# Culture Production/health



## carola1155 (Sep 10, 2007)

This thread is being started as a spin off of another thread to put things in an appropriate forum and preserve the information. A good discussion evolved out of a thread in the wrong place (threads in that area expire after a certain period and this information would be lost)

Keep things objective and avoid any sort of anecdotal statements. 

Statements like "x's media works better for me than y's media" without any sort of context or analysis will be removed.

Thank you for your cooperation! If you have any questions or concerns I'm always available via PM and will gladly help.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The problems with these threads on media is that the metric of production really doesn't tell you anything about the media mix. The first problem with the metric of production is that there is a huge genetic component that impacts production. If your flies are intolerant of the conditions post first emergence then there is going to be one big boom and either the culture crashes or if there is a small amount of genetic tolerance a slow trickle of flies. (see the disucssion here http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/42419-genetics-ff-culturing.html. Or if they are more adapted to the conditions long-term the initial booms aren't as large but the long-term production is going to more substantial. So right off the bat depending on how your manage your cultures is going to make it very difficult to compare how a brand works for different people. 

Second using production as the benchmark misses the idea that it provides an optimal food item for the consumers. For example, vitamin E (in the form of tocopherols) are commonly used antioxidants in many foods. The problem with the flies arises from the fact that vitamin E is taken up and absorbed by the flies potentially to the levels of several hundred times what is present in the media. This means that the tocopherol levels can be high enough to upset the 10 to 1 to 0.1 ratio of vitamin A to D3 to E so the frogs can get conditional deficiencies of those vitamins. In the flies they only uptake enough vitamin A for metamorphosis and any residual ends up in the eyes as rhodopsin. A blind fly does just fine in a culture and most medias are deficient in carotenoids that the flies can convert to vitamin A. Vitamin D (in either form) is used as precursor for cholesterol.. (this is one of the reasons adding your old supplements to the media is a bad idea).... 

A "highly productive" media may not provide the optimal fly... one of the reasons for this is that there is also competition between the different age larvae which includes pushing smaller larvae away from the more optimal food locations. This can result in reduced nutrient uptake and consequently a lower quality fly emerges from the pupae. This can be seen to some extent by the reduced size of the emerging flies as the culture ages. 

As aside comment . basically you can rear hydei and melanogaster on the same media... They both do just fine on anything that ranges from home made carolina biological company style medias to those that are "targeted" for specific species. If one chooses to dig into the published literature on using hydei in the labs.. there is abundent indications that the conditions and media used for melanogaster is perfectly fine... (if one chooses they can backtrack starting here http://jcb.rupress.org/content/38/2/369.full.pdf). 

So in short, attempting to evaluate and compare media based solely on production is a problem as it is very very difficult to be able to compare them for multiple reasons including genetic adaptation of the flies to the conditions used to culture them. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## PDFanatic (Mar 3, 2007)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*



Ed said:


> The problems with these threads on media is that the metric of production really doesn't tell you anything about the media mix. The first problem with the metric of production is that there is a huge genetic component that impacts production. If your flies are intolerant of the conditions post first emergence then there is going to be one big boom and either the culture crashes or if there is a small amount of genetic tolerance a slow trickle of flies. (see the disucssion here http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/42419-genetics-ff-culturing.html. Or if they are more adapted to the conditions long-term the initial booms aren't as large but the long-term production is going to more substantial. So right off the bat depending on how your manage your cultures is going to make it very difficult to compare how a brand works for different people.
> 
> Second using production as the benchmark misses the idea that it provides an optimal food item for the consumers. For example, vitamin E (in the form of tocopherols) are commonly used antioxidants in many foods. The problem with the flies arises from the fact that vitamin E is taken up and absorbed by the flies potentially to the levels of several hundred times what is present in the media. This means that the tocopherol levels can be high enough to upset the 10 to 1 to 0.1 ratio of vitamin A to D3 to E so the frogs can get conditional deficiencies of those vitamins. In the flies they only uptake enough vitamin A for metamorphosis and any residual ends up in the eyes as rhodopsin. A blind fly does just fine in a culture and most medias are deficient in carotenoids that the flies can convert to vitamin A. Vitamin D (in either form) is used as precursor for cholesterol.. (this is one of the reasons adding your old supplements to the media is a bad idea)....
> 
> ...


