# General Concept of FF media...?



## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

my very basic understanding of the media is to feed maggots and full grown ffs. they need carbs and sugars? im on this kick of trying to feed the bugs with more nutritious things. and im trying to find out what the basic needs are in a ff culture to work around. thanks a lot!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The basic idea of the media is to actually feed yeast and bacteria which convert the starches to other nutrients. The maggots feed on the yeast, bacteria as well as the media and other items like chitin (see http://www.springerlink.com/content/x00771kp8785p820/ ). 
Now it is known that a very basic media (like sold for classroom cultures) does produce a fly that is deficient in some items like carotenoids (the pigment in the eyes is primarily pterins). This is why most of the medias sold by many vendors for rearing flies as a food source contain different additives. Now this produces a fly that is a better food item but it is still deficient in a lot of nutrients (like calcium) and these need to be adjusted via dusting with a supplement. 

Do a search for gut load on here and read the threads involving ffs. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

good ish Ed. perhaps one day i will be as all knowing. hahaha. 

so im trying to get a business booming and have really come to appreciate time efficiency. i did a lot of reading on the gut loading of fruit flies...it seems almost useless to try since it gets processed so quickly. 

Ed, how quickly is quick? 4 hours...30? Do springs process food as quickly as ff's. is it all types of FF's? im assuming that since the genus is SO large for both springs and ffs that it would be hard to give a sincere answer. but do wingless process food faster than say curlies etc? Im going to forward this link to Oz, im hoping he can get in on it as well. i saw a recent post of his..he has crazy critters galore! thanks again Ed...your input always brings new interesting ideas!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

This may also help explain some of the nutrition of fruit flies (see http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=1091189 )

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/33/1/45

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1538158

I'm too tired right now to dig around to see if I can track down an exact gut transit time. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

Dude...where did u find these readings..i feel like i just got on the side reading from my professor. haha. thanks a lot!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

hi Nate,

One of my interests is in amphibian nutrition and getting at least some understanding of the nutrition of the feeder insects is important in understanding the needs of the animals. So I tend to collect the information. 

Ed


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

I've messed around and used 2 pieces of wheat bread, toasted and crushed up. That worked no better or worse than potatoes although I didn't make a potato culture at the same time for comparison.

I also resently made 2 cultures out of dry catfood instead of potatoes, and think that works much better than potatoes They got going faster and are now crushing the potato ones I made the same day. I wonder if the catfood with so much protien/vitamins would make the flies healthier in the end.


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

thats interesting..a buddy of mine uses catfood to feed his cockroaches and crickets


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

I use catfood for everything. 

by size......
springs
ff
crickets
roaches
hermit crabs
mice
fish
beardies
cat

If I ever hook up on a pet bigfoot he will likely be eating McDonalds and catfood...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Jayson745 said:


> I've messed around and used 2 pieces of wheat bread, toasted and crushed up. That worked no better or worse than potatoes although I didn't make a potato culture at the same time for comparison.
> 
> I also resently made 2 cultures out of dry catfood instead of potatoes, and think that works much better than potatoes They got going faster and are now crushing the potato ones I made the same day. I wonder if the catfood with so much protien/vitamins would make the flies healthier in the end.


There are some alternative possibilities.. ffs readily adapt to different culturing methods and yours may not have adapted to that potato media fully yet... One of the common things we see in the ffs are the common big bloom and the colony goes bust, these flies are intolerant to waste products and were selected (by the culturing methods) to mature rapidly. There could be some of the this going on with the cat food media flies.. 
Protien in the media is often the limiting factor but with the increase in protien you also get increased requirements of other nutrients so it doesn't necessarily mean its a better fly as the nutrients have to be in the correct proportions. 
People often link high or rapid production to a more nutritious fly but the literature doesn't really support this aspect instead its a fly that develops more rapidly or in greater numbers due to genetics and may still not be as nutritious..

So while the flies may be more nutritious, the fact that there is greater production cannot be used as a benchmark to assume that they are more nutritious. The only way to tell is take a couple of thousand dollars, a pounds or two of the flies and have them analyzed for nutrient content.

Ed


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

I didn't mean I thought they would be more nutritious flies because they produced faster. More just because there is alot more protien/vitamins in catfood than potatoes.

