# Two kinds of white specks in culture, questions.



## Blaise and Echo (Jul 2, 2009)

My camera can't capture the specks. I noticed a bunch of tiny white specks on sides of a couple of cultures. In one of my fresher cultures, I washed my hands and wiped a finger across the inside. The specks are dry, so I am wondering if they are just FF eggs (hoping it isn't mold). In an older culture (that 90% of the flies have died inside of), there are these little specks, plus small white specks that are moving, that look like little worms. Are these newly hatched maggots? And since most of the flies are dead and just laying inside of the container, should I toss the culture out now? I bought it from Joshs Frogs, and it produced great, but now most of them are dead.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

If they are mites, you will see them move. Just stare at a section of the culture up close and you will see movement if they are mites.

Discard cultures over 30 days old. Make the date made on the cup or lid.


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## Blaise and Echo (Jul 2, 2009)

The moving pecks kind of stretch out like a worm, so I'm still not really sure.

Another question. Hydei take almost a month to get going. So you throw them away as soon as they start producing?


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## inflight (Jun 12, 2007)

I notice white speck in my cultures too, I was told they are eggs or old eggs, as for the moving things, I'm thinking they are FF maggots(are they called maggots?) I think that b/c you say they stretch out. Any mold I have in my cultures is usually in the media and not on the side of the cup. Another thing is that I "feed" out my FF's into the wild if I have to just to prevent overcrowding, I have seen some of my cultures crash b/c of too many dead ones in the bottom. I chuck mine after about a month as well, sometimes a bit longer.
Hope some of this rambling was helpful
Thom O


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Blaise and Echo said:


> The moving pecks kind of stretch out like a worm, so I'm still not really sure.


If you have a lot of them and they are near the bottom of the culture and media....they are probably FF larvae - maggots.



Blaise and Echo said:


> Another question. Hydei take almost a month to get going. So you throw them away as soon as they start producing?


The ENTIRE life cycle of D. Hydei is @ 25 days. They will produce hatches well before that with temperatures of @ 80 F.


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## devin mac (Oct 4, 2004)

How often do you make cultures? Most of us put new cultures together weekly, so once you get on a schedule you usually will have three or so cultures producing at a time, providing plenty of food for your frogs, as well as plenty of available flies for producing new cultures.

If you follow that method, you can usually just toss any cultures that are older than your most recent 2 or 3 producing cultures. Once you get to week 4 (after initial production), the cultures are starting to lose steam and become a mite and mold hazard, so tossing them at this stage if possible is a good idea anyway in my experience. 

i was making one of each (mels and hydei) until recently when i quit bothering with hydei (only my leucs take them, and i got sick of the extra space and hassle of hydei only for the leucs... they just eat extra mels now)

So for mels, i usually have 5 cultures "active" at a time. the most recent one i JUST set up, the next oldest usually has larvae crawling up the walls at the end of week 1, and the oldest 3 are producing flies. for hydei, i had 8 active cultures at a time using the same methodology. each week i toss the oldest one, and start a new one, even if the oldest one is still producing. 

the idea is that if you are consistent, you'll always have plenty of flies.

if you want to be super sure, double up on the cultures every other week (since two a week is probably overkill for most hobbyists with only a small number of animals).

the only other thing, is if you don't feed from a really blooming culture, either make a temporary culture to feed out of, as an overflow culture, or flush some. too many flies in the culture can cause a crash, and then you'll end up with a gap in production that will be stressful (probably more for you than the frogs, honestly... we tend to overfeed in the hobby).


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Very well put Devin.

I find a schedule to be most helpful.

I make 15 cultures every single Sunday night. If I miss the Sunday night for some odd reason, then I make sure to make them Monday.

Always better to have too many flies than not enough.

FF culturing is one of the "tricker" aspects of this hobby but all it takes is a little confidence, time and trial and error. Soon you will be able to buy all your supplies at the local grocery store and will have the whole process down to a "T" .


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

White or light-green circles on the sides are mold. That can happen with any culture, anywhere you get it if it gets enough spores and stays moist (like it's supposed to). This usually doesn't happen before 1 1/2 weeks in, though---which is the reason for the rule to make/buy new cultures weekly. 

As for the worms, you would need to post a pic to ID them---if they don't look like your other maggots, I think you would know...
get us a picture of them off of Google or something.


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