# Tom's fly culturing routine and storage



## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

Alright so I have been following this routine for a few years now and it has been working out really well for me. I figured it was about time to share. I have not had any mite issues, culture crashes, mold outbreaks or anything since I began using this process.

*General Setup*
I have 4 sterilite containers that I rotate on a weekly basis through this process. They look like this:









Here is how I keep them. It is a little TV unit in my spare room. 









The top left culture is the newest and the bottom right is the oldest. So it reads like a book from newest to oldest.








At this point these are the ages of the cultures:
1: 28 Days
2: 21 Days
3: 14 Days
4: 7 Days

I make my cultures on Monday. Straying by a day usually doesn't cause any problems for me... but the key is being as consistent as possible. Today I made cultures for bin #1 which was the oldest bin. The old cultures are taken and put in a closet far away from the new cultures and I use stunted flies to feed to froglets. This (IME) is the biggest factor when it comes to reducing mites. Take the old cultures away from the new ones. Far far away. 

*Making the Cultures*
Follow the instructions for your individual cultures. *The timing and organization method outlined in this thread can be applied to any vendor's fly media or even your own homemade stuff.* That being said, I use NEHerp's media and I cut the recommended amounts in half. This is what I use:
- 1/4 cup media
- 1/3 cup of boiling water
- splash of vinegar
- pinch of active yeast

I fill the cup with the media, splash a bit of white vinegar (less than a capful) in there and then add the water. I stir it up a bit just to make sure there is no dry media on top of the culture. I don't completely mix the culture. 

Once the culture is cooled, I add a pinch of active yeast to the top. This helps ward off harmful molds that could cause production issues. From there I add the excelsior and the flies.

Again, you can use the rest of my methods with *any media*. I have had success with stuff from other sponsors.

*Seeding and Organization*

Here is the general setup:









On the left are the two bins of cultures I am using the seed the new cultures.








You can see these are bins #2 and #3. That means they are now 14-21 days old. I mix different aged cultures together to try to get some genetic diversity. 

Here they all are before going in:









Once I put the flies in I label each culture to make sure I do not mix them up and lose track of when they were made and what bin they go in. 








M = Melanogastor
1 = # of the bin it belongs in
1/27 is the date

From here, I take the bin they are going into a give it a quick rinse with hot water.










Once it is dried I spray it with some mite spray










It is then put back into the cabinet at the top left where the newest culture always goes. Every other bin is pushed along the rotation.









You'll notice that some of the cultures have lids and some don't. This is something that will depend heavily on the ambient humidity in the cabinet and the room. I find that loosely placed lids help me during the first couple weeks of the culture's life but after that I need them to dry out a bit or else they get sticky. Every time I feed, I check the cultures and see how they look. If they look dry I can put the lids back on or if they look wet I can take them off.

*Vitamins*

Vitamins are incredibly important to the health of our frogs and how we store them can drastically change their effectiveness. I have adopted the same method as most of you have with regards to storing my excess in a refrigerator. This is how it looks for me:









On the left is an old calcium plus container I use simply for the label. That container is empty and I store the small black film canister in it. That black film canister is filled with a few weeks worth of vitamins and used with my regular feedings till it runs out. 

On the right is my current storage batch of calcium plus. This is kept in the refrigerator. I label the top lid when I get it (9/13) and will discard it when it hits 6 months. Every time my small film canister of vitamins runs out, I retrieve this container from the fridge. I let it warm up to room temperature before I open it. I fill the small film canister with the vitamins, seal them both back up and put the extra back in the fridge.

I do the same thing for my vitamin A. I didn't feel like dragging the extra stuff up from the fridge so this is just the current supply I have out. I usually keep just enough to get me through 2 dustings out of the fridge.

*The End.*
And that's it. That is my method that has been getting me by for a while now without any issues. The most important part of this method is being as consistent as possible with making cultures every week. I can't stress this enough. If I know I'm not going to be able to do it Monday I make them on Sunday. If Monday goes by and I didn't make the cultures it is the first thing I do on Tuesday.

Any questions/comments/concerns are more than welcome


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## JPccusa (Mar 10, 2009)

Very nice write up, Tom. It was about time our stickies got new material. 

Here are a few things that I do differently:

- My tubs (I actually use trays) are stationary, and the cups rotate from week 1 to week 4. 
- I use diatomaceous earth (DE) instead of mite spray. DE does not need to be replaced EVER and it also kills stray gnats that fall into it.
- I use about 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of excelsior shown in the pictures.

And here is another tip for people using excelsior. I have heard time and again that the stuff is messy and pieces get all over the dusting cup when feeding. In order to prevent that:
* I get a portion of excelsior, 
* boil it (to prevents mites), 
* fluff it up the most the I can so small pieces fall in the counter while the long fibers stay somewhat together. 
* I then sprinkle the small pieces over the media, 
* tap the cup down on the counter to make the small excelsior pieces stick to the media, 
* then add the fluffed up ball with long fibers on top. 
Occasionally I get one or two pieces fall into the dusting cup, but for the most part, everything stays in place.