I've always used the same strain of fly(until recently), and made the 8 parts potato, 1 part sugar, 1 part brewers yeast, mixed with 50/50 orange juice and vinegar. I always get a boom and then bust, just like you mentioned. So I have to make a ton of cultures to keep up. I'd like to know what I'm missing in my cultures, but people with the good recipies aren't sharing because they will lose money. So I have to experiment.

The catfood cultures may well do the same thing as they are still fairly new. But I'd update as they mature.


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

Yeah..i guess thats the main reason why im trying to learn the entire deal with these guys..just to try my best to make the perfect media. tricks of the pro medias arent easy to come by..so..im takin it to lab. thanks Prof!


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

Thats what I'm trying to do as well. So far the biggest thing I've "figured out" is that some yeast sucks. I got that brown powdered smelly crap and couldn't get cultures to do much of anything. Then I got this yellow flake stuff from the health food store and its so much better I'll probably just throw the other stuff out. Doesn't smell and produces WAY better. Now that I have the yeast thing figured out, I'm trying to fine tune the rest of the ingredients.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Jayson745 said:


> I always get a boom and then bust, just like you mentioned. So I have to make a ton of cultures to keep up. I'd like to know what I'm missing in my cultures, but people with the good recipies aren't sharing because they will lose money. So I have to experiment.
> 
> The catfood cultures may well do the same thing as they are still fairly new. But I'd update as they mature.


This is because you have selected your flies to grow this way. By starting all of the cultures from the first boom/bust you have selected your flies to be rapidly maturing and to be sensitive to waste products in the media like ammonia. See http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pd ... 00.00167.x 

When you set up your cultures use some flies that are not from the initial boom and bust cycle If you are losing all of the flies then you may need a couple of new starter cultures or an alternative is to coculture hydei with the melanogaster as you will get the boom of melanogaster and later the boom of hydei. 

In the potato cultures, the protien is supplied by the brewer's yeast and the yeast that the flies bring into the culture. The smell is due to a lack of aeration in the media after the culture goes bust and you get anaerobic breakdown of the protien, yeast and bacteria in the media. I would not be surprised if the cat food cultures smell worse after the cultures crash. You may actually see the crash occur earlier as there will be more nitrogenous waste in the higher protien cultures. 

Try using a thinner layer of media. 
I get great production using a 50/50 mix of Carolina media with home made carolina media (just do a good search for it) a couple of old bananas and about 1 teaspoon of spirulina. After several generations the flies adapt to the media and since I select flies out of older and newer cultures to start the next line, I don't get the boom and crash of the cultures. 

Ed


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

WOW, I had no idea you could accidentally selective breed booming/crashing flies like that. It makes sense, I just never thought about that.

The smelly yeast I was talking about stinks the second it gets wet. It was working so little that I had to make cultures every other day to keep up, and still ended up having to order more. The good news is that sense I ordered 4 cultures resently from josh I can start cultures with those instead. I'll just quit seeding cultures with the ones I already had and switch over to the new ones.

btw, thanx for the help ed, you probably just saved me the headache of a summer filled with more booming then crashing cultures


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The brewer's yeast I uses smells a little acrid or sour but not that bad. The spirulia smells more to me than the brewer's yeast. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

Heya Ed, if you wouldnt mind going into a bit more detail as to the flies added to a new culture. whether they be from a newly booming culture or dying. pros and cons of each and or both if you may? that is a very interesting concept that i was entirely unaware of. 

on a different note...the instructions on my commercial media say to add the yeast 1 minute after adding water. does it matter if the yeast is added later than that? does the media go bad if i were to make like 12 cultures one day but actually add yeast and flies a week at a time? im thinking they may dry up like that?


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

So what is spirulia? When I search for it on google is asks if I meant spirulina. Are they the same thing? Is there a place to order it online? Lastly how much should I add to a culture? I've never heard of it, so I dont know if its a powder or liquid or anything.


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## flyangler18 (Oct 26, 2007)

If I understand Ed correctly (and I hope he will correct me if I'm not accurately digesting his thoughts), start a new culture with a mix of both flies from a new producing culture (with the first 'boom') and one that has begun to taper off production. The 'boom' flies will be larger and more vigorous, but the flies pulled from an older culture will have adapted to the ammonia concentration in the culture jar- osbtensibly, making them more resilient to rapidly declining conditions in the culture as more waste is produced. 

If I would add one kernel of advice, make sure that you are mixing flies from the same strain/source, or you risk creating fliers!


