# fruit fly rampage



## steppedinds (Feb 4, 2013)

soooo...I've been noticing a bunch of fruit flies around my apt the past few days. today when I opened up the FLIGHTLESS fruit flies I bought from petco last week, I noticed about 10 flies billowing out....turns out the ff's ive been using for the past week are fliers...they've made it into my cricket bin.....and....holy crap...had to take the crickets outside and prey they don't die before I use them all up.

anybody else ever have this happen?


----------



## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

yes the maggots will eat anything, you might have to clean out the bin a few times before is completely clean, but you also might just wanna put a bit a food for the crickets to eat in just a fw hours and dont' have lingering food in there in the mean time so the flies don't have a place to breed.


----------



## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

steppedinds said:


> soooo...I've been noticing a bunch of fruit flies around my apt the past few days. today when I opened up the FLIGHTLESS fruit flies I bought from petco last week, I noticed about 10 flies billowing out....turns out the ff's ive been using for the past week are fliers...they've made it into my cricket bin.....and....holy crap...had to take the crickets outside and prey they don't die before I use them all up.
> 
> anybody else ever have this happen?


Do the flies run quickly before flying? If so, then they aren't fruit flies but phorid flies and the larvae of these are known to not only breed in the fly cultures, but to colonize dead crickets, or other insects and can attack injuries on animals or egg masses..... 

If you have phorid flies in your cultures, you should freeze the affected cultures and make sure that the lids are tight enough to prevent the flies or their larvae from being able to get access to the interior (the flies will on occasion lay their eggs in a small gap and the small larvae proceed from that point. 

You shouldn't get fruit flies in your cricket containers unless you are feeding out fruit and don't change it frequently enough. If you have a small strong vacumn cleaner, you can disturb the cricket container and suck up the flies as they take off... If they are phorid flies, the only way to get rid of them from a cricket container is to tighten up the screening (smaller size) and for it to be extremely clean... including the sponge or other material used for watering the crickets. The larvae will feed on any organic buildup in the water containers. 


Some comments 

Ed


----------



## ndame88 (Sep 24, 2010)

steppedinds said:


> soooo...I've been noticing a bunch of fruit flies around my apt the past few days. today when I opened up the FLIGHTLESS fruit flies I bought from petco last week, I noticed about 10 flies billowing out....turns out the ff's ive been using for the past week are fliers...they've made it into my cricket bin.....and....holy crap...had to take the crickets outside and prey they don't die before I use them all up.
> 
> anybody else ever have this happen?


I purchased some "flightless" FFs from Petsmart once and was very surprised when I took the top off and they all flew away.


----------



## kthehun89 (Jul 23, 2009)

I read somewhere that high temps can alter the protein folding in the larvae. The normally misfolded protein that causes the inability to fly is now fixed and thus making flightless flies flyable!


----------



## steppedinds (Feb 4, 2013)

all good info..thanks to all. I've not been cleaning the fruit/veggies out often enough, which caused the attraction...but they definitely came from the ff culture from petco, my pdf tank is within about 5 ft of my cricket bin...some1 else told me heat could cause the ff to fly again. so i'm guessing the heat wave down here has got them flying


----------



## kthehun89 (Jul 23, 2009)

well then the worry is that if your FF's got that hot your tanks did as well.


----------



## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

Ed's suggestion about vacuuming sounds pretty good.....I may even use one at the entrance of my vivs to catch those damn flies inside the vivariums that somehow magically appear when you mist or feed....you can't swat the damn things out...so....hmmm, vacuum....


----------



## LRobb88 (Dec 16, 2008)

I'm having a similar problem. I got a fruit fly culture kit from Dart Frog Connection and one of the two producing cultures contains flightless melanogaster as I'm used to. I grabbed a random culture to feed the first time, and the other producing culture had dozens of flying fruit flies come out when I opened the lid. 

Thankfully my new cultures were made from flies of the first (nonflying) culture, but is this a common issue? I've never had it before. The new cultures I've noticed 1 or 2 flying flies. Could this be phorid flies?

Thanks!


----------



## alogan (Jan 7, 2013)

I had the same problem for Dart Frog Connection where the flies started to just fly out of the culture.


----------



## TerryO (Oct 18, 2012)

I have had them show up in springtail cultures as well as ff cultures but its a good idea to contain them as quickly as possible. You don't want them getting in the other cultures, if your like me you may have 10 or more cultures going at a time.


----------



## LexisaurusRex (Aug 8, 2013)

Fly tape! I have fly tape above my cultures because they always try to fly back into the closed cultures eventually it seems. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free


----------



## DartFrogConnection (Nov 20, 2012)

LRobb88 said:


> I'm having a similar problem. I got a fruit fly culture kit from Dart Frog Connection and one of the two producing cultures contains flightless melanogaster as I'm used to. I grabbed a random culture to feed the first time, and the other producing culture had dozens of flying fruit flies come out when I opened the lid.
> 
> Thankfully my new cultures were made from flies of the first (nonflying) culture, but is this a common issue? I've never had it before. The new cultures I've noticed 1 or 2 flying flies. Could this be phorid flies?
> 
> Thanks!


We apologize for this mishap. We did discover that one small batch of our Melanogaster did started producing some flying cultures. We have since started new strands of Melanogaster and eliminated this problem.

None flying FF are mutated state of the flying version. At times if the a culture gets contaminated with actual flying fruit fly, their gene can and well mutate back to its normal state.

If you are still having any issues with your FF culture. We are more than happy to send you the new strand of Melanogaster.

Please contact me at [email protected] I am more than happy to help.

Daniel - Owner of DartFrog Connection


----------



## DartFrogConnection (Nov 20, 2012)

LRobb88 said:


> I'm having a similar problem. I got a fruit fly culture kit from Dart Frog Connection and one of the two producing cultures contains flightless melanogaster as I'm used to. I grabbed a random culture to feed the first time, and the other producing culture had dozens of flying fruit flies come out when I opened the lid.
> 
> Thankfully my new cultures were made from flies of the first (nonflying) culture, but is this a common issue? I've never had it before. The new cultures I've noticed 1 or 2 flying flies. Could this be phorid flies?
> 
> Thanks!


We apologize for this mishap. We did discover that one small batch of our Melanogaster did started producing some flying cultures. We have since started new strands of Melanogaster and eliminated this problem.

None flying FF are mutated state of the flying version. At times if the a culture gets contaminated with actual flying fruit fly, their gene can and well mutate back to its normal state.

If you are still having any issues with your FF culture. We are more than happy to send you the new strand of Melanogaster.

Please contact me at [email protected] I am more than happy to help.

Daniel - Owner of DartFrog Connection


----------



## DartFrogConnection (Nov 20, 2012)

alogan said:


> I had the same problem for Dart Frog Connection where the flies started to just fly out of the culture.


We apologize for this mishap. We did discover that one small batch of our Melanogaster did started producing some flying cultures. We have since started new strands of Melanogaster and eliminated this problem.

None flying FF are mutated state of the flying version. At times if the a culture gets contaminated with actual flying fruit fly, their gene can and well mutate back to its normal state.

If you are still having any issues with your FF culture. We are more than happy to send you the new strand of Melanogaster.

Please contact me at [email protected] I am more than happy to help.

Daniel - Owner of DartFrog Connection


----------

