# Fruit fly odor control?



## Marc (Feb 3, 2008)

I am finally having good results raising fruitflies. Problem is now at around day 15 or 16 they start to smell. So a couple of days ago I put the FF cultures into a large plastic bin on top of a water filled plastic container that has a aquarium heater in it. (Keeps the FF containers about 74 all the time) As I am trying to control odor. Took the lid off the FF plastic container the FF are in today and noticed it was moist inside. Just slightly. Production in the FF containers is down too. Odor is in full force though. Any thoughts or suggestions please? I have about 8 containers all at the same stage and feed out of them every day. Could be excess FF dieing in the containers, but since I feed out of at least 6 containers daily, I am thinking this is not the problem. Does anyone else have an odor problem? I don't want to spouse to kick my frogs and I out of the house! Plastic storage container has no air holes in it. I am using Black Jungle FF media. Great stuff and no mold problems. Also I get huge FF blooms from using this medium. So got rid of the mold and now have a smelly culture. FF were all fine and breeding good in this medium. Actually still getting good FF production.

Help me out here please!


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## Ronm (Oct 1, 2006)

Same problem over here. I place the jarrs in a closed kabinet. Still smelly, but it doesn't go through the entyre house.
Ron


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## Shade71 (May 27, 2008)

Try sprinkling fresh yeast on top.
When I make my own culture it's made from fruit and stuff and it doesn't really stink. It smells kinda of stale and yeasty as it gets older but nothing too rancid.
On occasion I'll buy a new culture from a local pet store (when I've been lazy about keeping my own going). 
I don't know what he uses but it smells like death as it gets older. 
Produces well though.
A couple days ago I was desperate to kill the odour and sprinkled some fresh yeast on top... it made a huge difference. 
I'm not sure if it'll affect production, but I can't see why it would.


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## Shade71 (May 27, 2008)

I guess I should say I used "Active Dry Yeast".
I was reading some other posts and apparently different yeasts do different things.


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## Devanny (Jul 11, 2008)

I had the same problem a few days ago, the smell was real bad i bought a plastic tray sprinkled it with ground cinamon powder and the smell isnt noticible as much as before.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Cabinet... or cheap sterlite box\drawers.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Add a small amount of honey to the dry mix in each container before addition of water. In addition to acting as an antimicrobial agent, it reduces the smell substantially. 

Bill


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