Fruit Fly recipes and ingredients

[Philsuma]

yes.....you WANT wingless fruit flies.

[cablemandan]

I love this thread.. I got my culture media from it basically.. with different suggestions and add-ons to recipes.. I even threw in one or two of my own.

We can't 'gutload' but it is my belief the more nutrition the flies eat in the culture, the more naturally nutritional they will be. That being said I used different variations of philsuma's recipes, but I switched out dry flaked potatoe (potato buds) with organic dry baby food.. I do half and half actually so its not a complete substitute. I finally found a use for my worn out bananas that used to go in the garbage. I now freeze brown bananas and cut a 3/4 " piece off... skin it and split it and chuck that in there. The productivity in the cultures I have done this with is exponential.

I also am still using the easter grass that phil said to stock up on (which I did) and it is awesome.

I've had some slower producing cultures, but that was my experimenting with different cultures, but not one culture has crashed thanks to the posts I read here.

And to think.. I almost bought a new culture kit from a said company that did not return an e-mail or a phone call. This forum and thread was more helpful, KUDOS to you guys and my frogs are fat and happy =D

[Philsuma]

Thank you for being a friend of the thread. heh

The recipes are not all mine. Only a couple are. The rest are culled from elsewhere - some a lone time ago.

The Easter Grass is all Michael (D3monic) lol.....his idea. I won't touch the stuff. Looks blasphemous hock:

[Philsuma]

I love this thread.. I got my culture media from it basically.. with different suggestions and add-ons to recipes.. I even threw in one or two of my own.

We can't 'gutload' but it is my belief the more nutrition the flies eat in the culture, the more naturally nutritional they will be.

True enough. I even throw all of my "old" unused supp and calc powders into the huge FF media barrel. You must constantly be careful if you tip the balance of dry ingredients, because the end mixture may set-up quicker and dry - ruining your batch. "Mad Science" has it's drawbacks.

As to the added nutrition in the dry media mix. I'm all for it, but again, testing has not been done and it's far from a guess as to what it will carry over into the health of the frog.

I would always advise that everyone use a fresh and varied dusting routine.

No dusting of fruit flies = FAIL....and unhealthy, if not dead frogs.

[cablemandan]

O fer sure.... I still dust, but not each feeding, so hoping higher nutrition in the FF media translates to good nutrition on no dust days. I would never think to just stop that ritual. I have a hard time throwing them food that looks like it went through Charlie Sheen's pockets at every feeding, so I switch it up.. none 1 day, mixed another, some days just the blue, some just the pink.. Moderation is good, and so far much success with feeding time. Opening the top now is like ringing the dinner bell.

[Philsuma]

On any given weekend...Charlie Sheen snorts enough yayo to kill 2 and 1/2 men.


sorry....the Roast is coming up on Comedy Central. I LOVE those roasts !

and yes....skipping a dusting is ok imo too. I usually dust with some kind of supp...but a few times a month I skip a dust altogether.

[fishguyturnedfrog]

Since I'm still a newbie to the hobby, I'm using Josh's frogs media. The directions say 1/2 cup of media and 2/3 cup water then waited 24 hours for it to completely absorb the water and it comes out in the consistency of play dough. From what I've read, the media should be like thick mashed potatoes. So going by what I've read that most of you just add stuff until it looks right so that's what I did. I added an extra 1/3 cup of water so 1 full cup and it came out like peanut butter when the culture was still fresh. The first culture in about 10 days was BOOMING with FF's and still producing very well 10 days later. Now that the media is about 2/3rds it's life and getting worn out, it's starting to lose it's consistency and becoming a little more soupy when I'm tilting the cup which is trapping flies in the media to their death. I'm guessing that I should probably go by the directions to prevent the soupyness even though though the start of the culture wasn't looking the way it should be?

[Rusty_Shackleford]

fishguy, I wish I could tell you there is a hard fast rule, but there isn't. A lot of culturing ff's is experimentation. For example, I add more water to my media in the winter because they tend to dry out more with the furnace
on drying out the air. I use my own home made media and to make one culture I use 3/8 of a cup of dry media and 3/4 cup of water generally. That gives me a good 2 1/2 to 3 inches of medial in a 32 oz deli cup. I look for a moist but not wet, solid but not concrete media. If you experiment and it's not the consistency you want you can always add more water or add more mix to get the consistency right. I hope this helps.


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[pa.walt]

why do people use brewers yeast and then use bakers yeast in the same mix. this is sort of for the new people.
when i make my mixes i put water in the containers and add the medium to it. also when i heat up my water it usually cools down by the time i mix it up. the reason is i am too lazy to mix it right then and there. i do other things like lurk on dart den.
one more thing, i notice in some of the mixes you add alot of sugary things, example apple sauce,grape juice,molassis in one mix. can someone enlighten me why. is it not just 3 types of sugar.
all comments welcome.

[Philsuma]

Two Kinds of Yeast ?!!?

