Dart Den

how do you get rid of dead fruit flys in a culture?I have heard tweezers but that takes forever and the flys will get out unless I transfer them to another culture then put them back in their culture.

I have never seen a reason to get rid of any dead flies. If they make it to the tank, they will just decompose and not hurt anything.

I mean in the cultures.So,If they die and I leave them in the culture they wont infect the culture?My D.manglogaster have died in the media.

By the time that you get a big enough quantity of dead flies in a culture, you should already have made up new cultures 5-6 days before.

Under normal circumstances, when a culture reaches this stage it is ready to be dicarded in the proper manor.

If the culture is still fairly new and there is clear evidence of maggots but no pupae yet and the quanitity of dead flies is not to great, I would just leave it as is and wait for the next stage in the fly cycle.

many times I get dead FFs in my cultures when they are too populated because I haven't been taking enough flies out. If I see that a culture is extremely 'crowded' with FFs I will have to take it outside and let some out, otherwise I will end up with dead flies in my culture.

For a FF culture could i just put a chunk of bannana in a sealed plastic dish? Would that work good? Sorry for highjacking the thread...

You can do that if you want "wild" fruit flies (that fly). Also, the banana will get smelly very quickly. There are fruit fly media recipes that are pretty easy and inexpensive. They use mashed potato flakes, powdered sugar and brewer's yeast as the main ingredients. Do a search and you will find them. Fran

here's a link to a few good media recipes. http://www.anapsid.org/fruitfly.html

How much time does it take for culturing flightless fruitflies?

FroggerMianeack Wrote:How much time does it take for cultureing flightless fruitflies?

Which part of the process?

I mean just the Average time, i mean will i have time for personal stuff to. Just the whole general process/

How many frogs do you intend to feed?

2 or 3 Dendrobates auratus (green and black dart frog)

The cultures don't take very long. I like to measure out the dry ingredients for a bunch of cultures and put them in jars. Then each week, you just take out a jar or two, add the warm water, yeast, something for the flies to climb on, flies and a lid. That takes about 5-10 minutes a week and about 30 minutes every 6 weeks or so to get the big batch ready. Fran

k thanks

Dead FF will almost always occur. Thats another reason why we don't recommend the Large sized Hydei for new hobbyists as the larger size flies will foul the culture quicker due to the size of the carcasses.

10 Days to 2 Weeks is basically the culture time frame for smaller Melanogaster. Many other factors such as temperature and humidity play into time frames too.

Here's a quick answer sticky that covers a few questions:

feeder-insects-nutrition-how-to-feed-your-frogs-f22/some-standard-fruit-fly-culturing-questions-t4210.html