# How many ff to start a new culture with?



## snmreptiles (Feb 26, 2004)

I just wanted to ask everyone how many fruit flies should be used to initially start a culture with? I culture both wingless melanogaster and hydei. I know that the hydei take longer to culture, but is that mainly because I don't use enough flies in the beginning? I think that I may be using too many of the melanogaster because my cultures seem to explode masively. Yet I don't think that I use enough of the hydei. So how many of each type should you use?

Also, is it just a general rule that the cultures should be tossed out after one month? I have read that you should, but even if the culture still has a ton of larva should it still be trashed?

Thanks for any help. Also wanted to say thank you, but I don't remember who to.  I remember reading in a post that someone was complaining about using excelsior and someone else (??) said that they use the shower spoofy things that you use with liquid soap. I have tried this and it is FABULOUS!! You just cut a big piece and stick it in the dry media before you add water. Then there is no more mess!! So thank you to ????. :? 

-Shelley


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2004)

Shelley,
I don't use Hydei for the simple fact that is takes too long for the larvae to develop and I have not had a great success with cultures truley exploding. But melanogasters on the other hand, I have had great success. I use a homemade mix for the media, and add a couple hundred flies to each culture. I used to give minimal flies to each culture, and the cultures took longer to explode, and there weren't even close to as many flies when it did explode. I don't give my cultures any specific amount of time, I just use them until they stop producing flies all together. How many cultures are you keeping right now? I have about 101, from the last time I counted. I always like to keep super stocked on fruit flies, so I am continuing to make more on a biweekly basis. Hope any of this helps.


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2004)

As per the lable on eds fly media. 50 flys to start a culture.


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## snmreptiles (Feb 26, 2004)

bhoff said:


> How many cultures are you keeping right now?


I usually have between 15 and 20, no where near your level. :shock: Don't know if I could keep up with that. I would definately have to quite my day job! I have to keep trying on the Hydei though because now that my terribilis are getting bigger they don't really like the melanogaster any more. They get spoiled I guess with the hydei and crickets. I haven't had horrible luck with them, but I wasn't using near enough ff to start. My main problem right now is that my cultures are all seeming to liquify and I think that I have ended up killing alot of the hydei. The cultures I make today I am going to try using more media and see if that helps. 



> As per the lable on eds fly media. 50 flys to start a culture.


Did it distinguish between melanogaster and hydei? I thought for some reason that I have read to use more ff for hydei than melanogaster. I have used Ed's before, but not for a long time and not for hydei.

Thanks for the info guys!

-Shelley


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## mindcrash (Mar 3, 2004)

snmreptiles said:


> Thanks for any help. Also wanted to say thank you, but I don't remember who to.  I remember reading in a post that someone was complaining about using excelsior and someone else (??) said that they use the shower spoofy things that you use with liquid soap. I have tried this and it is FABULOUS!! You just cut a big piece and stick it in the dry media before you add water. Then there is no more mess!! So thank you to ????. :?
> 
> -Shelley


I believe that came from John of Tincs.com


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2004)

> Did it distinguish between melanogaster and hydei?


Not sure i only culture the hydei variety. I have heard using less water will result in more mold so tread litely.


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2004)

snmreptiles said:


> I have to keep trying on the Hydei though because now that my terribilis are getting bigger they don't really like the melanogaster any more. They get spoiled I guess with the hydei and crickets.


-Shelley[/quote]

I have breeder terribilis and they eat a lot of food too. I recently got 4000 mini meal worms at an online auction, and they feed the frogs much better than flies. I also give them a variety of spiders that I catch in my house, and some common bugs that they can eat from outside. But I won't even try to feed the terribilis flies anymore because they will eat me out of house and home. I also just recently started making more cultures, I used to keep a minimal amount, but with the froglets coming out of the water now I keep a lot more. I usually give new cultures a lot of flies to ensure their explosiveness. But my cultures do become liquidy a lot, so I have to make sure the flies are taken out at that time, and the larvae can climb all over. Hope this helps.


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## Guest (Jun 8, 2004)

As far as the number go, back in high school I saw a project that detailed this. She concluded that somewhere between 15-20 (I forget the exact number) of each sex was the ideal number. Before that I had put in 100 or so just to get the explosive breeding of the first two, then threw out the culture. Just another point of view.
j


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

I culture both melanogaster and hydei. I used to do just hydei and as
someone already noted the life cycle for these fruit flies are right around
30 days. I use the culture right up until there are no more larvae left so I usually get a good 2 weeks of production from each (sometimes longer) . I start the hydei cultures with about 50 - 60 flies in a 1qt mason jar. I think that too many hydei is not a good thing, the culture explodes but does not last for any time at all. This seems to be in line with Justin's post. I make about 10 per week so at any one point I have 60 or so cultures going in one stage of development or another. This produces way more flies than I need..... but I was stuck a few years ago when the cultures crashed and do not want that to happen again. 

The melanogaster life cycle is about 7 -10 days and I put about 100 in each culture to start it. I only make about 3 of these a week, just to feed
thumbnails, froglets and as a treat for my other frogs. 

Hope this helps. 
Ed


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

I keep both types of flies, because it's good to have backup. Some people don't like hydei because they take longer to get started, but if you make cultures regularly you shouldn't have that problem except to start with. If you're just getting started and have hungry frogs you just brought home, then hydei are not the best to start out with.

I usually have 2-3 hydei cultures in various stages at all times, plus another 2-3 melanogaster cultures going. I'm using Patrick's mix from saurian.net. Both types of flies seem to do well in it.

My azureus seem to like the hydei better than the melanogaster, but my leucs aren't big enough for hydei yet. I usually use a different cup for hydei and melanogaster dusting, but once I grabbed the wrong cup and there were still a few hydei buried in the vitamin powder. When I shook them out with the melanogasters, all the leucs started hopping away.


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