# Bad Smelling FF Culture



## bobberly1 (Jul 16, 2008)

I used the following recipe for a fruitfly culture.

_Banana and Apple Sauce Mix 
by Anthony Hundt 

1 cup banana (about 2 bananas) 
1 cup apple sauce 
1/8 cup vinegar (or 2 tablespoons or 15 ml) 
2 cups oatmeal 
a few granules of baker's yeast 

Put banana and apple sauce in blender or bowl and mix until the banana is liquified. Heat in the microwave for approximately 2 min. or until hot enough to kill off any wild fruit fly eggs that were in the bananas, and to reduce mold. Add the vinegar and mix in oatmeal until it becomes firm, but still moist. Put the mixture in wide mouth quart canning jars and allow to cool. Once cooled, add the yeast and flies. Any unused media can be frozen until needed._ 

Soon the walls were covered with pupae. As the first ones hatched, an unpleasant smell began to emerge. By the time most of them had hatched it smelled unbearably bad. All of the flies are fine however, and there aren't any visible contaminations. What's up?


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## bobberly1 (Jul 16, 2008)

Nobody?


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

Generally if it smells unbearable, you should throw it out. A strong cheese or rotten fruit smell is all you should smell from it. Be sure and sanitize your hands properly when making and handling cultures. Also, adding more vinegar and excluding the yeast has done wonders for my homemade cultures.


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## Pirateglow (Jul 29, 2008)

I just use potato flakes, sugar, yeast. I stopped using the fruit because it seemed to be source of the smells. These cultures don't smell too bad, but they don't last as long as the fruit ones. They produce a huge amount of flies in a very short time.


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## jehitch (Jun 8, 2007)

bobberly1 said:


> I used the following recipe for a fruitfly culture.
> 
> _Banana and Apple Sauce Mix
> by Anthony Hundt
> ...


_

I agree it's probably the fruit. Mine used to smell worse when I used vinegar, too. Since I switched to methyl paraben I haven't had any problem with smell. 
Jim_


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## earthfrog (May 18, 2008)

I used the Power Mix online recipe with grape juice, bananas, apple sauce, potato flakes, etc.---but leave out the yeast and nuke it for 15 seconds after cooking to kill any germs. Then add an extra 2 TBS apple cider and 2 TBS water to the mix. Stir well and allow to cool. The extra vinegar and the high amount of sugar from the grape juice seem to retard bacteria growth and therefore strong smells. 

Yeast can sap the water from your culture and the waste from its fermentation action adds to the smell and builds CO2 inside the container, making it hard for maggots to feed well. It's better to add extra vinegar and water instead. 

I don't advise using methyl paraben, a synthesized chemical, since high concentrations of parabens have been found in human cancer tissue, which suggests that it may be cancer-causing.


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## bobberly1 (Jul 16, 2008)

Can anyone suggest a quality household culture medium?


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## bobberly1 (Jul 16, 2008)

Oops, didn't see that one, earthfrog!


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## barbar0 (Dec 3, 2007)

I have a very easy recipe, and the cultures don't get smelly at all (I keep them in the living room):

Soak oatmeal in 1/3 white wine and 2/3 water, put it in the blender and ad a spoon full of sugar

............................
barbara


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## moothefrog (May 16, 2008)

There is a good culture recipe on brians tropicals.I just use pre-made media,but the next time I run out of media,I've decided to make it.


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## Brock (Jun 29, 2007)

What the H? I thought you HAD to use yeast, preferably brewer's yeast, because that's what the maggots would eat?

Hmm I never knew you could make cultures with 0 yeast.

Interesting. 

I'm going to try a few of these recipes, thanks for this post, my cultures have began to stink too much for my liking too. :lol:


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## flyangler18 (Oct 26, 2007)

> Hmm I never knew you could make cultures with 0 yeast.


FFs bring in their own yeast. The main reason for adding yeast to a culture is to out compete molds and fungus that lead to unpleasant odors.


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