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

oh thanks dude..yeah that has def cleared things up. im pretty sure Ed meant "Spirulina" its really good stuff...im really unfamiliar with it in this application but i know it really makes a difference in the coloring and to some degree behavior when it comes to my reef tank. amphibians arent far off so it fits. Ed,how does the spirulina apply to the darts?

i would be surprised if somthing like spirulina didnt come in both powder and liquid. im guessing each can be better for certain apllications. i dose liquid vitamins to my tank twice a week. perhaps the liquid form could be for the same application? and when mixed with water it could be more evenly absorbed by the dry goods in the media?

is it better to put a touch too much water than not enough into a culture? so that it doesnt get too crackly? ive noticed that edsflymeat media is more...pasty than say black jungles. and thats comparing 2 20 day old cultures...why may this be?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Sokretys said:


> Heya Ed, if you wouldnt mind going into a bit more detail as to the flies added to a new culture. whether they be from a newly booming culture or dying. pros and cons of each and or both if you may? that is a very interesting concept that i was entirely unaware of.
> 
> on a different note...the instructions on my commercial media say to add the yeast 1 minute after adding water. does it matter if the yeast is added later than that? does the media go bad if i were to make like 12 cultures one day but actually add yeast and flies a week at a time? im thinking they may dry up like that?



Its better to add the active yeast (for baking) as soon as possible. One of its main functions is to help prevent overgrowth of competing organisms. If you wait you can get overgrowth from other microbes. Now one way around this is freeze the media after you make it (you can layer it with wax paper to keep it all from sticking together after its frozen). Simply add a little water, thaw in the microwave, cover, cool and add yeast and flies. If you add the yeast while its too hot the yeast will die. 

If you continually use flies from the first "hatching" from pupation you are selecting the flies to develop faster and along with that trait you are also getting flies that are intolerant to nitrogenous wastes. This results in the culture failing if you aren't careful. If you only select flies from later hatches you are selecting for flies that develop more slowly but are much more tolerant to metabolic wastes. So the trick is to select flies from both the newer hatchings and one of the second or third hatchings. I really try to avoid cultures that are getting close to the 25-30 day mark as this really can increase the risk of mite infestations. 

Does that help? 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Sokretys said:


> oh thanks dude..yeah that has def cleared things up. im pretty sure Ed meant "Spirulina" its really good stuff...im really unfamiliar with it in this application but i know it really makes a difference in the coloring and to some degree behavior when it comes to my reef tank. amphibians arent far off so it fits. Ed,how does the spirulina apply to the darts?
> 
> i would be surprised if somthing like spirulina didnt come in both powder and liquid. im guessing each can be better for certain apllications. i dose liquid vitamins to my tank twice a week. perhaps the liquid form could be for the same application? and when mixed with water it could be more evenly absorbed by the dry goods in the media?
> 
> is it better to put a touch too much water than not enough into a culture? so that it doesnt get too crackly? ive noticed that edsflymeat media is more...pasty than say black jungles. and thats comparing 2 20 day old cultures...why may this be?


Yep I meant spirulina.. not paying attention and typing too quickly. I use the spirulina in the cultures because I occasionally feed out maggots to the frogs and this way I don't have to worry about having to make special cultures. 
It can help improve yellows, oranges and possibly greens but not really reds and not blue color. The main carotenoid in the algae is beta carotene which is a pre-vitamin A as well as a potential pigment. I use the dry and mix it with the dry ff media component so it ends up pretty well mixed into the media. 
You need to experiment with the amount of water in the media as it can vary dramatically based on how much your cultures dry due to the conditions in your house. Keep in mind that the activity and the digestion of the media by the maggots will also cause it to liquify to some extent. The differences in those medias may (and I stress may) be due to different base materials or ingredients. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

cool. and if the media is too dry..the maggots cant eat. and if its too wet?


