# mold in cultures



## DendroMan420 (Jul 6, 2010)

Ive been making fruit fly cultures for a while now and ive been using the same recipe and it always worked fine. But now all of my cultures are molding and they dont last long. Its a simple recipe; i use bananas, oatmeal, apple sauce, vinegar, and bakers yeast. Sometimes when i dont have any good bananas i use brown bananas that we keep in the freezer, does it matter if you use brown bananas instead of yellow or is it the recipe im using?


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## Eric Walker (Aug 22, 2009)

try increasing the vinagar to water ratio. at one point I was useing 50/50
and they were still produceing but it smelled to much of the vinagar. so i decreased it . now I only use 1/4 cup vinagar to 3/4 cup water.


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## alex111683 (Sep 11, 2010)

I have been using one of the most popular and cheapest recipes. Water, vinegar, sugar, brewers and bakers yeast, and potato flakes. I use a 1:1 ratio of water and vinegar. It does smell strong at times but I always let the new mix sit in the cup I will be making the culture in at least overnight. I have not had any mold issues and I always throw cultures out when they hit about 4 weeks old.


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## DendroMan420 (Jul 6, 2010)

alright thanks alot for the info, ill try it out next time i make new cultures. I knew i wasnt adding enough vinegar, i only put in a couple tbl spoons so hopefully this fixes the mold problem, thanks again.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Are you using flies from the problem cultures to make new cultures? If so, stop using them and use only clean cultures. 

Contamination of your media with fungal spores is actually fairly common(particularly given that most of us make our own..). I've always been a little skeptical as to how effective vinegar is in preventing molds as some of the molds (like the black mold Aspergillus niger) actually acidifies the media.. 

I had to look for it but one should also be careful when acidifying media with vinegar as it can inhibit the yeast, that you want growing in the media (as that yeast also helps to keep out unwanted contaminents..) see http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/full/68/4/1616 



Ed


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

recently I've had a few cultures that got moldy. A few had a white fungus, another had a black fungus. The larvae eventually churned up the media and now I don't see any mold present on the surface anymore.

Is it safe to feed out these cultures to my frogs?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

If the white was a slimy covering, that was probably a yeast overgrowth. 

Yes, they can be used for feeding the frogs, under any circumstances do not use the black fungus to start new cultures.. I would discard that culture without opening it as it will release spores into the area.. 

If the white was not a slimy overgrowth, then I would not use them to start new cultures. 


Ed


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

adding more flies may help. If there are enough larvae churning the media the mold doesn't have a static surface to colonize.


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## Frogman8 (Sep 28, 2010)

Maybe a dumb question, can u still feed the frogs from the moldy culture or is it toxic for the frogs? I have the same prob its moldy in beginning then it goes away though.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Frogman8 said:


> Maybe a dumb question, can u still feed the frogs from the moldy culture or is it toxic for the frogs? I have the same prob its moldy in beginning then it goes away though.


 
From two posts above yours.. 



> If the white was a slimy covering, that was probably a yeast overgrowth.
> 
> Yes, they can be used for feeding the frogs, under any circumstances do not use the black fungus to start new cultures.. I would discard that culture without opening it as it will release spores into the area..
> 
> If the white was not a slimy overgrowth, then I would not use them to start new cultures.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

> Yes, they can be used for feeding the frogs, under any circumstances do not use the black fungus to start new cultures.. I would discard that culture without opening it as it will release spores into the area..


Uh-oh. The larvae already churned up what was on the surface and now I don't know which cultures had black mold and which had white. Is there any other way to "clean" flies before placing them in new cultures?

So, with reference to your comment that flies from contaminated cultures are safe to feed out to frogs, the fungus is only really detrimental to the fly cultures themselves?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Black mold if it takes hold can acidify the media to the point where it crashes. It can seriously damage production of a culture. 

Ed


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