So basically a media that produces large amounts of flies may not be nutritionally balanced for the frogs. That is also another fact that I did not know. It is very good to know that all these things factor in to media as well. I never knew if the flies got any nutritional value out of the media due to the fact that you cannot gutload fruit flies. I will probably stay with repashy products due to their advancements in vitamins. Thanks Ed, these are all reasons why I started this thread as well. I wanted to learn a bit more about why media is so important!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*



PDFanatic said:


> I never knew if the flies got any nutritional value out of the media due to the fact that you cannot gutload fruit flies.


There is a difference between gut loading which in the hobby indicates that there is an attempt to increase the nutritional value of the insect above a certain baseline by including certain nutrients in the diet. In the scientific literature gut loading specifically refers to attempts to adjust the calcium to phosphorus ratio of an insect through diet. Unfortunately fruit flies are exceptionally adept at excreting calcium above a certain baseline and cannot be adjusted in this manner. As for other nutrients, the flies have an fairly rapid gut transit time (less than 6 hours) so any nutrients in the digestive tract are excreted fairly quickly which is also a problem. As I noted above vitamin A and D3 are not maintained in the digestive tract in a manner that can benefit the frogs (rhodopsin in the eyes of the flies can be converted back to vitamin A). These are reason why the idea of gut loading the flies is a problem and should not be counted on to be effective as people do with roaches and crickets. 

For those interested in digging into this further see Cooke, J.; Sang, J.H.; 1970; Utilization of sterols by by larvae of Drosophila melanogaster; J. Insect Physiol. 16: 801-812
Draper, Harold H.; Philbrick, Diana P.; Agarwal, Sanjiv; Meidiger, Roy; Phillips, John P.; 2000; Avid uptake of lineolic acid and vitamin E by Drosophila melanogaster; Nutrition Research 20(1):113-120
Giovannucci, David R.; Stephenson, Robert S.; 1999; Identification and distribution of dietary precursors of the Drosophila visual pigment chromophore: analysis of carotenoids in wild type and ninaD mutants by HPLC; Vision Research 39(2): 219-229
Isono, Kunio; Tanimura, Teiichi; Oda, Yoshiharu; Tsukahara, Yasuo; 1988; Dependency on light and vitamin A derivatives of the biogenesis of 3-hydroxyretinol and visual pigment in the compound eyes of Drosophila melanogaster; Journal of General Physiology 92: 587-600
Nahida, Sidey; Mueller, Lawrence D.; The effects of ammonia on the foraging path lengths of Drosophila melanogaster larvae; http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~mueller/p...ce Paper.pdf
Wertheim, Bredgie; Marchais, Julien; Vet, Louise, E.M.; Dicke, Marcel; 2002; Allee effect in larval resource exploitation in Drosophila: an interaction among density of adults, larvae and micro-organisms; Ecological Entomology 27(5):608-617 

Some comments 

Ed


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## aspidites73 (Oct 2, 2012)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*

While we're on the subject, Ed. What suggestions do you have to amend the "run of the mill" Fruit Fly Media. Assuming companies A,B,and C all use similar mixes, how can we improve them? Keeping a varied intake of certain compounds similar to what's found in the wild, are there any ways reasonable to the general population to make a better fly? When I bred Boids, I also bred their Rodent and Lagomorph foods. I knew that using a high quality base food (Mazuri Zoo Blend) coupled with a 14 different grain supplement produced larger clutches, larger neonates, and healthier mothers, post production. Is there a known relative for our Dendrobatids?



