# wat FF do you use?



## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

I have leucs. They eat both. I use *D. melanogaster* “Turkish Gliders”, and *D. hydei* “ Flightless”. The Turkish gliders are very productive. I highly recommend them.


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2006)

golden hydei. My toads love them. Even my larger bombinas love to eat these.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Aw come on, need more variety in the poll! I use both, but you don't give that option  There are a couple other FF species in the hobby now, tho not nearly as established as those to. It's also interesting to see the varieties!

I use two varieties of melanogater, and standard flightless hydei. I use the wingless melanos for froglets and the frogs that prefer them, and flightless melanos as the standard FF as they have such a high production. The hydei are mixed in with melanos in mixed cultures because they produce for me better than hydei alone, and the only frogs that eat the hydei prefer both, so they get mixed culture feedings (which vary from mostly melano to mostly hydei depending on the age of the culture).

It doesn't come down to personal preference as much as species preference.


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## Lukeomelas (Mar 15, 2005)

I also use both species, depending on what my frogs like. 

Corey,

Could you explain your mixed fly cultures with melano and hydei? My hydei production usually sucks, so I would be interested to see how you do this. 

Thanks,

Luke


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2006)

fine, hold on and ill make a new one


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Luke, its a very complicated procedure... keep with me here.

- Make fresh culture with media, excelsior (or whatever you use), and have it ready to go.

- Dump in melanos.

- Dump in hydei.

- Close lid.

Sometimes I like to change it up and add the hydei first :twisted: lol, nothing complicated about it. The cultures really do go in cycles tho, you'll swear after the first week or two all the hydei are dead, then, just when you think the culture is starting to get old, hydei abound. This is why its a good idea to have these cultures be bigger, or possibly have more food, so you can get the full bloom of hydei at the end, which may be cut short with a standard culture due to the media being gone! It's also a bit tricker to get the timing right on making new mixed cultures - too soon and you get only melanos, too late and its only hydei. Usually I just wait til its primarily hydei to make new cultures, and add melanos from my melano only cultures (I don't keep hydei only cultures, but plenty of melano cultures of the same line I use in the mixed).

So I have 3 types of cultures - mixed hydei and glider melano, glider melano, and wingless melano. I like to use different colored foam plugs to signify which is which.


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## Lukeomelas (Mar 15, 2005)

Corey,

Thank you for the detailed procedure, I would have been totally lost without it. I'll have to try this out to see what happens. I might ad
this is a huge discovery!!! :twisted: 
Luke


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

lol, no prob luke 

Did anyone mention I'm really sarcastic? lol.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

added the other options... and accidently removed the first post, Sorry fitzy14.


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## Jace King (May 5, 2004)

hello
I used to breed melonos, hydei, and buzzati. Now since i only breed pums and they dont really seem to like hydei i only work with the buzzati and melonogasters. I kind of wish i didnt totally get rid of the hydei, but they really are harder and more of pain to breed and they take a lot longer. My opinion is if you have a nice collection with tincs, thumbs, and pums then you should breeed every fly you can get. But if you only have imitator or some other thumb than just stick to melonoes, concentrate on more springtail variety. Pums can eat hydei, but really seem to prefer the smallest items possible.


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## dartdude (Mar 28, 2005)

Gliders, regular melos and flightless melos.


I tried mulleri and simulans but they both were so crappy they were not worth keeping them going.

Cheers!
Adam


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Just hydei until the other day when my shipment of wingless mels. 

Other fly species?.... Where can these be found?



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## audioandroid (Mar 13, 2005)

i hate turkish gliders. they always seem to morph into flyers. not big on hydei either they culture to slow for my liking. i've pretty much decided to do exclusively wingless mel's. they culture quick never morph to fly and the smallest frogs can eat them. i've also been using golden flightless mel's which i like a lot. the only bad thing about them is they seem to have a very strong grip on what ever surface they climb, which makes it harder to shake them out of a culture cup.


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2006)

Ive got wingless melanos and flightless hydei.
I dont know what everyone is talking about wingless melanos being slow.
All my cultures are rocking! Ive got way more than I could ever hope to feed.

Matt


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## asydabass (Jul 12, 2005)

Corey, you know, here on dendroboard they frown upon mixing species... :wink: I use Turkish Gliders and sometimes wingless melanos. I don't care for the wingless though, I think they are slow compared to the TGs. My 2cents.


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## SS7 (Sep 15, 2008)

springtails, bean beeetles, and turkish gliders here..

SS


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## ccc (Nov 22, 2006)

I probably go a little overboard. I use gliders, hydei, curly wing and golden.


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## iridebmx (Oct 29, 2008)

*lol...........gotta give it up to ~demon for voting for neither...........................lmao*


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## JJuchems (Feb 16, 2004)

I like to vary diet as much as possible. I feed both and often at the same time. I just wish more species of flies where commonly available.


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## frogsanddogs (Jun 21, 2008)

Corey-
Very intresting... So I guess that means that mixing Hydei & Melos doesn't lead to fliers? How come? Are they far enough lines from each other that they can't breed together? I might have to try this presuming it doesn't lead to fliers....so it sounds like maybe you are doing your new cultures 3 weeks or so after the original? At the first Hydei bloom?


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## jhanlon303 (Jan 20, 2009)

When I had to culture Melo. for a college genetics class back in the 60's in Iowa, it was observed that Melo. would 'transform' into fliers when the culture media temps were at or above 100F for an extended period. Most of a summer session in Iowa.

john


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## frogsanddogs (Jun 21, 2008)

Interesting John... wonder what the threshold temp is... I thought I remembered from Biology class that when two fruit fly strains were mixed it would lead to fliers... I know this is true when a flier gets in being that it is the dominant trait, but I thought this was also true by mixing two different varieties of genetically modified flies.. that again they would revert back to the original trait... that is why I was wondering if they were too far apart to breed or if I am just remembering incorrectly... gotta say, while I loved genetics & cell bio courses, didn't ever think the fruit fly info would come in more useful than in learning the general genetics principles so didn't make any hard effort to commit it to memory.  ... that was before frogs.


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## jhanlon303 (Jan 20, 2009)

At the time I too was more interested in the color of their eyes. I do know that very few cultures I have purchased here in Colorado in this high desert plateau seem to do well except in my room at 77F and 65% humidity year round. Medical condition for me.
We have a reptile room in the house with dragons, monitors, snakes, chameleons, giant iguanas and it's warm but drier. Yields are lower there. Tiny chameleons eat FF until they get big enough for crickets.

john


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