Josh's Frogs
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Fruit Fly Cultures: Tips to maximize production
Fruit flies are one of the easiest feeder insects to care for. Each 32 oz fruit fly culture includes all the food and water the flies will need for 4 to 8 weeks. Freshly Started Hydei Cultures will start to produce flies you can feed to your animals in 17-21 days. Freshly Started Melanogaster Cultures will start producing flies in 10-14 days. Each culture has the potential to produce 1000s of flies, but there are a few things that can slow down or stop production all together. The key to great production from your cultures is the environment you keep your cultures in.
Humidity
Fruit fly cultures are prone to dry out in environments that are under 65% humidity. To maintain humidity, place the culture inside of a clear Sterilite shelving unit to keep the culture from drying out. You can also spray down the culture with dechlorinated water if it dries out.Temperature
Fruit fly cultures should be kept between 70 and 80 degrees. If the cultures hit 85 degrees even for a little while, the culture will go sterile and will not produce any more flies. Cultures that are kept under 70 degrees produce much slower.Mold
Our 32 oz fruit fly cultures are made with a media that has a mold inhibitor already in it. However, if the culture begins to dry out, mold will appear on the top of the media. If mold develops on the top of the media, spray the mold down with some dechlorinated water and put the culture in a clear Sterilite storage shelving unit to maintain humidity. Mold will occasionally develop on the coffee filters or excelsior used in the culture. To prevent this from happening, make sure cultures are away from heater/air conditioner vents. If mold develops on the coffee filters or excelsior used in the culture, remove the portion with the mold on it before starting new cultures from that culture to avoid spreading the mold. Feeding from a moldy culture will not hurt your animals.Overproduction
While your culture is producing flies, you need to remove the flies from the culture every few days. Otherwise, too many flies will lead to too much CO2 and cause the flies to die.Mites
There are two types of Mites found in Fruit Fly Cultures. White grain mites are common in fruit fly cultures. They are attracted to the fruit fly media. The white grain mites are found in all grains and are probably in your kitchen already! These mites take over a culture when the flies are not doing well. If the culture is kept optimally, the fruit flies will out-compete the grain mites.Fruit Fly Mites are brown/red predatory mites that attack fruit fly pupae. This type of mite is quite rare in the pet industry. They lay eggs on the fruit fly pupae and prevent the Fruit Flies from hatching from the pupae.To ward off mites, we recommend the following:- Keep cultures older than 28 days away from cultures that are younger to minimize transfer of mites.
- Keep grains (such as mealworm bedding or food items) away from your fruit fly cultures.
