# This is very strange...



## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

I have been waiting on my culture to start producing some bugs, and something incredibly weird happened and i have no idea what is going on. I made my medium which i use all the time, and put the flies in ( melagonaster). Yesterday they were all running around like crazy and i saw some little pupas on the bottom. This morning i looked inside, and almost fireaked out. All the flies were dead, plastered to the wall, the paper inside was plastered on the side and around 1000 maggots all stuck to the lid and all over the walls. No joke, they burst through the lid and dried up. Anyways all these maggots are not moving and are not in their pupa phase. The temps last night got very very cold btw. What happened here, and will they hatch?


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## hexentanz (Sep 18, 2008)

sounds like too much co2 built up in there.


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

I have never had a problem before, and why in one night, did 1000 larvae climb up?


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

When it gets really cold the humidity goes up and makes the larvae climb to find a lower humidity. The cold could have made them inactive enough to drown.


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## got frogs? (Sep 7, 2008)

there was too much co2 like hexentanz sad. if u put a solid lid on a culture u will get the same results. i used to do this so i could feed the maggots to my frogs.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

I agree - they climb to avoid too much moisture.

What could've produced the excess CO2 I see others talking about?

You need to find somewhere with even temperatures. I use my "Boiler Room" (furnace) to keep my developing ffs in. It has a fairly steady temperature and is generally warmer than anywhere else in the house.

s


frogfarm said:


> When it gets really cold the humidity goes up and makes the larvae climb to find a lower humidity. The cold could have made them inactive enough to drown.


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

That makes sence. So i will use a cloth mesh from now on and put it near the heater. What about the maggots, will they begin to move again and is there something i can do with them?


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

You have described CO2 buildup. You either had too many flies/too much yeast, which created CO2 faster than it could be exchanged, or something was inhibiting gas exchange, like if you accidentally sealed up the lid. The fact that they all crawled to the top suggests that the problem was too many flies/too much yeast.
-mark


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Hey Mark - you may be right, but I've seen the same thing with excess moisture in a culture.

I'm sure they'd run to the top trying to get good air also.

s


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Scott said:


> Hey Mark - you may be right, but I've seen the same thing with excess moisture in a culture.
> 
> I'm sure they'd run to the top trying to get good air also.
> 
> s


Sorry, I didn't mean to say it was definitely gas buildup, it could also be moisture. I just have a fair amount of experience exposing flies to different concentrations of different gasses, including CO2 and oxygen, and in those situations the larvae all crawl up to the very top. In my experience, maggots leave wet media, but will scatter randomly on the sides of the container, not all on the lid.
-mark


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Did you have an airtight top? That would build up co2. 
I`ve had that happen when I didn`t get to empty the ff`s out before there were too many. They foul the lid and prevent air exchange. I usually get a few out of it but get massive die off. It could be a combination. 
They also pupate on the lid in the summer when it`s 90% humidity but they don`t die then.


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

I have been using this culture from understory's website for months without problems. The lid was punctured with tiny holes with a tooth pick as i ran out of ff culture lids. Its strange how one day they are literally running around in the container with no eggs, and the next day i see the flies dead and out of nowhere 1000s of white larvae all on the lid and sides. I let the culture stay open before adding the bugs for 24 hours for the yeast to react. Im really believing it was the cold temperature that did it. Anyhow i think im going to make a new culture this weekend and use cloth. I have this stupid "energy wise" thermostat that automatically puts my room to 16 degrees at night
and i havnt had the time to reprogram it as it is really complicated.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Any chance that condensation clogged up the holes? And also, was this the first time you used a homemade lid? I assume you mean 16C not 16F. Flies shouldn't die at 16C.
-mark


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

I usually take a mesh cloth with an elastic band but I ran out so yes this time around it was a deli cup lid
With holes punched with a tooth pick. And yes it was 16 celcius but its colder near the window


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

Are the larvae alive and still moving?


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## d-prime (Sep 29, 2008)

No they are not.


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