Ed said:


> There is a difference between gut loading which in the hobby indicates that there is an attempt to increase the nutritional value of the insect above a certain baseline by including certain nutrients in the diet. In the scientific literature gut loading specifically refers to attempts to adjust the calcium to phosphorus ratio of an insect through diet. Unfortunately fruit flies are exceptionally adept at excreting calcium above a certain baseline and cannot be adjusted in this manner. As for other nutrients, the flies have an fairly rapid gut transit time (less than 6 hours) so any nutrients in the digestive tract are excreted fairly quickly which is also a problem. As I noted above vitamin A and D3 are not maintained in the digestive tract in a manner that can benefit the frogs (rhodopsin in the eyes of the flies can be converted back to vitamin A). These are reason why the idea of gut loading the flies is a problem and should not be counted on to be effective as people do with roaches and crickets.
> 
> For those interested in digging into this further see Cooke, J.; Sang, J.H.; 1970; Utilization of sterols by by larvae of Drosophila melanogaster; J. Insect Physiol. 16: 801-812
> Draper, Harold H.; Philbrick, Diana P.; Agarwal, Sanjiv; Meidiger, Roy; Phillips, John P.; 2000; Avid uptake of lineolic acid and vitamin E by Drosophila melanogaster; Nutrition Research 20(1):113-120
> ...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*



aspidites73 said:


> While we're on the subject, Ed. What suggestions do you have to amend the "run of the mill" Fruit Fly Media. Assuming companies A,B,and C all use similar mixes, how can we improve them? Keeping a varied intake of certain compounds similar to what's found in the wild, are there any ways reasonable to the general population to make a better fly? W?


Many of the medias on the market do not list the levels of the different ingredients (and many don't list ingredients at all) this to some extent is a problem. It is important to know the ingredients before one can even consider optimizing them. The most common base media out there is the one that is based on the medias developed labs to rear fruit flies. In essence it is some ratio of potato flakes/granules, water, powdered sugar, and brewers/nutritional yeast. Depending on the source is this recipe is then modified through the addition of other ingredients like molasses or other additives like anti-fungal or anti-miticidal chemicals. 

Often there is little or no proof that other additions above those listed above actually do anything to improve the quality of the flies for the frogs. This is in no small part due to the use of production as the defining metric for placing a value on a fruit fly media. It is also because in no small part due to dogma that has been circulating on things to add to the media to improve it.... Part of the problem with a number of additives is that the fly larvae actively secrete digestive enzymes into the media which breaks it down so the larvae are effectively swimming in a digestive soup. (see Gregg, T. G., et al. "Insectivory and social digestion in Drosophila." Biochemical genetics 28.3-4 (1990): 197-207.) This is a major source of the problem with many additives as the larvae are going to be breaking down things before they even come into contact with it (potentially including cellulose and chitin).. This is another aspect of the problems with the idea of "gut loading" fruit flies.. Many things will either be partially or fully broken down before they ever get ingested by the larvae (and this without considering the impact on the microbes that are also are digesting the media). 

As to things to add that improve the quality of the flies, I'm going to suggest adding a source of carotenoids even if the adult flies don't store them, there is going to be some transfer via carryover from contamination of the exoskeleton and for a brief period the digestive tract. The best option to transfer carotenoids is to feed out larvae reared in carotenoid rich media (or use in addition to a good dusting supplement). Keep in mind that the adult flies are going to have carotenoids that are converted into rhodopsin which on digestion reverts to a source of vitamin A. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## aspidites73 (Oct 2, 2012)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*

Thanks, Ed. Would astaxanthin powder be a good choice for a carotenoid source? Would one dust the flies in it as well, or just use it as an addendum to the media?


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## Azurel (Aug 5, 2010)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*

These are the kind of discussion that are needed on a forum like this.

Over the last few years they have become few and far between....
This is the stuff that pushes the hobby and knowledge forward....But it seems like it is getting harder and harder.....maybe the reason why the expireanced froggers have left and moved on to FB and personal discussions.

