# How I culture my food



## MvFrogs (Aug 18, 2012)

* Fruitflies *​
Probably the main foodsource for most of our frogs. Easy to breed, easy the feed!

_Ingredients_
Bananas
Vinegar
Sugar
Oat flakes
Water
Blender
Paper towel
Starting culture

_Cups and lids_
I am European so we use different cups... They are smaller but it doesn't make a difference. I just have to make more 

For the lids... I just use the standard ones that come with the cups. I cut a large hole in them for ventilation. I just take a piece of paper towel and cut it to the correct size. When I am done adding flies I quickly put the paper towel above the container and put the lid on. This gives a perfect sealed fruitfly culture.

















_Making the media_
Making the media is simple, just put everything in the blender and you're done. SIMPLE AS THAT

I start of with adding water... Add the bananas and start blending. Next step is adding the sugar and the vinegar (sugar and vinegar reduce smell. Vinegar also reduces mould) but you can leave both of these behind if you want.

After mixing these I start adding the oat flakes. *Don't* add to much at once because you'll end up with a mixture thats way to dry!










_Filling cups and adding flies_
Now you can start filling cups and add the flies. Since this isn't a method using hot water, you don't have to wait untill it cools down.




* Bean Beetles *​
Bean beetles are a great food for larger frogs. They are slower breeders and do best around 23-25°C. These cultures last very long! You can get very consistent feeding cultures from these little bugs

_Ingredients_
Beans
Starting culture
Paper towel


_Cups and lids_
I use the exact same cups and lids for my bean beetles. Again I cut a large hole in the lid and close it of with a piece of paper towel.

_Setting up cultures_
Setting up cultures is as easy as it can get. Take a container, add beans to it and then add your beetles. Close it of... And done!

I also add a piece of paper towel in the container with the beetles. I do this because this will make it easier to get the beetles out. Take the paper and shake it out in the tank.

The beans I use are Mung beans. I use these because they are smaller then the black eyed ones. Because they are smaller the beetles will also be smaller. This makes them more suitable for smaller frogs.


























* Springtails *​
A great food for every kind of frog! I personally love to breed and feed them. They don't cause any problems like smell, mites (most of the time) and they don't take up as much time to set up as fruitflies.
Once you have a good breeding culture (or multiple) you'll be able to give your frogs a happy meal 

_Ingredients_
Peat
(Oak) bark
Water

_Containers_
I've used several kinds of containers to put my springtails in. I used 0.5L, 1L, 6L and 12L containers.
I like using the 6L onces the best. Reason? They offer more than enough space... And they are easy stacked in my rack. 
Using 1 big container to house your cultures is easier when it comes to feeding. Its much faster to feed 1 6L culture than it is to feed 10 0.5L containers.










_Setting up new cultures_
Here I am using 0.5L ones (Didn't have any 6L containers left)

1. Add peat to the containers
2. I cut oak bark to little pieces mix this with the peat (Yes this makes a difference)
3. Most of the time I add a little water to make the peat a bit more moist (NOT WET)
4. I like to add a piece of bark to the new culture. This makes it easy to feed in the future.










_Maintenance afterwards_
Its important to feed your cultures. The more food they get, the faster they'll reproduce (don't overfeed).

I don't make any ventilationholes in my containers. I just open them every once in a while when I need to feed and thats more than enough.






So, I know there are enough topics around here about culturing. But maybe there's someone out there that could use this. And I have nothing to do all day anyway


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## JeremyHuff (Apr 22, 2008)

Love the mung bean suggestion. Got to go grocery shopping now. 
What springtails are you rearing? I ask, because I found wet cultures are better for temperate white and silver. Pinks and tomocerus like it drier. I also prefer wet cultures because you can pour the springtails into tanks making harvesting simple.


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## Sipiku II (Aug 5, 2013)

I am in the process of building my first vivarium and getting my cultures together. This is a very helpful thread! Thanks for taking the time and posting this!


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## Dragonfish (Mar 23, 2012)

How big of a frog eats bean beetles? Would an Azureus benefit from them?


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## MvFrogs (Aug 18, 2012)

Dragonfish said:


> How big of a frog eats bean beetles? Would an Azureus benefit from them?


Azureus will eat them without any problems. I mainly keep tinctorius and none of my frogs have problems eating them.

They might act a little 'weird' the first time they get bean beetles because they aren't used to such large food.
Don't feed them to often... I've heard that they are harder to digest (I'm dutch not sure about this word :/ )
I give them about once a week or once every two weeks.


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## frogfreak (Mar 4, 2009)

I don't know why they would be considered hard to digest? Wild frogs are known to eat a lot of ants, which also have a hard exoskeleton.


