# what kind of flies are easiest?



## BethInAK (Jul 12, 2011)

I have at least three juvie mourning geckos and they appear to be fat and happy critters, eating fruit fly cultures from petco. 

I have decided it is time to finally culture my own flies.

What kind is the most forgiving and least difficult to grow? 

The geckos are small too - I suppose thats important - maybe a gram and a half? They are so fast they are hard to catch and weigh. The only one we have managed to remove from the vivarium is the one that I thought was a "dud" egg lying on the floor of the viiv. I went to show it to someone, and lo and behold, it hatched. So I need to keep all the girls fat and happy so the big ones don't eat the small ones.


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

I find that culturing them is about the same. It's the production of flies that is different. Hydei are larger flies and take a couple weeks to hatch out. Melanogasters are the smaller flies and take 5-7 days. Gliders produce like Melanogasters, are a little larger, and move around a lot. Then there are buzzati that are in between hydei and gliders for size and produce more slowly like the hydei.

Anyway, I am not a bug expert! The above is in my experience only


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## jeeperrs (Jan 14, 2010)

I think they are both pretty easy. I have only been doing Hydei for a short amount of time. However, I seem to be more likely to have my melanogaster crash. On a rare occasion my Melano will all die before producing but I have not had that happen with the Hydei. If you keep a descent production routine you will be able to recover very quickly on the Melano since they reproduce so much faster. I said all that to say, I think they are similar in ease to culture.


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## SamsonsFrogs (Mar 4, 2009)

Culturing fruit flies can be difficult for some, but be sure to make or purchase some good, quality fruit fly media. 

Like stated above melanos produce allot faster than hydei and they are allot smaller than hydei. If your new to culturing, I would recommend the melanos.


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## JimO (May 14, 2010)

I just wanted to add a couple of suggestions. Make sure you buy from someone who does not have mites in their cultures. Some retailers have a real problem with this. There is a slightly different mix between the hydei and melano media. Hydei media typically has more brewer's yeast.

Also, if you need extra supplements on your feeders, the hydei and the flightless melanos (have wings but can't fly) hold more media due to the presence of their wings. Also, I have tried both the standard hydei (black) and the golden hydei. For some reason the black hydei cultures really stink bad when they get going while the golden hydei cultures don't.

You might consider one type of melanogaster and one type of hydei in case one or the other crashes.


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## Shinosuke (Aug 10, 2011)

One of the flies I culture are actually the melanos from petco, and they seem to produce just fine. Being wingless they're slow and really easy to feed out / control.

I recently picked up some turkish gliders at a show, they seem to produce a bit more then the wingless melanos but are a lot harder to control. They move faster and can jump / glide so feeding out almost always results in a couple escapees. 

I also keep hydei, you can usually find a starter vial at petsmart. Making their cultures is the same as any of the melanos, but they take longer to start producing. On a side note, I almost always have extra media in the culture after the melanos peter out but the hydei seem to use it all.


Out of those three, I'd recommend sticking with what you know. Take your most recent culture of wingless from petco and start another culture out of them. It takes some practice to get it right but it's certainly not rocket science. A smart chick like you will have it figured out in no time!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

JimO said:


> I just wanted to add a couple of suggestions. Make sure you buy from someone who does not have mites in their cultures. Some retailers have a real problem with this. There is a slightly different mix between the hydei and melano media. Hydei media typically has more brewer's yeast.


I should note that all cultures (unless being cultured aseptically)should be considered to have some level of mites. It is virtually impossible to get a culture that has no mites at all and to keep them with no mites (unless you are aseptically culturing the flies (involves sorting them under a microscope to remove mites or mite eggs). Basically you just want to manage the level of mites. 



JimO said:


> Also, if you need extra supplements on your feeders, the hydei and the flightless melanos (have wings but can't fly) hold more media due to the presence of their wings.


This isn't necessarily a good thing. The smaller a feeder insect, the greater the amount of supplement dust held on the fly in relation to the nutrients in the fly. This means that you can actually oversupplement a frog on these supplements. (see the Nutrition Chapter in Mader's Reptile Medicine and Surgery (either edition)). 

