# Mixing vitamins in FF media



## Guest (Oct 31, 2005)

Do you guys think that it helps to keep your frogs healthy if you put vitamins (the ones you dust on the ff's) in the ff media? I did it for my second ff batch (my second batch in my whole life). 
Does anyone else do this??


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## dartdude (Mar 28, 2005)

*vits in ff mix*

I put powdered centrum silver in with mine. I just started doing this and would like to hear what others do.

Cheers!
Adam


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

If you are thinking it will "gutload" the maggots with more healthy goodness, you might be doing some good. If you are thinking you're changing the vits and minerals found in the adult flies, I wouldn't bet the bank on it.

Short summary of what I've gotten from lots of talks about FF nutrition... making this as cut and dry as I can.... the maggots can be gutloaded to a point that gutloading is actually worth doing (media, yum!). The adult FFs basically can't be gutloaded, they don't eat the media at all so changing the media does nothing.

Thus, suppliment the media for feeding maggots, and dust the flies when you feed them.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2005)

kool, i mixed the vitamins and I think calcium with the dry media, mixed it all together, and later added the fruit flies. So im guessing I gut loaded the maggots. But I still powder the fruit flies twice a week. Once with just vitamins, and once with a mix of vitamins and calcium.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Before I discovered Cyclopeeze and carrot powder for coloring tricolors (and since pinheads aren't always easy to get at without work), I fed out gutloaded maggots that ate V8 splash fruit juice (well, I made my media to where it was bright orange). The result? Orange maggots!


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2005)

Rain_Frog said:


> Before I discovered Cyclopeeze and carrot powder for coloring tricolors (and since pinheads aren't always easy to get at without work), I fed out gutloaded maggots that ate V8 splash fruit juice (well, I made my media to where it was bright orange). The result? Orange maggots!


Did you get ORange frogs?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Feeding pinheads a diet of mainly very orange sweet potatos = orange pinheads!

The orange in the sweet potato and the stuff RaingFrog uses are based of beta carotene, which to a degree can affect the coloration of diet dependent red/orange/yellow in come frogs such as tricolor and pumilio (which in captivity rarely reach their WC color intensity).

I use sweet potatoes as a main part of my cricket diet (that and romaine lettuce) after seeing what a diet of these pinheads it did to the NAIB red pumilio. They went from a murky brownish color to a rather nice red. Not as bright as the wild ones, but not too far off. 

I have yet to find cyclopeeze (haven't really been looking tho) but plan to try it out, but I neither have tads or froglets to try it with right now 

I miss my tricolor


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

Corey, just order Cyclopeeze from Thatfish Place.

You need to grind with a mortar and pestle with some Repcal.

Also, to be lazy, I bought some "caratenoid" powder from http://www.barryfarm.com.

You can buy, beet, carrot, and tomato powder from them. Just be warned that the carrot powder is very fine to begin with, but if its exposed to too much moisture from air humidity it clumps. But the tricolors seem to like the taste and carrot powder works just as well as sweet potato, just a little less concentrated. (if it doesn't begin to clump on you)

I used to have pinheads, but my cricket colony has mostly died out and production was always sporadic.

However, I'm going to talk again with Ed Kolowski and Brent about Astaxanthin. Several times, Ed said it was safe, then other times like in the "tadpole diet and color" he said canthoxanthin and astaxanthin "arent as safe as thought to be."

I have been using cyclopeeze in my tricolor supplement. I give it out three times a week, but i've only given it to them for like a month.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Better yet, I can just drive up to That Pet Place and get some. Been meaning to visit there for a while, but less fun to visit with no friend to pester while he works 

I'll probibly pester Ed about it at the MADS meeting since he's said he's gonna go... and I'll bug the daylights out of him if he doesn't :twisted: 

The sweet potatoes are also just a good food source for the crix which is why I use them. After years of keeping and breeding them I've gotten the system down... but is also why I have a severe allergy to them.

The carrot powder sounds like it does the same thing as peprika (which is what I currently use in the powder). Any ideas on which one would be better or does it not really matter?

Astaxanthin, in the right amounts, really does seem to do the job from Brent's work... Ed mentioned that beta carotene only really does the oranges... would the idea be that we just want to use controlled amounts of astaxanthin alone, or possibly combine with the beta carotene sources to get the full spectrum?


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2005)

KeroKero said:


> If you are thinking it will "gutload" the maggots with more healthy goodness, you might be doing some good. If you are thinking you're changing the vits and minerals found in the adult flies, I wouldn't bet the bank on it.
> 
> Short summary of what I've gotten from lots of talks about FF nutrition... making this as cut and dry as I can.... the maggots can be gutloaded to a point that gutloading is actually worth doing (media, yum!). The adult FFs basically can't be gutloaded, they don't eat the media at all so changing the media does nothing.
> 
> Thus, suppliment the media for feeding maggots, and dust the flies when you feed them.


I purchased a small vial of D. hydie recently, where the small amount of media in there was pretty much used up (dry), but was teaming with adult flies. I started a couple of fresh cultures frome these guys, and noticed they all went down to the media, which I asumed the were starving, or thirsty. The next day, they were twice the size as the ones in the original vial. If the flies dont eat the media, could they have just asorbed the moister from the higher humidity or is it posible that they might eat a small amount of media? I am a newbie, so I am just asking out of curiosity.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

probibly a mix of food/moisture. The adults eat a "slurry" and suck it up thru their mouthparts if I remember correctly. So they aren't chomping down on the media like their maggots are (like caterpillars on a leaf), but rather sucked up some of the liquid moisture/yeasty goodness and rehydrated from what it sounds like.


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