# culturing hydei vs. melanogaster



## Guest (Jul 29, 2005)

I have been culturing wingless melanogaster and have gotten good at it. Now I decided to get a couple cultures of hydei for my terribilis (they seem bored with mel.). I've heard hydei take so much longer to go through their life cycle, that the same media recipe will not work. It will go bad before the flies have a chance to hatch or something? Is that true? If so, what do I have to do different?


----------



## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

I've heard that you need a different media for hydei, but I culture mine with the same media as my mels. They do take a little longer, but I never keep track of how long, so I can't say how long.

They are heavier and bigger than mels which leads to a couple of things:
-it takes less of them to take up the available floor space. I believe this is what leads people to say that they don't produce as much as mels. I disagree. I think you get the same volume, but less flies because they are so big.
-if you use coffee filters, you have to use a bunch of them or they will push them into the mix. I use 7+ with mine to keep them up and it doesn't always work

Also, they take longer to mature, so I start new cultures with flies that are little older than the first hatch.


----------



## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

I use the Chris Miller "power mix" and it works well for either.
Most froggers say to not use vinegar in Hydei media, I experimented with using water instead of the vinegar in the mix (the recipe calls for 50/50 water and vinegar) and using methyl paraben as the mold preventative (instead of vinegar) and honestly, I think the formula with vinegar works better.
Usually my hydei cultures take almost a month to start producing.
I also learned that thing Josh said about the coffee filters...real quick!


----------



## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

The life cycle for D. hydei is about 30 days. They do have different media requirements as well. The also prefer cooler temps than mels, so be prepared to make the hydei often (because you have to wait so long between cultures) and maybe store them in a cooler place. For terriblis, you may also want to consider rice flour beetles as well. I highly recommend them.
Dave


----------



## Lukeomelas (Mar 15, 2005)

Dave,

For the terribilis do you actually feed them adult rice flour beetles or just the larvae? I've heard most frogs won't or don't like to eat the adults.

Luke


----------

