Not sure what's in my fruit fly culture

[uralowl]

Recently, almost all of the flies in my drosophilia hyde died. I've ordered some more which arrived yesterday, but unfortunately they're all maggots at the moment so I have to wait for them to mature.

However, I noticed that in the old tub with the dead flies, there a lot of very tiny brown specks on the soil that appear to be alive, since they're moving. Does anyone have any idea what they might be? They don't look like fly larvae since they're usually white.

 

[dlemmings]

mites?

I have not had mites (yet...yikes) but have heard others voice concerns

 

[uralowl]

mites?

I have not had mites (yet...yikes) but have heard others voice concerns

I'm really not sure what they are, I've never seen anything like them before.

From what I've heard, most mites are white as well, so I haven't a clue...

 

[Mvalenz]

The mites that were in my culture were little brownish ones.

 

[uralowl]

The mites that were in my culture were little brownish ones.

I guess I should probably just throw the culture away then?

There doesn't seem to be any flies left alive in there today anyway, I only found 2 live ones which I fed to my mantids.

 

[rs4guy]

Throw it away, no reason keeping it around, risking infecting more tubs/jars etc...

 

[maybon]

Sounds like mites to me, if you have a magnifying glass you might be able to get a better look. Easier just to throw it out though.

 

[Mvalenz]

despite what you may have heard about mites I had fed my mantids FF that had mites before I noticed them for a couple of weeks. All my mantids grew to be very healthy; except a couple that died due not to the mites, but because of mismolts. At first I was very creeped out about it to the point that I could not sleep because It felt like they were crawling on me at night. However, I think it was all in my head. From what people tell me in this forum mites are every where.

 

[Rick]

The mites won't hurt your mantids, but surely they impact the cultures. Best to throw any out with mites instead of making new ones from them.

 

[uralowl]

I've decided to just throw away the culture. It looked like there may have been a couple of FF larvae still in there, but I've got plenty of those in my new culture anyway so it wasn't really worth keeping it just for a few maggots. I've got a feeling that they probably were mites in the culture, though not sure if they were the parasitic ones (I've heard some of them just live freely in the soil...?). Either way, the tub, along with the mites, is in the bin now.

Thanks for the info guys.