# Starting some cultures



## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Hey guys - Im in the process of researching frogs (tincts) and setting up a 40g breeder for them. 

While Im slowly working on this and piecing everything together, Id like to have all the cultures I will need rolling. If it turns out that the cultures are too much work - I wont get frogs. This is the part that concerns me most about the whole frog thing, so Im starting it off right from the beginning. 

I have seen lots of people ordering from lots of different places. What is the best, and cheapest (college student in the house) way of getting all the cultures I will need going?

What all will I need? Looks like its a good idea to have springtails to constantly be replenishing the habitat, but then mainly feeding FF's?

Thanks for any info you can give me - or even links to chats on different culture providers.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Here is a pretty good thread on it. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/62277-guide-making-ff-cultures.html Cheapest way is to make your own with a basic Carolina recipe as shown early in the thread. I prefer to use Methyl Paraben instead of vinegar. You can get the Methyl Paraben, your brewers yeast, and your cups and lids, for a good price from Josh's Frogs. Some of the other venders have supplies too.


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Why is fly cafe so much cheaper?

Thanks - reading now.


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Could anyone sort of go over basic day to day care of cultures...what has to be done to keep a few frogs in that regard and how often?

I get the process - the mites scare me - but I think I understand what needs to be done. Now just how frequently is the issue.


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## Frogart (Dec 24, 2011)

kingfisherfleshy said:


> Could anyone sort of go over basic day to day care of cultures...what has to be done to keep a few frogs in that regard and how often?
> 
> I get the process - the mites scare me - but I think I understand what needs to be done. Now just how frequently is the issue.



mites are everywhere the trick is to keep them under control. I make new cultures once a week not to much trouble to do


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Frogart said:


> mites are everywhere the trick is to keep them under control. I make new cultures once a week not to much trouble to do


Care to go over exactly what you do to make sure your lil guys are always properly fed?


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## oneshot (Mar 5, 2010)

Making FF cultures is not a reason to not get involved in this AMAZING hobby.

Day to day, there's not much to the FF cultures. What I do is every (the key being EVERY) wednesday I make 3 new cultures. Then every saturday, I make 3 more. It's kind of stressful at the start, but you quickly get the hang of it.

For me, finding the right temperature to keep them at seemed to make the biggest difference. 

I would suggest doing it the way the majority of people do it, don't try and re-invent the wheel.

I've never made my own media, but there are some that swear by it. I know I'll get good production from (one of the sponsors here)'s media, and they're close enough that I can go get more supplies/flies if I need it.

As far as money goes, you can reuse the deli cups, and just buy the new covers with the fabric, but I did just read that you can even clean (bleach, I think) them too.

Excelsior is the way to go. I've tried the coffee filters and just can't get them to work. Again, thousands of people use excelsior, must be a reason....

For just a few frogs, I wouldn't stress, it's not that hard. I didn't practice making cultures before I got my frogs, so you're ahead of many of us. And reach out to some local froggers, someone will get you flies in an emergency....

Really, this is such a great hobby, you need to at least give it a shot.

Brian


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Thanks Brian - made a lot of progress as far as designing the habitat here today...and really starting to feel like I can do this. 

Going to get a spring tail and a fly culture...which kind of fly should I get and why? 

Ill order these as soon as the habitat is built...Im doing something that probably isnt unique, but I think its cool.


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## ilovejaden (Jan 6, 2011)

I use hydei, and melos..but note hydei do take almost a month to start producing. Melos about 10-14 days...I would use both especially since you have tincs..


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Any links to what foods should be fed to tincts? Would just those two suffice while repeatedly topping off the enclosure with springtails? How many cultures should I set up for a 10g aquarium with a pair (not sure yet how I will get a pair - but Ill figure that out)

What is the point of feeding two different kinds of FF?

Also any good links to reading on vitamins? Seems like there are 90 products that JoshesFrogs talks about in his video...can you use just one? Or do you have to use a million? 

Thanks again.


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## Kalakole (Jun 30, 2011)

Being a college student myself I understand the budget. I personally keep my flies on a bookshelf above my computer. I have a breeding pair of blue and black d auratus and make 3 new ones every two weeks. This works well for me. I must say I thought it would be hard to keep up with them but it isn't. Just make them and you can forget about them for two weeks (other then feeding the frogs of coarse  )


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

People with much more knowledge and experience than me say they'll do just fine on a single type of fly as long as they're supplemented correctly. Personally I kind of like all the bug cultures so I keep a variety. I started out with flightless melano's, the kind that still have wings and are called hoppers. It didn't take much imagination to figure out why they're called hoppers, those things hop fast and far. I don't mind the occasional escapee but I usually lost more on the floor than I got in the cup.
I now use wingless melano's as the staple, they move a little bit faster than your regular sugar ant and are roughly the same size. I make 1 culture a week for my 2 dwarf tincs. I make a hydei culture every other week or so, and keep regular cultures of 4 different kinds of isos, white springs, flour beetles, and bean beetles. Like I said, I like the bugs =) It's also helpful to have plenty of back-up feeders because my FF cultures like to randomly crash on me.


