# Fruit fly media filler?



## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

what is this filler that the fruit fly cultures have on top to fill the air gap?

And where can I get some?

I just got my culture & fruit fly food today, but I dont have any of that stringy media whatever it might be called


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## MJ (Jun 16, 2005)

it's called excelsior you can get it at any craft store real cheap or you can use folded coffee filters


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## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

Excelsior. Wood shavings, pine I believe.

Edit: Doh! Too slow, double post


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## neilr (Oct 9, 2004)

It is called excelcior, you can get it at a crafts store. I personally dont like using it, I use coffee filters instead.

Neil


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## MJ (Jun 16, 2005)

I beat you all hahahahahahahaaha

read this thread

http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10240


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## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

coffee filters it is

how long will one of these cultures last? I'm going to start another one right away, so I have 2 going all the time

I also have pinheads on the weekends avalible, fridays only, just in case


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## MJ (Jun 16, 2005)

have a read of the food forum available below:


http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=13


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Better by far is parchment paper, cut 4 inches x the length of the paper, usually 18 inches and folded in an accordion 3/4-1 inch strips, then partially opened and held into the media by sinking it to the bottom of the cup when the media is still wet/fresh made. Understood? put it in vertically and it will never collapse (which coffee filters do)

Shawn


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## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

> Excelsior. Wood shavings, pine I believe


I believe aspen, not pine.


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## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

The faq does not address temp, what's the temp range on these little buggers?

I want to keep them in the garage, so I can dust them there, and contain them in case some escape

but the garage can get cold, but they would be over my fishtank sump, which keeps that end of the garage fairly warm, 78 degree reeftank water


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## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

Aspen, that's right, thanks. That temperature should be fine. There is a page out there that talks about temperature and reproductive rates, but 78F should be close to perfect. I'll see if I can dig up the link.

Edit: Here's some links:

http://biol1.bio.nagoya-u.ac.jp:8001/~s ... log16.html (about 3/4 way down in Celsius though)
http://flystocks.bio.indiana.edu/culturing.htm (also in Celsius)


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## Guest (Nov 30, 2005)

garage is more like 65 this time of the year, the water is 78 which heats that area up


I have a closet, I think I'm gonna put a shelf in and keep them in there, do the cultures need light?


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## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

No, they don't need light.


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

Shawn--Parchment paper sounds great, since it doesn't get soggy, but isn't it rather expensive? 

I've noticed that different brands of excelsior seem better than others. I recently came across a brand called "American Moss" that holds up better than the others I've tried. It doesn't even state that it is a wood product, let alone which wood, but it obviously is shredded wood and not any kind of moss. 

I've found that coffee filters get soggy rather quickly, but have also used cones of crumpled brown paper grocery bags, toilet paper and paper towel cores set upright. I think I like the latest excelsior best so far, but keep experimenting with different stuff. I've even used Easter basket "grass." All have worked to some extent or another except my trial of dried "Spanish Moss," which got pretty gooey.

In my experience, the fruit flies do O.K. in a dark cupboard, but seem to reproduce faster and more efficiently with light. Since I have about 30 cultures going at any one time, I start the new ones in the light and higher heat (70 to 76 degrees) and then relegate them to the dark and cooler cupboard about the time I'm feeding from them.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

30 cultures! wow

I dont plan on more than 2, how much do these frogs eat?


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

I actually use nylon mesh screening that i used to seperate my gravel from substrate, i just cut off a piece roughly in the shape of a square, then cut a large hole in the middle of it. Then i either press it into the media, or fill the container with a lil water, put the mesh in there then pour the dry media all around it, then pour off any excess water or add a little more media.


You will need more then 2 cultures probably for 1-3 frogs. Best would be to have 3 or 4 going but to have one of them just started, one up for a few days, another up a few days longer, and one or two thats already been producing well. Basically you just want to time your cultures so you always have flies. with just 2 you may find you have a ton of flies for a week or two then you go nearly a week with hardly any, and its feast or famine for your frogs. Also its good to have an extra culture or 2 if one or more of your others crash unexpectedly.

Right now i find myself with less flies then i need, cuz i got lazy making new cultures, i should have tons of flies in the next few days but for the last week i havent had alot to feed my frogs. But i do have several spring tail cultures and local sources for small or pin head crickets so im ok. Also one trick you can use is to make a culture in a small container and place it in your habitat, you will get maggots alot faster then you will flies and the frogs will get a food source faster then if u just wait for flies to start appearing. The down side is you may get ff's loose in your house. But usually i already have that problem and placing a culture in the cage actually helps cuz it attracts all the wild flies into the cage.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

IMO Parment paper is worth the $. Get a generic brand from a dollar store or bulk at Sams club...that helps. 

I also have started puting my cultures in a warmer environment (80F) to get started and then put them in the frog room 68-72F this time of year, once they get going. The warmth definately helps them progress faster. 

