# DEAD FLIES?



## MELLOWROO421 (Feb 21, 2007)

I have been culturing Hydei ff's using both Black jungle and Josh's Frogs media. Both have worked well and my cultures explode with tons of flies, but within a week or so I get a lot of dead flies with the live ones. I am not crazy about dumping dead flies into the viv's with the live ones but I have not been able to either figure out a way to seperate the dead ones or even better, keep them all alive. I use coffee filters and have started using folded index cards in the cultures to give them more surface area to lay on, but i still get about 30-40% dead flies when I dump them into my powder cup. Is this normal? Does anybody have a way to remedy this? I bought a melonogastor culture yesterday and I am gonna culture those for a while instead to see if it helps, but I would like to have both to offer a little bit of a variety. Any advice would be appreciated. 
Brian


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## Android1313 (Dec 15, 2006)

I had the same thing happen a while ago. After I made new cultures, like 3-4 days later, I looked at the cultures to find most of the hydei dead on top of the media! I still had some flies hatch out, but not as many as usual.
I am curious to see what others say about this happening, since I cant come up with a reason why it happened to me. I thought the media might have still been too hot from the tap water, before adding flies, but I`ve done it pretty much the same way bunches of times with no problems. Hopefully someone more experienced chimes in.


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## Tripod (Jun 5, 2006)

The only time I have ever had this happen, regardless of FF species, was when the flies were over crowded and (I guess) oxygen starved. Once I began keeping track of each culture and making sure to feed from any that were "swarming" I have not had any large scale die offs.


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## MELLOWROO421 (Feb 21, 2007)

> The only time I have ever had this happen, regardless of FF species, was when the flies were over crowded and (I guess) oxygen starved. Once I began keeping track of each culture and making sure to feed from any that were "swarming" I have not had any large scale die offs.


I thought that overcrowding may be the case but it seems to happen within days of the culture beginning to produce. I only have 4 frogs currently and even when I feed them all from the same culture the flies still start dying. I have tried everything from adding more coffee filters to trying distilled, spring, purified and tap water with no better results. 



> I had the same thing happen a while ago. After I made new cultures, like 3-4 days later, I looked at the cultures to find most of the hydei dead on top of the media! I still had some flies hatch out, but not as many as usual.
> I am curious to see what others say about this happening, since I cant come up with a reason why it happened to me. I thought the media might have still been too hot from the tap water, before adding flies, but I`ve done it pretty much the same way bunches of times with no problems. Hopefully someone more experienced chimes in.


Hate to say it, but I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one with this problem. what did you do to seperate the dead flies from the live ones before dumping them in the viv, or did you just hope they would get eaten or decompose quickly like I have had to do? There are springs in the viv, but since I added the moss I haven't even seen 1! I was kinda hoping they would help eliminate some of the dead fly carcases. I don't ever see the dead flies the next day, but I'm not too sure it's good for the frogs if they are eating them. Thanks for the replies. I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope someone can explain this to me a bit better!


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Both fly species are sensitive to over crowding, but hydei seem to be more sensitive than melanos. This happens to me alot because I tend to forget to feed out of all of my cultures. 

Don't worry about the dead flies. Your frogs won't try to eat them because they don't move, and your vivarium has the perfect conditions to break them down.


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## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

Well I will say this. Summer is indeed upon us. Flies that were cultured in cooler weather have offspring that aren't and weird things happen, when they didn't before. It's a trippy phenomenon, but yeah it happens. It'll probably happen to some people in the summer to autumn switch too. It is documented in a few places with non feeder species, but research is few in this area.


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

I bought 2 cultures from a sponsor here 4 weeks ago and have yet to get any flys from them :x The larvae just don`t seem to be developing. 

John


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

John - hard to help when you don't give any really useful info... how are they set up? Temps?


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## MELLOWROO421 (Feb 21, 2007)

Thanks for the info guys. If it's not gonna hurt the frogs or the viv then I guess I shouldn't worry too much. Maybe I have too many cultures going. O well, better too many than not enough :lol:


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

Hey Corey sorry for being so vague. I was on my way out the door when I wrote it. So anyway, I ordered 2 Hydei cultures from a sponsor here about 4 weeks ago. They looked fine, the sides of the container were loaded with larvae looking like they just about to start producing flys, only it never, or hasn`t happened yet. I have them at room temp. 70-75. I probably should have contacted this sponsor about it but I never did. It`s really not that big of a deal, but it pissed me off at the time because I was low on food. 

John


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Sometimes weird things happen with hydei. 

If they were pupae on the side of the containers, I wonder if there was some sort of heat issue that might have cooked the pupae. I've cooked cultures to the point of killing flies and pupae (let them in my care for a couple hours in the summer heat), just to have the larvae in the media survive to pupate and continue the culture.

Hindsite is 20/20... one of the main reasons it's best to find a local supplier for FFs in case of emergency is for the ability to aviod shipping... not just the price but the problems that can be associated with it, like you're experiencing.


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## Enlightened Rogue (Mar 21, 2006)

Corey, I think you might have hit it with the heat issue, I remember I received them Memorial Day weekend and it was pretty hot here in CT. Thanks for the help  

John


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Now worries, sounds like both the sponsor and the flies deserve a second try  Shipping weather messes a lot of things up


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## Steve (Apr 8, 2006)

I'm glad this topic was started. I never realised wierd things happen in the summer, we are just getting up to the 110's... though the frog room is 78-80 (aircon a must in Vegas).

Anyway, i am in a new house since last summer (more airflow, more effiecient a/c) and about four weeks ago my cultures (fresh) just dried up... only got a few flies.. so i made the cultures wetter and now they are just molding.. even fewer flies.. so now i'm letting the flies lay eggs, when i see maggots i feed off the fly's from that culture and mist the cultures every other day... fingers crossed.

Regards

Steve


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## volcom69 (Jun 8, 2007)

I just made my first two cultures i made one on friday and one on saturday with two diferent cultures. So as my first one i tired i dont think i put enough ff in not sure but maybe about 75 or so but i did notice after one day 3 dead ff, but it looked like they got caught in the media and couldnt get out, like they were traped cause they are pretty far in the media. Now the one i made saturday so far is lookin good no dead flies i put alittle more ff in this one so we will see. So can the ff get caught in the media and not get out like drown in it or something at least thats what it looked like.


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