# Fruit Flies are flying



## Alex007 (Apr 15, 2007)

I notice not to long ago that I had been seeing my fruitflies flying all over my house. I notice it when I was adding bananas in my frog tanks to keep them from leaving. Does this have to do with it? I have flightless fruit flies and wingless at this time. Thanks Alex P.S I also notice I dont have to feed my frogs as much when I add bananas in there tanks but worries me that they are not getting as much nurtrients either from dusting because of it.


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## Dangerously (Dec 19, 2007)

Are you sure the flying ones are fruitflys and not fungus gnats? Fungus gnats sometimes bloom in a tank, and they're about FF size, but black.


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## Alex007 (Apr 15, 2007)

No I dont think so because I had some bananas out and seems to attract them in my house. Also oranges and other fruit I had laying around my house. I looked closely at a few and they are definately fruitflies. They have the red eyes and black wings. I dont know what happened to my culture becasue the flightless ones inside my culture start to fly when I release them into my tanks. I am going to stop using the flightles and go with the wingless maybe I wont get anymore of the flying ones.


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## Nai87 (Mar 12, 2008)

same here, I'm getting a few that are flying now.


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## Mac (Aug 14, 2007)

most likely you somehow let a flier in to your culture, possibly from a banana with eggs on it, or some other type of fruit. 

One fly will "contaminate" the entire culture and they soon will all be fliers. So best bet either open the top outside, and leave the wingless( but this can be time consuming and doesnt always work, because there are most likely larvae in the media) or simply throw away the culture.

All this being said, who knows maybe you want fliers, same nutrition they are just annoying.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

If you had wild flies attracted to the fruit in your tanks, it wouldn't be suprising to get them in your cultures, and have them create genetic havoc. I'd do a couple different things... one is to stop using the fruit in your tanks as much since it keeps attracting them. Another... you'll need to work on the contianers you keep your cultures in. I had issues with wild flies and phorid flies getting into my cultures when I moved, so I switched from the cheapo containers with paper filters to the Ed's fly mean containers with foam plugs. Issues stopped. You may get some accidental mixing of types when you're making your cultures, so having one type could stop that, but I don't think that's as much of an issue.

Are the flightless gliding (flying down) or actually flying up and out of the tank?


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## Alex007 (Apr 15, 2007)

KeroKero said:


> If you had wild flies attracted to the fruit in your tanks, it wouldn't be suprising to get them in your cultures, and have them create genetic havoc. I'd do a couple different things... one is to stop using the fruit in your tanks as much since it keeps attracting them. Another... you'll need to work on the contianers you keep your cultures in. I had issues with wild flies and phorid flies getting into my cultures when I moved, so I switched from the cheapo containers with paper filters to the Ed's fly mean containers with foam plugs. Issues stopped. You may get some accidental mixing of types when you're making your cultures, so having one type could stop that, but I don't think that's as much of an issue.
> 
> Are the flightless gliding (flying down) or actually flying up and out of the tank?


 Yes the Flies were flying like regular house flies would. I stop using the flightless flies and going with the wingless ones to see if that works out. I just have to finished what I have of the flightless cultures and start culturing new wingless ones. Thanks for the advice and hopefully things will get better. Actually my wife was having more of a fit than I was with the fliers.


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## dcbrown (Feb 28, 2008)

I have some flyers right now too. I got them BECAUSE of switching from flightless to wingless, and because i didn't clean out a culture container well enough between batches. I'm going to try and stick with just one type from now on. 

The fruit you mentioned would make for a natural place for the 2 breeds to hybridize. You might want to consider staying with a single type or skipping the fruit when making the change.


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