I make 10 or so cx per week and keep them 4-6 weeks or so....

S


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

megadeth said:


> 30 cultures! wow
> 
> I dont plan on more than 2, how much do these frogs eat?


Lol I'm making 30-40 new cultures per week so at any time I probably have 120-150 running :shock: You'll need to experiment with how many cultures you need for your number of frogs - my own bias is that it is better to have too many flies than not enough, particularly early on with keeping PDFs. 

I strongly recommend being systematic in terms of setting up new cultures - otherwise you might find that you are on the short end of the stick if cultures crash, etc. I know that when I first started out doing FF cultures I was not systematic and I was not happy about the results. 

Good luck!

Bill


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

How many cultures will I need to supply 2-3 frogs?


I have 1 established and 2 started


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## dmatychuk (Apr 20, 2005)

> my own bias is that it is better to have too many flies than not enough, particularly early on with keeping PDFs.
> 
> I strongly recommend being systematic in terms of setting up new cultures


Good advice! I believe the more ff you have also helps you with dusting, which you should be doing regularly. Having a lot makes it easier and then you don't have to feel like dumping all the ff in the tank which ends up dumping all the remaining powder. If you have more than enough than you can just shake in the top guys.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

I would suggest (and this is just my opinion as opposed to established fact) that you consider making 3-4 new cultures per week in the short term. This will allow you to 1) get a better sense of the fly culture cycle under your conditions, i.e. productivity, longetivity of the culture and 2) blunts the impact of losing 1 or 2 cultures to mold or a crash in production.

Yeah you will have more flies than you need at first if things go well. But most people don't stop with 2-3 PDFs and my own personal experience is that you make the most mistakes with FF cultures early on so you do lose a couple of cultures now and then.

Bill


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## dmatychuk (Apr 20, 2005)

2 is good but like bill said, make 2 each week as a regular habit and see how it goes. You may end up cutting back to 1 depending on what yields you get.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

How many flies do you feed per frog per day?

The faq doesnt really talk about that, ie what constitutes overfeeding, or is that possible provided you wait until there's only a few flies left in the tank


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

sports_doc said:


> IMO Parment paper is worth the $. Get a generic brand from a dollar store or bulk at Sams club...that helps.
> 
> S


I've tried parchment paper, but my media gets too soupy. The coffee filters at least soak up some of the extra water. I liked the production with the parchment paper, though.

What ratio of water to dry medium do you recommend if using parchment paper?


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Rob
I am not sure I can give you an exact ratio of water:media. 

Parchment doesn't soak up the extra water like coffee filters do.
As an alternative, you might try brown paper bags, cut appropriately.

I run my media dryer with the parchment, preferring to spray it if needed later on than having to deal with soup.

Do you eat Cream of Wheat? Make some, nice and creamy then let it sit for 20 min or so....that is the consistency I start my media. I have to actually push the parchment into the media to get it to stay.

S


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## dmatychuk (Apr 20, 2005)

> Yeah you will have more flies than you need at first if things go well. But most people don't stop with 2-3 PDFs and my own personal experience is that you make the most mistakes with FF cultures early on so you do lose a couple of cultures now and then.


Again Bill is right on and having more is better because problems can happen and you just don't want to get caught.


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

Having too many flies in culture (from not feeding from a culture due to having too many cultures) can produce less production. So you have to be careful of that. Also, having a lot of flies on hand usually leads to over feeding.

I personally only make 4 cultures about twice a week for my 30+ frogs. But, I never lose any cultures to mold or mites.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

How do you know if your over feeding?


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## MJ (Jun 16, 2005)

fat frogs that cant put thier front feet on the ground and have to wash thier selfs with a rag on a stick lol seriously if your frogs get overly fat your over feeding also id there is so many flies they crawl all over the frog


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

If there are flies left over when you go to feed again, you are overfeading. After a while you will get the picture of a healthy looking frog. You don't want your frog sitting on a pile of flies with them crawling all over him. You want your guy to get off his fat butt and do a little hunting to get some flies.


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

I have about 50 dart frogs in 12 different tanks, so do keep a lot of cultures going--spaced at about 5 new ones every 5 days or so. However, it's not so much that they eat a lot, but occasionally cultures will fail for some mysterious reason, and it's nice to have some back-up cultures going. I've never actually counted the number of flies they eat, which varies according to the frogs' size, of course. I would guess that something like a leucomelas eats perhaps 30 flies a day, and my galactonotus eat more than that. I rather over-do it with so many 32 ounce cultures, but after a couple of experiences of running short, would rather err on the side of too many rather than too few. In the galactonotus paludarium, the fish share them, as well. For two frogs, I would keep about four cultures going, spaced at perhaps 8 to 10 days between renewals.


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