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## MvFrogs (Aug 18, 2012)

I don't think it should be a problem but I've been reading some topics on other forums and it seems to come up pretty often. 
I've never seen any of my frogs having problems with them myself.


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## mongo77 (Apr 28, 2008)

I know people feed bean beetles to their frogs as a staple without any problems. Many prefer them to FF's. Do you find that using the Mung beans produces beatles small enought that thumbs might be able to eat them?


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Mung beans are not as common and hard to find here in the states.I use whole peas in all my cultures because they take a little longer than black eyed peas and give me more of a constant flow of beetles.I posted a link below of an experiment I did a while back with different types of beans and peas.I used whole peas(which turns out are a lot cheaper than anything else at .99 per bag).They are a lot smaller than bleackeyed peas and in the experiment I made cultures of just whole peas but I didn't notice a size difference in the beetles them selves.What I have noticed is that the longer I keep any of my bb cultures around(I have several that are at least 3-4 months old)that the bbs do emerge smaller and less of them no matter what media is used.


http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/70434-bean-beetle-bean-experiment.html


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## radiata (Jul 24, 2010)

oddlot said:


> Mung beans are not as common and hard to find here in the states.I use whole peas in all my cultures because they take a little longer than black eyed peas and give me more of a constant flow of beetles.I posted a link below of an experiment I did a while back with different types of beans and peas.I used whole peas(which turns out are a lot cheaper than anything else at .99 per bag).They are a lot smaller than bleackeyed peas and in the experiment I made cultures of just whole peas but I didn't notice a size difference in the beetles them selves.What I have noticed is that the longer I keep any of my bb cultures around(I have several that are at least 3-4 months old)that the bbs do emerge smaller and less of them no matter what media is used.
> 
> 
> http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/70434-bean-beetle-bean-experiment.html


Hi Lou,

Where do you find whole peas? The only ones at my Shop Rite are split.

Thanks,
Bob


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Hey Bob,I get mine from Marmora shoprite in the Goya section.I get my blackeyed peas in the section that has Jack Rabbit brand because they are a bit cheaper for the same thing.It's odd but they are in two different aisles for some reason.If they don't carry it I would think they could order it for you if they have them in the other stores. Split peas won't work.If you can't find them I could probably bring you some at frogday,but I'd need to know a bit before hand as I'm working a short week next week so I can prepare and the shoprite in question is near my job.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

I'm sure split peas would work just fine too.


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## oddlot (Jun 28, 2010)

Negative,they will not work! there is not enough room for them to grow inside.Tried it.Sorry.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Good to know! Do the grubs end up falling out of the peas?


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## radiata (Jul 24, 2010)

oddlot said:


> Hey Bob,I get mine from Marmora shoprite in the Goya section.I get my blackeyed peas in the section that has Jack Rabbit brand because they are a bit cheaper for the same thing.It's odd but they are in two different aisles for some reason.If they don't carry it I would think they could order it for you if they have them in the other stores. Split peas won't work.If you can't find them I could probably bring you some at frogday,but I'd need to know a bit before hand as I'm working a short week next week so I can prepare and the shoprite in question is near my job.


Lou,

I'm giving up on my whole pea search - I may try on-line. So far I've tried three Shop Rites, one Whole Food, one Kings and one Food Town. Must be a north-south thing, where the only thing dried peas are used for in northern NJ is split pea soup, whereas the people in southern NJ have a more varied cuisine.

Thanks for the offer to bring some to Frog Day, but don't bother. You don't want to be my only source for them!

Thanks again,
Bob


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

radiata said:


> Lou,
> 
> I'm giving up on my whole pea search - I may try on-line. So far I've tried three Shop Rites, one Whole Food, one Kings and one Food Town. Must be a north-south thing, where the only thing dried peas are used for in northern NJ is split pea soup, whereas the people in southern NJ have a more varied cuisine.
> 
> ...


I don't know from what culture this arose, but it is supposed to be good luck to eat black eyed peas on New Years Day. As such, many supermarkets will carry black eyed peas around New Years Day, even though they don't carry them the rest of the year. I discussed this with a manager at Safeway last year. I was baffled that customer after customer was frantically looking for black eyed peas and she explained it to me.
Doesn't help you much now, but you might be able to stock up in a couple of months.


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## Peasey (Aug 28, 2013)

radiata said:


> Lou,
> 
> I'm giving up on my whole pea search - I may try on-line. So far I've tried three Shop Rites, one Whole Food, one Kings and one Food Town. Must be a north-south thing, where the only thing dried peas are used for in northern NJ is split pea soup, whereas the people in southern NJ have a more varied cuisine.
> 
> ...


I'm really surprised that you can't get them in NJ. Have you looked at the dry beans section? You'll just have to rehydrate them.


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