07-20-2012, 05:46 PM
Everybody's FF CX's get grain mites sooner or later. Everybody. Let me say that again....EVERYBODY.
Mites and the food mixture we use for culturing fruit flies go hand in hand. Mites are everywhere - on your skin, hair eyebrows. These are not grain mites but you get the idea.
Mites are not bad, you just have to contain and 'live with them'.
Some quick rules:
1. Throw out ALL FF CX's older than 30 days. You can sometimes go over 40 days, but to be safe and provide a more easily recognizable time frame - use the 30 day mark. WRITE your culture date created/made on the fabric covered lid in black sharpie. Mite infestations ramp up after 30 days, somehow - their breeding timetable.
2. Use proper tools for the job. SPLURGE and spend the 15.00 USD for a stack of PLASTIC culture cups and FABRIC coated lids. Do not buy those lids with the little holes in them. Glass jars and pantyhose and rubber bands and mason jars may seem like a good deal, but plastic is actually easier to clean, won't shatter and the fabric lids will be 1000 times more effective than the lids with tiny holes that allow the mites to walk right in. I've used 70 or more plastic lids and cups for over 14 years. The same ones!
3. Mite Paper! - Use Mite paper available from Amazon or eBay or online. Not expensive and I lay a new sheet under all my cultures every few months. I don't discard the old sheet, I just pile them up and finally throw the bottom sheets away after a year or so. WASH your hands after handling the mite paper. Mite paper can help. Mites touch it and die. I keep a bakers rack of trays that each hold 12 cx cups. Ventilation is also key. You don't want to seal up your cxs in a box or a drawer ect. High humidity and lack of air flow will hurt your cultures.
4. Diatomaceous Earth - Food grade from Ama-zon. Cheap. Easy Use it.
5. Never stack your FF CX cups and don't even let them touch each other. Mites walk. Mites crawl. Mites stroll.
6. Make sure you don't make NEW mite-ridden fly CX's - The most often way, by far, for how you get a mite infested culture is to make your new, fresh cultures FROM Mite ridden CXs. You have to examine and be sure that they are not infested. Are there a few mites in the 'Donor' CX?? Sure there are always some but you want to make sure there are not too many. Learn to recognize mites in the CX's by their brown fluffy piles of sheds, or just looking at the sides of the cup and seeing tiny ROUND white-ish dots moving. Mites always move.
You can always fill a larger plastic tote box with a little Calcium dust and the pour your donor flies into that an swirl and shake it around knocking a lot of the mites off the flies. MITES RIDE FLIES?? Yep. Like frickin' horses. Then use these newly dusted flies to start your new CXs.
Mites and the food mixture we use for culturing fruit flies go hand in hand. Mites are everywhere - on your skin, hair eyebrows. These are not grain mites but you get the idea.
Mites are not bad, you just have to contain and 'live with them'.
Some quick rules:
1. Throw out ALL FF CX's older than 30 days. You can sometimes go over 40 days, but to be safe and provide a more easily recognizable time frame - use the 30 day mark. WRITE your culture date created/made on the fabric covered lid in black sharpie. Mite infestations ramp up after 30 days, somehow - their breeding timetable.
2. Use proper tools for the job. SPLURGE and spend the 15.00 USD for a stack of PLASTIC culture cups and FABRIC coated lids. Do not buy those lids with the little holes in them. Glass jars and pantyhose and rubber bands and mason jars may seem like a good deal, but plastic is actually easier to clean, won't shatter and the fabric lids will be 1000 times more effective than the lids with tiny holes that allow the mites to walk right in. I've used 70 or more plastic lids and cups for over 14 years. The same ones!
3. Mite Paper! - Use Mite paper available from Amazon or eBay or online. Not expensive and I lay a new sheet under all my cultures every few months. I don't discard the old sheet, I just pile them up and finally throw the bottom sheets away after a year or so. WASH your hands after handling the mite paper. Mite paper can help. Mites touch it and die. I keep a bakers rack of trays that each hold 12 cx cups. Ventilation is also key. You don't want to seal up your cxs in a box or a drawer ect. High humidity and lack of air flow will hurt your cultures.
4. Diatomaceous Earth - Food grade from Ama-zon. Cheap. Easy Use it.
5. Never stack your FF CX cups and don't even let them touch each other. Mites walk. Mites crawl. Mites stroll.
6. Make sure you don't make NEW mite-ridden fly CX's - The most often way, by far, for how you get a mite infested culture is to make your new, fresh cultures FROM Mite ridden CXs. You have to examine and be sure that they are not infested. Are there a few mites in the 'Donor' CX?? Sure there are always some but you want to make sure there are not too many. Learn to recognize mites in the CX's by their brown fluffy piles of sheds, or just looking at the sides of the cup and seeing tiny ROUND white-ish dots moving. Mites always move.
You can always fill a larger plastic tote box with a little Calcium dust and the pour your donor flies into that an swirl and shake it around knocking a lot of the mites off the flies. MITES RIDE FLIES?? Yep. Like frickin' horses. Then use these newly dusted flies to start your new CXs.
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"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".
https://twitter.com/DartDen
"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".