting bigger, I invested in a large number of crickets today. In all I have over one hundred ranging from sizes pinhead to medium and I put them in an old medium-sized Kritter Keeper.

Yesterday I completely ran out of crickets (except for Dot, my pet cricket, who is not going to be a feeder) when feeding my mantises. Fortunately all mantises got something to eat, and tonight they will eat well!

 

[hibiscusmile]

I think it is cute u got Dot! Sometime s when I feed off my crickets, I feel bad for them, especiallly when I grab their back by mistake and they are trying to reach whatever is holding onto them. thnakd now I feel really bad

 

[JoeCapricorn]

I think it is cute u got Dot! Sometime s when I feed off my crickets, I feel bad for them, especiallly when I grab their back by mistake and they are trying to reach whatever is holding onto them. thnakd now I feel really bad

Sad to say, Dot died - cause unknown but might be dehydration or might be starvation (I only gave him spring mix and he might not have eaten any of it)

But that just leaves room for Dot 2, perhaps? All I did was separate a cricket and give it some sort of individuality by giving it a name. This name and separation from the colony is all that distinguished Dot from the rest.

I also got this new dry gut-load with all sorts of vitamins. Now the crickets will be even better for the mantises ^_^ - plus, this may resolve the problem I had with Dot. Even the smallest crickets are eating this stuff, some even take a piece and drag it with them and eat it somewhere else. I think I even see a cricket with its own horde pile. Hahahaha!

Since I am likely to figure out the cause of death for Dot, I can learn from this and better sustain the life of the colony crickets, which will in turn better benefit my mantises. Dot's death is not in vain. Neither is the death of each cricket and fruit fly that gets nomnomnom'd by the mantises.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Yea, they like grain, but they do eat veggies, so maybe it was just sick. Try keeping two together, maybe like dogs they need a freind?

 

[JoeCapricorn]

Oooo... I am excited about this now! The culture is going full speed. No pupations yet, but there are massive amounts of maggots.

I decided to supplement the culture with larger sized maggots as well from a fresh Hydei culture. This seems to have turned out better than I thought because the "blue stuff" is now spread evenly across the top.

I spun off two experimental cultures as well. One with the remains of a fresh culture and one that I mixed the cricket gut-load stuff with. I want to see if this cricket feed can be added to a culture. Both cultures are heavily maggotted.

 

[Katnapper]

Sounds promising, Joe... I'm glad!

 

[JoeCapricorn]

Now there are pupae in at least two of the cultures. There is one pupae in the large culture that I could see and several large maggots. There was also one pupae in the experimental "cricket feed" culture, so at the very least this culture will result in flies. My eventual goal is to standardize the process of medium creation so that I can have a constant culture going. The third culture, which is a very small culture, will probably be merged with the large culture today since it seems to be drying out too easy (There is really not much medium in there, because a lot of it was scattered, yet now it seems it has all coalesced into one lump on the side) - a quick spray literally awakened at least 50 maggots. Well, now they are crawling all over the place so I might scratch that plan and see if I can just let them mature on their own.

There are maggots scattered in the big culture... and they are HUGE! For D. Hydei maggots, at least. I may just end up with the largest, juiciest fruit flies I've ever seen! Hahaha!

 

[mythal]

I've actually experimented a bit and made up something that has worked quite well with Melanogaster. Insofar I've had no trouble with mold, but I've only made less than ten batches of the stuff. Does not smell too bad either.

My own concoction:

- fresh apple or banana mashed up

- some potato starch / cornstarch

- some apple vinegar

- tablespoon of running honey (helps to prevent mold, too)

- some flour to thicken the stuff

- a sprinkle of dry yeast on top

- and a toilet paper roll

I haven't really paid much attention to how much of everything I put in it, but it should not be too hard to make it on the fly. I'm not quite sure if I properly translated all the ingredients to English, though..

 

[JoeCapricorn]

I've actually experimented a bit and made up something that has worked quite well with Melanogaster. Insofar I've had no trouble with mold, but I've only made less than ten batches of the stuff. Does not smell too bad either.

My own concoction:

- fresh apple or banana mashed up

- some potato starch / cornstarch

- some apple vinegar

- tablespoon of running honey (helps to prevent mold, too)

- some flour to thicken the stuff

- a sprinkle of dry yeast on top

- and a toilet paper roll

I haven't really paid much attention to how much of everything I put in it, but it should not be too hard to make it on the fly. I'm not quite sure if I properly translated all the ingredients to English, though..

That looks like it should work. I think the fresh apple would work better since I've read somewhere it naturally inhibits mold. The starch provides energy for the flies/maggots, the vinegar convinces the female flies that fermentation has taken place, therefore they lay eggs, the honey as you said prevents mold and provides food - as well as possibly adding nutrients to the flies that are later provided to the mantises. The yeast further helps the fermentation, which is important for egg laying and the flour thickens it as you said - I may indeed apply some of these ingredients to future mediums.

My medium is potato flakes and water (uncooked instant mashed potatoes) with wheat germ (for protein) and a shot of Smirnoff Passion Fruit flavored Vodka. The alcohol of the liquor also provides a fermentation product, which female flies like to lay eggs in. This was successful, there are now tons of maggots and pupae in the culture.

Also it does not look like you "translated" anything until you said you did, when I noticed some slightly odd word combinations - "running honey" could also be said as "runny honey" or something but both are correct, or at least good enough for this native English speaker to understand exactly what you mean. Other than that your English is perfect.

Where are you from?

 

[PhilinYuma]

Now there are pupae in at least two of the cultures. There is one pupae in the large culture that I could see and several large maggots. There was also one pupae in the experimental "cricket feed" culture, so at the very least this culture will result in flies. My eventual goal is to standardize the process of medium creation so that I can have a constant culture going. The third culture, which is a very small culture, will probably be merged with the large culture today since it seems to be drying out too easy (There is really not much medium in there, because a lot of it was scattered, yet now it seems it has all coalesced into one lump on the side) - a quick spray literally awakened at least 50 maggots. Well, now they are crawling all over the place so I might scratch that plan and see if I can just let them mature on their own.

There are maggots scattered in the big culture... and they are HUGE! For D. Hydei maggots, at least. I may just end up with the largest, juiciest fruit flies I've ever seen! Hahaha!

Congratulations! You have achieved what everyone strives for, Joe. Lock in your system and stick with it!