Some comments,

Ed


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## JimO (May 14, 2010)

Ed said:


> I should note that all cultures (unless being cultured aseptically)should be considered to have some level of mites. It is virtually impossible to get a culture that has no mites at all and to keep them with no mites (unless you are aseptically culturing the flies (involves sorting them under a microscope to remove mites or mite eggs). Basically you just want to manage the level of mites.


Ed - are you suggesting that I don't do this. I'm a scientist and know how to use a microscope. I'm sure you realize how hard it is to pick individual mite eggs off the fruit flies before placing them in a new culture.  Maybe I should consider doing this in the future - NOT!

Once again I appreciate your public humiliation, uh, er, I mean your clarifications. It keeps me humble.

All kidding aside, Ed knows a lot more than I do about the hobby, so I defer to his judgment on everything in the animal kingdom (except, of course, when to take our dog out to do his business).


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

JimO said:


> Ed - are you suggesting that I don't do this. I'm a scientist and know how to use a microscope. I'm sure you realize how hard it is to pick individual mite eggs off the fruit flies before placing them in a new culture.  Maybe I should consider doing this in the future - NOT!


You don't know if you don't like it until you try it....  



JimO said:


> Once again I appreciate your public humiliation, uh, er, I mean your clarifications. It keeps me humble.
> 
> All kidding aside, Ed knows a lot more than I do about the hobby, so I defer to his judgment on everything in the animal kingdom (except, of course, when to take our dog out to do his business).


I don't know that I know more about the entire hobby than you do... I may know more about certain aspects (for example, I've only ever worked with one species of thumbnail which is why you almost never see me comment on many thumbnails) but again my information is generally in a fairly narrow area... 

Ed


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## volsgirl (Mar 29, 2012)

I culture both Melanogaster and Hydei. I use the same process for both and the same media. So, in my experience... they are both the same as far as culturing goes, but as others have stated the hydei take longer to develop.
I also make cultures by mixing both melanos and hydei together!


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## srrrio (May 12, 2007)

I have tried hydei now an then .. and I have killed them all within 2 cycles. Sometimes my skills amaze me. 

Melanogaster, I have never had trouble with.


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## BethInAK (Jul 12, 2011)

i have only six small geckos, three are juvies and very tiny, so maybe slow producing is easier for me!!!


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## Froggywv (Aug 9, 2010)

I have both melanos and hydei, and melanos are FAR easier to culture, just because they breed SO much faster. Also, your FF media will play a BIG role in how well they produce. I'll have to take some pictures tonight and post them. I tried a little experiment over a month ago. I made two cultures each of melanos and hydei. In one culture I used Repashy FF Media and in another I used media I received from a vendor on here that makes their own. In the Repashy cultures, there are easily 5x the amount of flies and larva. The home made media just isn't as good. They still produce, and the flies look fairly healthy, but they produce SLOW, don't lay as many eggs. They ones they do lay hatch out into flies. But in the Repashy cultures, the cups are covered in eggs and the cultures bloom. In the home-made media, I could easily see through the cup, and could probably count the number of eggs in there. 

I'll try to take a picture of two cultures side by side tonight and post it.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Are you confusing eggs with pupae? 

Ed


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## dablock (Aug 7, 2007)

I've been keeping melanogaster ff cultures since 2005. I didn't have problems with mites for years, but that changed about 4 years ago. Now I use these products from the Drosophila Company: mitebegone, tedion and mite power. The first two are used inside the culture and the powder is used outside the culture to control mites. These products work really well to keep mite problems under control and the prices are very reasonable. You can find these products here -- http://www.jtresser.com/FLYPAPER.html


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## Froggywv (Aug 9, 2010)

Ed said:


> Are you confusing eggs with pupae?
> 
> Ed


Probably LOL But, even so, the production in one vs the other is night and day. The home made media cultures just don't have the bloom the Repashy cultures do. 
I have had good luck with Josh's frog FF media as well. But, did this experiment with the media I had on hand.


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

I try not to bring up things I don't know that much about, but maybe someone can help me out. 
There seems to be two different strains of wingless melanogasters. One strain is missing the gene for wing formation. The other is missing the gene to produce the wing protein. I have both strains and am very careful not to mix them. (If you do all your babies will have wings). I have found that the cultures with flies that are missing the protein gene (they were labeled AP when I bought them) seem to be more productive for me than the standard wingless variety and produce for a longer period of time.
Hopefully someone with more ff knowledge can clarify or expand or berate me unmercifully.


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