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## somecanadianguy (Jan 9, 2007)

Sokretys said:


> cool. and if the media is too dry..the maggots cant eat. and if its too wet?


if its too wet it pours out all over your carpet and your old lady chews your ass right out.
craig


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

hey ed...a side note on springs. i went away for the weekend. which ended up lastinmg much longer than i had suspected...the women in nyc are several more steps up than those in NH...haha. but..none of my stuff was fed..the frogs are still fat..they are sitting on a culture in itself. but one of my spring cultures...one i had just made a substrate alteration with.crshed? i dunno...but all of the springs are dead. i dont know if its from lack of food or what. springs are dead from all differenmt sizes...the culture hadent been fed for almost 4 days.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Nate,

Its possible that they aren't dead but are anesthetized from carbon dioxide. Use the lid and heavily fan the culture. If they don't come around then they were probably killed by CO2. This can happed from a couple of different things especially when the culture is really heavily populated but probably the most common are due to large numbers of springtails (all breathing O2 and releasing CO2) and if you use live yeast for a food source when it hits the moist substrate it becomes active and begins to respire as well. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

def co2...i know that i open the airtight culture up more often than i fed. i shal make a few holes. thanks!


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

Ed, Do you own edflymeat? if so...ur media is craaazy. wayyy too many curlies. haha. 

anyways, as far as health goes...do the ff's from the boom of the culture vs the hardier but smaller ones towards the end of the culture have any otehr significant difference in nutrition? other than size that is. 

i have now learned how to long to wait before making a new culture. im only feeding 4 frogs...and i would like to at least feed curlies in addition to wingless. i have flightless as well. i would like to feed all 3 to mix up hunting habbits. but im findind that with this new curly culure that i have more flies than i need to feed. dying flies. can only be bad for the culture im guessing? in which case...id like to make cultures sooner than i maybe should but uysing the hardier slower producing flies and then have enough but not excess. 

i think this plan may work for my need to feed for now..but i want to make sure its a healthy choice as well. thanks again.


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## pl259 (Feb 27, 2006)

> Ed, Do you own edflymeat?


Different Ed


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## flyangler18 (Oct 26, 2007)

> Different Ed


Different name altogether- the owners of Ed's Fly Meat are Dave and Erin :mrgreen:


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## pl259 (Feb 27, 2006)

> Different name altogether- the owners of Ed's Fly Meat are Dave and Erin


Ahh, right your are!(and I knew that too)

Take the "E" from Erin plus the "D" in Dave and there you have it.


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

oh...well in any case..let us discover their secret ingredient...haha. cuz im having a hard time pouring our curlies without getting them everywhere. haha


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

hoooly too many flies...the first time around i had a crash..so this time i made my second round of cultures sooner. too soon...

if these flies are dying in their culture...then what?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Feed them out. This could be due to the age of the flies or being intolerant of the nitrogenous waste products or other waste products. 

Ed


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Also, if a culture gets too many flies in it to raise the temps and humidity too hi it`ll crash it premature. Cased flies die in their cacoon and never hatch so you`ll loose those flies. If I forget to get the flies out for 1 or 2 days when they`re that heavy w/ flies it significantly reduces their longevity so that they produce for less than a week. The best conditions are to clear the culture of adults once a day as soon as pupae start to hatch.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Hi Aaron,

Is it the humidity and the temperature or could it be the CO2 levels? The adult flies can move to the top of the enclosure to breath but the pupae and larva would be trapped in the higher levels. 
Just looking at alternative possibilities. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

k so i went top dumpall the adults into an old dead cultyure and out came a tooon of flying ff's...i dont have any. wtf?


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

what is the lifecycle of a ff again? like 48 hours once adult?


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

oook. so how come i have flies...that actually fly? i have curlies, flightless and wingless. 

more specifically..why do i jage flies that not only have wings..but can actually fly in my wingless culture?


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## pl259 (Feb 27, 2006)

If you any of the different strains intermixed, they we produce flyers. For example, if some of the wingless got into the curly cultures....look out. You have to be very careful when making up the cultures that you don't mix them.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Is there any chance that there was a cross contamination between those types? Mixing any two of them can result in fliers. 

Also some mutations are unstable if the temperature gets too warm which can result in fliers. 

Ed


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## Sokretys (Dec 16, 2007)

hmm def a possibility in contamination...how warm is too warm. also..ive heard a few dif dates for NAAC what is the actual date of it? thanks


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## pl259 (Feb 27, 2006)

Not sure on exact temps, but in my setup, I started to get flyers in some strains when my temps got into the 80s. I control the temps better now.

NAAC is June 6-8


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Sokretys said:


> hmm def a possibility in contamination...how warm is too warm. also..ive heard a few dif dates for NAAC what is the actual date of it? thanks


See http://www.poisondartfrogs.org/

Ed


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