Eventually there wont be any thing left but a search button and the new froggers can pass around what they read as expireance.

I tried boosting a media that shall not be named with superpig as was discussed in a thread discussing Brown and Toomey's research paper about breeding pumilio and a higher concentrated Astaxanthin fly media.....But in all honesty the production was horrible....so I went back to the plain media that cannot be said and my fly production resumed as expected.


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## PDFanatic (Mar 3, 2007)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*

I do add a bit of astaxanthin powder, superpig to my media mix. Not much but it turns the fly larvae red/orange. Then at the end I add a bit of yeast and some superload by repashy. Whether it helps anything or not I dunno but I'd like to think it does.


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## ecichlid (Dec 26, 2012)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*



Azurel said:


> These are the kind of discussion that are needed on a forum like this.


 Agreed. 



Azurel said:


> I tried boosting a media that shall not be named with superpig as was discussed in a thread discussing Brown and Toomey's research paper about breeding pumilio and a higher concentrated Astaxanthin fly media.....But in all honesty the production was horrible....so I went back to the plain media that cannot be said and my fly production resumed as expected.


 I did the same, along with a friend of mine. We both ran into problems. I was trying to attain a food that was 5% SuperPig and both me and my friend both got crazy mold issues. I then took the food and diluted the SuperPig by half and the problem was solved.



PDFanatic said:


> I do add a bit of astaxanthin powder, superpig to my media mix. Not much but it turns the fly larvae red/orange. Then at the end I add a bit of yeast and some superload by repashy. Whether it helps anything or not I dunno but I'd like to think it does.


If I understand what I think Ed's interpretation of the paper is, then adding SuperPig to the FF media would be beneficial in that it would provide a healthier fly by offering carotenoids that the fly converts to retinol, which is the animal version of Vitamin A. 

If I understand this correctly, from a simply hobbyist's point of view, dusting flies with SuperPig serves only as a color enhancer and in the case of my Red galacts, has done just the opposite. They have gone from cherry red to brick red in color. This color transformation was accomplished by dusting flies with a mixture of CalciumPlus to SuperPig in a ratio of 3:1.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

*Re: Opinions-Best Store Bought FF media*



ecichlid said:


> I did the same, along with a friend of mine. We both ran into problems. I was trying to attain a food that was 5% SuperPig and both me and my friend both got crazy mold issues. I then took the food and diluted the SuperPig by half and the problem was solved.


This anecdotal point is the opposite of what I had (also anecodotally) happen before I started using a mix that already contained superpig. I originally used a Carolina Bio Supply style media to which I initially added spirulina. After a couple of years using that and having good success, I started adding spirulina and chlorella. I still didn't see any problems with production or mold. After digging further into the literature I dropped the chlorella (as it basically was the same carotenoid variety found in the spriulina) and eventually started adding astaxanthin to the media. I still did not end up with mold or production problems (more on that shortly) but wasn't seeing the color change in the frogs that I wanted. The ratio I was using was a tablespoon of spirulina per four cups of dried media (which turned them a deep green), at the later point I was adding a table spoon of spirulina and a table spoon of astaxanthin per four cups of dry media. 
After a number of years I switched to a commercial brand (to leave out the feedback) that contained a variety of carotenoids but moved onto adding astaxanthin to the dusting supplements. Over time I was eventually using a equal mix of astaxanthin and Calcium plus with no real adverse effects noted and a deepening of the color of the frogs (my cauchero pumilio developed deep scattered small red flecks on their back and sides). I would make the mixture up weekly and use a mortar and pestle to get a fine mix that adhered well. At this time, I'm still using the commercial mix with the wide variation of carotenoids and have backed the carotenoid/calcium plus ratio down to an additional 25% by volume of superpig to 75% of calcium plus. I still make this up weekly and run it through the mortar and pestle to ensure even distribution and adherence. 
I should note that I don't necessarily advocate following in my footsteps as I'm still playing with different variables to see what happens over the long-term. 
If you ask oddlot he can tell you how the color looks in the frogs as he's seen them more than few times in the last few years and some of my pumilio are approaching the ten year mark now... 




ecichlid said:


> If I understand what I think Ed's interpretation of the paper is, then adding SuperPig to the FF media would be beneficial in that it would provide a healthier fly by offering carotenoids that the fly converts to retinol, which is the animal version of Vitamin A.