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Will definitely get a springtail culture with whatever other first culture I select. 

Thanks for the help thus far guys. 

shinosuke - care to elaborate on what sort of weekly care goes into all of those different cultures?

Do I need to control temperature for these? My room probably never goes below 68F


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Shinosuke said:


> People with much more knowledge and experience than me say they'll do just fine on a single type of fly as long as they're supplemented correctly. Personally I kind of like all the bug cultures so I keep a variety. I started out with flightless melano's, the kind that still have wings and are called hoppers. It didn't take much imagination to figure out why they're called hoppers, those things hop fast and far. I don't mind the occasional escapee but I usually lost more on the floor than I got in the cup.
> I now use wingless melano's as the staple, they move a little bit faster than your regular sugar ant and are roughly the same size. I make 1 culture a week for my 2 dwarf tincs. I make a hydei culture every other week or so, and keep regular cultures of 4 different kinds of isos, white springs, flour beetles, and bean beetles. Like I said, I like the bugs =) It's also helpful to have plenty of back-up feeders because my FF cultures like to randomly crash on me.


What? No Pink springtails? Poor deprived froggys! 



kingfisherfleshy said:


> Will definitely get a springtail culture with whatever other first culture I select.
> 
> Thanks for the help thus far guys.
> 
> ...


Here is your guide to springtail and isopod culturing. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/66991-how-culture-isopods-woodlice-springtails.html


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Very helpful...thanks. 

Looks like Ill have to pick up isopods too...although its more than likely Ill start one colony of these things at a time: (ie - first one kind of fruit fly, then springtails, then isopods) so that I dont get overwhelmed trying to learn the ins and outs of all the little buggers.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

Pumilo said:


> What? No Pink springtails? Poor deprived froggys!
> 
> 
> 
> Here is your guide to springtail and isopod culturing. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/66991-how-culture-isopods-woodlice-springtails.html


Yea, my frogs can tell I hate them  Black spring's are next on the list, then MAYBE pinks. I like (and seem to have better luck with) iso's more than springs.

That link is seriously where I learned the vast majority of what I know about keeping feeders. Thanks again, Pumilo, for posting that!



kingfisherfleshy said:


> shinosuke - care to elaborate on what sort of weekly care goes into all of those different cultures?
> 
> Do I need to control temperature for these? My room probably never goes below 68F


I've heard upper 80's and above can kill, lower than mid 60s can hamper reproduction or kill depending on the bug. I keep my bugs in a coat closet with a space heater set to 75 but that's prolly not really necessary. 

If I just took care of my bugs it'd take maybe 15-20 minutes a week but I like checking in on them so I spend maybe 5-10 minutes a day looking through the cultures and whatnot.

*FF's* - I make a new culture every week. Making a new culture is as easy as mixing water and media (I buy media from a dendroboard vendor) in a container, adding a little bit of excelsior and a few dozen flies, then capping the culture and marking the date on the culture. I mark the date on each culture just so I know when I made it / when to toss it.
For containers I use deli cups & lids (bought from a vendor), petco ff culture cups (they'll give them to you free if the flies are all dead), and other misc. glass / mason jars with paper towels rubber banded to the top (I'm addicted to chips and salsa so I have a lot of salsa jars laying around )

*Flour beetles* - I do absolutely nothing. They live, eat, and breed in flour so I've never had to do anything with them other than feed them out or make more cultures to share / for the heck of it. My frogs don't really like the adults and are too fat for the larva so mostly these cultures sit in the back of the closet for emergencies.
I keep these in deli cups from (a vendor) 1/2 full of un-bleached wheat flour with a perforated (read: I poked holes in it) paper towel roll stuck in the middle for them to climb on.

*Bean beetles* - After a boom (1x a month or so) I trash some old beans and add some fresh ones. The beans are actually black eyed peas that they lay their eggs in and the larva eat. The adults don't eat.
I also keep these in deli cups with a perforated paper towel roll. FYI I use deli cups with beetles because they have tight fitting lids.

*Isos* - I add food when they're out and give them a spray of water when the cardboard is starting to look dry. The amount of food depends on the size of the bug and culture but if you get it right they only need feeding every few days and water a bit less.
I keep these in plastic shoe boxes or big tupperware containers (bigger containers for bigger bugs, like Pumilo recommended). I poke some holes in the tops on one end, put some abg mix and leaf litter in the bottom, and put a couple pieces of sterilized cardboard on top. I recently added some coconut husk to the cultures to help me feed them out without having to deal with soggy cardboard.

*Springs* - I add fish food or yeast when they're out and spray in some water every once in awhile.
I keep these in tupperware containers with 1/2" of water on the bottom and 1/2 full of natural lump charcoal (cowboy brand). After losing a couple cultures to c02 buildup I cut a small hole in the lids and hot-glued coffee filters over the holes to allow for a bit of air exchange. 