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## scoy (Jan 22, 2013)

I use NEherp media aswell and I only use half the recommended amount. I feel theres too much media left at the bottom that the flies never use when you use the recommended amount of media from most sponsors.


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## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

scoy said:


> I use NEherp media aswell and I only use half the recommended amount. I feel theres too much media left at the bottom that the flies never use when you use the recommended amount of media from most sponsors.


That has been my experience as well. I've been doing just fine with the smaller portions for a while now.


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## JPccusa (Mar 10, 2009)

I use Repashy and I too have to cut the recommended amount to 2/3.


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## SirKyleP (Dec 7, 2013)

Thanks for the info! I was wondering, which bin do you feed out of and why do you refrigerate your vitamins?


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## JPccusa (Mar 10, 2009)

The vitamins last longer in the fridge. I also keep my dry FF medium in the fridge for that same reason.


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## 357MAGNOLE (Jan 23, 2014)

This is a beast of a write up... How many frogs does this feed? Im looking to have 3 terrariums and up to 10 darts at any given time... I assume I wont need close to this amount of culture going at once.... Maybe do 1 culture a week vice 3.....


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## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

SirKyleP said:


> Thanks for the info! I was wondering, which bin do you feed out of and why do you refrigerate your vitamins?


Good questions. I totally forgot to include the feeding part. 

I generally feed out of the older 2 cultures (bottom shelf). These are the same 2 cultures I used to seed the next one.

When I'm doing this all I have 5 sets of cultures:
-Unseeded
-1 week old
-2 weeks old
-3 weeks old
-4 weeks old

The 4 week old gets separated and fed to froglets. The 1 week old (#4 in my above example) just gets moved along. 2 and 3 week old (#2 and #3 above) are used for feeding and seeding. If temperatures are warmer and the cultures are maturing quicker, sometimes I will use the flies from #4 when they are 11-12 days old to feed. 

Vitamin storage has been covered pretty extensively on the forum. The vitamins will eventually break down and not be as effective. Cooler storage temperatures slows this process.



357MAGNOLE said:


> This is a beast of a write up... How many frogs does this feed? Im looking to have 3 terrariums and up to 10 darts at any given time... I assume I wont need close to this amount of culture going at once.... Maybe do 1 culture a week vice 3.....


Right now this feeds:
3 Adult tincs
6 Adult epipedobates
1 adult and 3 subadult leucs
13 adults and 6 juvie ranitomeya. 

I do usually have plenty of extras.

I would always at least just do 2 for sanity's sake. That way you _know_ you have enough and can even help someone out with a culture if you need to.


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## mho (Dec 25, 2013)

357MAGNOLE said:


> This is a beast of a write up... How many frogs does this feed? Im looking to have 3 terrariums and up to 10 darts at any given time... I assume I wont need close to this amount of culture going at once.... Maybe do 1 culture a week vice 3.....


2 minimum, just incase the culture crashes you be glad you had the extra... You can always find someone to take the extra if needed.


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## scoy (Jan 22, 2013)

I dont know if theres any standard or rule. But for me one culture for every three viv has worked. This might not always work depending on the frogs and viv though. Its always good to have to many rather then not enough.


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## rigel10 (Jun 1, 2012)

Great thread, I would have liked know it when I started. I use a DIY medium, very simple, because I learned to appreciate simplicity: mashed potatoes, sugar, RO water at room temperature, yeast and a little Nipagin as a preservative.
For me it is very important excelsior, because I have noticed higher production with this stuff, but it is hard to find it here, so I started using this product in these days.


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## Dendrobati (Jul 27, 2012)

Very good set up! 

And we too like excelsior better... it is extremely messy though. 

Marta


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## scoy (Jan 22, 2013)

I use excelsior aswell though sometimes I really hate the mess. There have been a few batches I've recieved that were nothing but shake, just tiny little pieces that wont hold together. Usually when its so loose its unuseable. Though I'll try and compact it into a ball and place it in the culture so it is embedded in the media. Does anyone have any good uses for the extra unuseable excelsior? I was thinking about adding it to abg soil to fluff it up and add to the drainage.


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## latieplolo (Feb 12, 2014)

Thanks for the super detailed process! As a noob, It hasn't occurred to me that it would be more than just buying some tubs and feeding it to the frogs. Now I'll have a much better start. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

been a lot of FF questions on the forum lately so I figured I would give this a little bump and an update.

I still use pretty much this exact same routine, just a few minor changes:
-I have replaced mite spray with diatomaceous earth
-Per Ed's advice, I always dust my flies BEFORE seeding the cultures. (http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/70033-ugh-just-found-mites.html#post612641)
-I now culture both hydei and melanogastor (2 cultures of each). 

A couple key things to be mindful of... Hydei are generally slower and longer producers for me, so keeping cultures in my bins for only 28 days usually leaves me with a lot of extra potential production. If I'm raising a lot of frogs at the time, I'll hang on to the older cultures for another week. The older cultures do get separated from the rest of my cultures just for peace of mind. I sometimes also do this with melanogastor to feed small stunted flies out to newly morphed froglets.

Right now, this method with 4 cultures (2 hydei, 2 melanogastor) is easily feeding over 40 adult frogs and about 30 froglets/juvies.


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