Correct while not a large amount of vitamin A, it is still something. 



ecichlid said:


> If I understand this correctly, from a simply hobbyist's point of view, dusting flies with SuperPig serves only as a color enhancer and in the case of my Red galacts, has done just the opposite.


No. It also supplies necessary carotenoids that the frogs can convert to vitamin A, act as antioxidants, help sustain immune response, be used for the proper provisioning of the yolk as well as helping to reach the color of the wild populations. Too often people underestimate the importance of carotenoids and carotenoid diversity in a wide variety of functions. As a further discussion point, unlike some other vertebrates carotenoids can be found in virtually all of the tissues of a frog. (See Biochemistry of the Carotenoids, Vol. 2: Animals, 1980, Chapman and Hall,) 

Some comments 

Ed


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## oscar c (Dec 2, 2014)

if the media we use is lacking in some vitamins and minerals and we dust our flies before feeding doesn't that make up for it.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

oscar c said:


> if the media we use is lacking in some vitamins and minerals and we dust our flies before feeding doesn't that make up for it.


Most but not all required nutrients. For example, you can have suboptimal flies emerge from a culture which means that they can be lacking fat and protein reserves that would benefit the frogs. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Ed: Do you think that stunting flies to feed smaller frogs is an issue?

I haven't been using a mortar/pestle(not sure where you'd fine one to be honest!) and minimal amounts of the astaxanthin powder I use stick if it is used in conjunction with calcium plus(this despite the fact that it is ground finer than superpig already). I have been adding spirulina and astaxanthin to my media.

OT but do you think that pill vitamins have a better shelflife than powder? I'd imagine less surface area for oxidation-and many pills seem to have a clearcoat of something for additional protection. If we are using a mortar and pestle already why not just have the supplements available as pills? I can't think of any appropriate off the top of my head but I'm sure zoos use pills of some sort for the larger herps.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

You need to consider the nutrition in context. If we had access to a small fly that didn't require a nutritional deficiency to induce stunting then it would be an issue. There are ways to work a little around it such by feeding the flies for 48 hours after removal from the culture to allow them to uptake and store protein and fats. At that point, the nutritional value plus dusting is going to provide you with as optimal a fly as possible. However since equivalent dustable feeders are not readily available, it is currently the best most hobbyists can manage. 

Mortar and pestles are available from many kitchen supply stores and can be readily ordered online. A good one should be fairly inexpensive. They are available in many sizes so there should be a lot of options for those who want to modify their supplements. I add approximately 25% by volume of carotenoids to the dusting supplement and make it fresh every 10-14 days. I have in the past used as much as 50% by volume of astaxanthin and dusting supplements but I didn't see any extra benefit over 20-25% carotenoid so I eventually backed it down again. 

Some comments 

Ed


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## ecichlid (Dec 26, 2012)

I do supplement my fly media with SuperPig but I stopped using additional SuperPig with my CalciumPlus, as it turned my red Galacts to a very dark red.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

ecichlid said:


> I do supplement my fly media with SuperPig but I stopped using additional SuperPig with my CalciumPlus, as it turned my red Galacts to a very dark red.


Darker than some of the pictures insitu? 

Some comments 

Ed


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## ecichlid (Dec 26, 2012)

Can you tell which frogs didn't get the additional SuperPig? Lol!

Ignore the thinness on that one, he is doing better now.


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