That's pretty much it. If you want more details or pics I could prolly do that but it's really very simple once you get the hang of it.


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## enfinite5 (Nov 23, 2011)

Ya starting fruit fly cultures is nothing....probably the easiest part of the whole hobby. They pretty much do the work for you! Good luck on your build!


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Shinosuke - a great post. 

What sort of feeding schedule do you use on these guys?

There are so many things how do you know which ones to feed at what times? 

Sorry for all the questions - but really want to get this right.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

Thanks, and ask away. I've received a lot of help from this board and I'm happy to help others in return.

I don't feed the FF's or beetles. The ff's live and breed in their media and the cultures go bad after a month or so which is why we have to make new ones all the time. The beetles don't get fed since they live & breed in their food.

The iso / spring feeding schedule is simply feeding when they're out of food. I know that's an irritating answer but each culture is different depending on the size and amount of critters in it. As an example when I got my starter culture of giant canyon iso's (my favorite!) I doubt they ate 1 tiny crushed flake a day. Now, 4 months later, they eat roughly 1/3 as much as my 40g fish tank of chubby cichlids (read: a lot). Start a new culture by feeding a tiny bit of whatever you're going to feed them and count how many days till it's gone. Base future feedings on that. 

Only other things I can think to mention is that in the iso cultures you don't want food to sit long enough to mold a lot (roughly 3 days for flake). If you're not sure you should under-feed since they can literally eat the soggy cardboard and leaves. In the spring cultures it's ok for stuff to rot but you don't want the c02 to build up too much. When the cultures are small you can simply pop the lid 1x a day or so to let the c02 out, but once they start to boom that may not be enough and you'll need to allow constant gas exchange somehow.


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

All good information again, however what I was specifically looking for was how frequently do you feed all these different things to your frogs. Especially stuff like the beetles that you say that they dont like?

What are the cultures that I must absolutely have to keep my D. tincts - Ill start there and progress. 

Thanks again.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

Hah, my bad. Really all you need is 1 type of melanogaster fruit fly (wingless / flightless / golden / turkish / whatever) to feed normal sized frogs. From what I have read some types of froglets need springtails or small iso's if they're too small to handle ff's. With bigger frogs I hear it can be helpful to keep hydei, bean beetles, or some other larger prey since it can take a lot of melo's to keep them satisfied. 

I feed dusted melo FF's every other day or so to my almost 1 year old dwarf tincs and add other bugs when I feel like it. Like with feeding the bugs, feed a bit and see how long it takes for them get eaten. The schedule I keep for bean beetles and hydei (both of which took my frogs awhile to aquire a taste for but now eat with gusto) are boom or bust so I add those into the feeding rotation when they're booming. Isos and springs don't breed fast enough to be easily used as staple feeders. Their main benefit is acting as "janitors" of the viv, eating poo and decaying material and other nastiness. I add them to the tank every once in awhile to make up for any that the frogs may have eaten but usually do that while the frogs are busy eating flies so the springs / isos get a chance to hide.

The flour beetles I keep in case my ff cultures crash and I run out of food while waiting for other cultures to mature, which has happened a few times. They don't breed very fast but require literally no upkeep so they're an ideal backup food. The frogs don't really like the flour beetles (sometimes spitting them back out after eating them) but they're better in a pinch than starving my frogs or decimating my iso cultures.


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Ill get some springs right away and some wingless fruit flies then. 

Then Ill probably add isos...I like the idea of topping of the tank for "janitorial" control and in addition - giving my frogs the ability to hunt and graze.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

If you can get bugs locally, go for it. However, no pet store (that I know of) sells isos or springs. Petco (ie the devil) carries cultures of wingless melo cultures and Petsmart sometimes has little hydei vials. You may have some local froggers that are willing to share but if you have to order bugs online you might as well get them all at once and save on shipping, at least imho. I promise they're easy to care for, and I can tell by your questions and how much you care that it'll be no issue for you. Plus, if you get a big order many vendors will throw in the occasional freebie. My giant canyon isos were those kind of freebies and, as I said, they're my favorite. I'll send you a recommendation of a good "bug vendor" via pm (vendor feedback isn't allowed outside that forum  )


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## kingfisherfleshy (Mar 17, 2012)

Thank you. I will be stopping at the devils today on my way to the hardware store to look at stuff to build my viv. 

Unfortunately they have driven out every pet store within like an hour and a half. So my options are limited. 

Otherwise now at this point I have connected with a few WI froggers and hopefully they might let me buy some culture starters off them. 

We can talk via PM about your suggestions for what I do in regards to what cultures I should get rolling. 

Thanks again.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

My pleasure. Feel free to PM but there's no reason to hide your questions. There are people on here with MUCH more experience than me that might help you (and me) with things I wouldn't know, plus threads like this help people out in the future if they have the same questions.


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