Is this safe to use in your cultures? I am wondering if this will harm my frogs that eat the flies that have been treated with this for mites? Thank you, Shawn
I used this once - a long while back, and I don't remember what I did with the flies- I may have fed them to fish, but in truth I can't be sure. At the time I was using foam bungs - you soak the bung and the fumes treat the flies. The bungs swell, but the flies were fine. Might have melted the plastic container a little though - might be worth testing
I doubt it will hurt frogs, but maybe just use that generation as breeding stock only, just to be on the safe side
the way I used b. benzoate was to put some on paper towlels and to put my cultures on top. It will serve as mite paper and if you do it for a couple weeks you will probably eliminate your mite problem. I would also get some fresh cultures instead of using already mite infested ones, because your really just delaying the inevitable colapse of your culutres if you keep using infested flies.
It's a man-made chemical. Go online and look up the MSDS---Material Safety Data Sheet and judge for yourself whether it's safe or not. Anytime we use man-made mold inhibitors like methyl paraben or other things, we risk genetic damage to future generations of frogs. Don't use drugs unless absolutely necessary to preserve the life of your animal---that is, if there is no natural solution.
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I have been spraying the coffee filters that go into the medium with BB@5% and haven't had any problems either with mites or with the frogs. I haven't been doing this for a very long time so can't say on the long term.
My fly cultures have been booming, both melos and hydei.