Yep:

1. Baker's Yeast. The small, off-white-ish grains or sometimes little balls found in little foils packets or small dark coloured glass jars. This yeast is ACTIVE, or alive. It gets sprinkled on top of the freshly made culture and allows for the breakdown of the FF media. The maggots can then consume and process the media more easily, this way. FF that you transfer or "seed" a new culture should also have some active yeast on their legs and this can help the breakdown process as well. I always use some baker's yeast though, and don't fully rely on the FF's to drag some over with them.

2. Brewer's Yeast .This is a fine brown powdery substance that adds protein to the culture and is an ingredient in any media mixture. It's usually found in health food grocery store aisles and comes in a small tub with a pop top. This is the most expensive ingredient and some people tend to skimp on it, which results in markedly decreased FF production.

Dunno the answer to all the 'sugars' though Walt....that's your homework assignment for Dart Den. To have you de-lurk....

[BrianWI]

Visit the FF Media Supplement thread. Similar topic using active experiments.

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I've been making my own media for some time now. I've been making two separate recipes, basically identical with the exception of the addition of methyl paraben for the hydei. I've talked to some other froggers who use the same media for both melanogaster and hydei. I would love to just make one big batch of media instead of two separate ones. Is there any drawback to using the methyl paraben for melos? I've always assumed since one recipe called for the methyl paraben and one didn't there was a reason to use it. Any thoughts?

I'm also wondering about making some mixed cultures. I've been told that it would be a better use of more media since the different species hatch out at different times. Has anyone ever tried this? I might experiment with it once or twice.
Thanks for your knowledge everyone.

[Philsuma]

Jon,

I've actually heard a lot of people are not using methyl paraben now and going to a more natural ingredient like cinnamon or some small amount of white vinegar. Everyone is worried about 'chemicals' these days...

I gave up completely on Hydei years and years ago....way too finicky a fly for me. Now supposedly 'golden' hydei are almost as easy as Melas.

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I already use cinnamon in my mix. I understood methyl paraben is a food quality mold inhibitor. I'm sure we humans are eating it. Seems safe enough to me. I've not had a proplem with mold ever, it and or the cinnamon must be working.
My hydei usually do great!! This summer has been a little sketchy with the heat, but I usually get HUGE booms of hydei, great for feeding the bigger tincs and Phyllobates sp.
I'm still waiting for Field to send me some of his special turkish gliders, which he claims outproduce anything.

[frogfreak]

I'm also wondering about making some mixed cultures. I've been told that it would be a better use of more media since the different species hatch out at different times. Has anyone ever tried this? I might experiment with it once or twice.

Hi Jon,

I've tried this a few times. I mixed wingless and Hydei and it worked well. I haven't put it into practice because I like to keep the different size flies separate. The bigger flies going to Tincs and the smaller flies to thumbs and froglets. I get huge blooms of Hydei too. I think the key is lots of medium.

Cheers

[ChrisK]

Yeah gliders are INSANE with production. They escape the tanks like crazy though so use a pice of banana or something to keep them in.

[pa.walt]

Yeah gliders are INSANE with production. They escape the tanks like crazy though so use a pice of banana or something to keep them in.

i think there needs to be another name for them besides gliders. turkish jumpys or something like that. :wink:

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Glenn, I do the same thing. I feed melanos to froglets and thumbs, hydei for bigger frogs. I'm gonna try the mix culture next week. It would be a feeding only culture. You would have to keep the two flies separate in at least one culture each so you could always keep mixing them.

Chris, I usually use a piece of banana in all my vivs anyway.

Phil, you really find hydei finicky? I do fine with them. I do think they prefer cooler temps than melanogaster. Just a personal observation. I have no problems getting nice production week in and week out with them. For me the melos are more finicky.


I guess I should go ahead and add my recipe.
6 cups of potato flakes (I get mine at GFS, $9.99 for 5lb 5oz. makes a crap load of media, nice fine powdered formula)
2 cups of brewers yeast (ordered from Josh's Frogs $14.99 for 5lbs, lasts awhile)
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.
2 tablespoons of cinnamon
Add 2 teaspoons of methyl paraben for hydei. (ordered from Josh's Frogs $11.99 for 1lb. again it lasts a loooong time)

In the past I had used 3/8 of a cup (that's 1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup people) of media and 1 +/- cup of boiling water. I found I was having too much left over, uneaten media at the bottom of the cup. So now I use 1/4 cup of media and 2/3 to 3/4 +/- cup of boiling water. This makes a nice 1 1/2" of media on the bottom of the cup. I think that's more than enough, there is just less waste that way. I encourage everyone on a budget to make their own media. This recipe goes a long way. A full tub of potato flakes makes two batches of the above recipe. I make 8 - 10 cultures per week and the "double batch" will last me 3 1/2 - 4 months. Pretty darn good bang for the buck.
I don't have any pics of brand new booming cultures because they've all been fed out of already, but here's some pics of newly set up cultures.

[BcsTx]

Rusty, almost the same as my recipe except I add a teaspoon of paprika and use the methyl parabon for my melas and hydei.
I use 1/2 cup media to 3/4 cup boiled water.

[Philsuma]

That's double the media volume that I use for melas Jon. So you advocate *more* media for Hydei ? That works better ?