# bugs in cultures



## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

I read most of the threads about fungus gnats...but I don't know if what my cultures are infested with are gnats...and I have another real skinny 1/8 inch beetle looking thing that doesn't fly...so whatever bugs I have now are making larvae...every day I take out the cardboard the worms are on or anything that looks like it has any white worms....am really concerned about how to resolve this...and they are also in some of my isopod cultures that are in an entirely different spot in the room. If the worm things are fungus gnats...how did they get into the closed culture containers, in a drawer? And what can I do about getting rid of them??? I HOPE I do not have to throw all my cultures out...a real PITA...


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## Jarhead_2016 (Jan 7, 2010)

I had gnats in my springtail and isopod cultures and never experienced any major issues. Are you concerned about the presence of the gnats or just annoyed by them being there?


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## Jjl (Feb 2, 2014)

Correct me if I'm misunderstanding something. It sounds like you have 3 pests of interest: the tiny beetle, some kind of white worm, and some kind of gnat? 

I doubt you can get many beetle evaluations without pictures (though if they're incredibly small, a good picture may not be possible). What I can say is that fungus gnat larvae are very difficult to see, and, in my experience, are clear--not white.

Did the substrate for your cultures come from the same source? Perhaps there were some eggs that came in with it. That might explain why you have them at different points in the room. 

For what it's worth, I've had closed plastic containers (isopod cultures) get "infected" with fungus gnats. This happens in any enclosure where I use coco fiber, to be honest. The stuff is supposed to be reasonably sterile at purchase, but I have my doubts. 

Fungus gnats love decaying organic matter--so leaf litter, old moist cardboard, coir, ABG, etc. are all fair game. Unless your cultures have really tight seals, they'll always find a way into your cultures. I imagine that even a closed drawer has some kind of small opening somewhere. Thankfully, I've never known them to hurt anything besides carnivorous plant roots (larvae only).

I never have fungus gnats in cultures where I use Turface substrate (shameless plug!). Seriously, I hate using organic substrates and will only use them if absolutely necessary.


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## 55105 (Jan 27, 2015)

I'd say give it a week or so before taking any drastic measures. My experience is pretty limited in dealing with this sort of thing, but they always seem to take care of themselves.

In fact, I just added a new isopod and springtail species to my collection (can't believe I have a collection of bugs now) and had a new type of little flying beetles flying around the house and also in my cultures. They already seem to be gone. I was seeing them several times a day but haven't seen any in several days now.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. Maybe I've been lucky but they seem to just come and go.


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

thank you for the comments...don't think I can stand to let the cultures go without doing something...at the least taking out whatever worms I see...they are white, tubular, and you can see dark dots of their eyes they are about 1/8" long...they LOVE Bug Burger, cardboard sprinkled with yeast, and the food items in general...so am taking all that stuff out and using tweezers picking out others that I see. One of the problems is that the cultures in general seem to be failing--perhaps because of the extra "bugs"? The other bug is segmented sort of, shiny blackish, and it sort of skitters--fast... I do have one master culture which seems totally free of them--right next to the affected ones.....go figure...


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## 55105 (Jan 27, 2015)

Judy S said:


> thank you for the comments...don't think I can stand to let the cultures go without doing something...at the least taking out whatever worms I see...they are white, tubular, and you can see dark dots of their eyes they are about 1/8" long...they LOVE Bug Burger, cardboard sprinkled with yeast, and the food items in general...so am taking all that stuff out and using tweezers picking out others that I see. One of the problems is that the cultures in general seem to be failing--perhaps because of the extra "bugs"? The other bug is segmented sort of, shiny blackish, and it sort of skitters--fast... I do have one master culture which seems totally free of them--right next to the affected ones.....go figure...


My master cultures that are packed never have any other bugs in them. The ones that are new seem to be the most vulnerable. It seems to be absolutely true in my experience that competition keeps other insects from taking over.


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

Jjl--would never have thought about using Turface for a culture...how do you use it...and what other "ingredients" are with it....must be hard to see the springtails!!!


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## Jjl (Feb 2, 2014)

Judy S said:


> Jjl--would never have thought about using Turface for a culture...how do you use it...and what other "ingredients" are with it....must be hard to see the springtails!!!


Just rinse the dust off and put a 2" layer in your culturing bin. Then I dump some horticultural charcoal on top. I do mix in ~40% coir for subterranean bugs like pink springtails, but have found a handful of calcium-bearing clay to be just as, if not more, helpful. If I had to do it again, I'd skip the coir. It just settles on the bottom and looks gross.

A great alternative to the charcoal is just leaf litter on top of the Turface. This is how I set up all my terrariums. Just be careful to use sterilized leaves, this way you can avoid the situation you're in now. You'll get some initial mites using leaves, but if you seed generously, it shouldn't be a long-term problem.

The Turface/leaves method is a fantastic method to breed isopods, too.


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## Lizardguy (May 21, 2009)

OK I am Following this due to I need new ideas on a situation like this which occurred months back, i threw everything out and restarted.


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

I just can't imagine how you could use Turface for a springtail culture...do you do that?


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## 55105 (Jan 27, 2015)

Judy S said:


> I just can't imagine how you could use Turface for a springtail culture...do you do that?


I can't comment on Turface but what I've been using is a very compacted layer of fine coconut coir. I use a potato smoosher thing to pack it down as much as I can and then make little indents for pools of water.

I had my doubts... But I'm never smashing charcoal again! The coconut method is just as affective and even easier to harvest from.

Here's the website I got the instructions from:

www.DartFrog.tk - Springtailguide


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

I think perhaps I have invited guests into the cultures by having a couple of very small holes in the lids....hmmmm....new container lid on my shopping list.....


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Hi Judy, it sounds like phorid flies, sometimes referred to as scuttle flies. If you do a search, you'll see many mentions by Ed over the years, and a few by me, misspelled as phorrid.
Phorrid flies are very fast moving. I mean fast. They are the thumbnails of the fly world. I believe that the "beetle" that you are seeing, is not a beetle at all. They are the adult form of phorid fly. They seem to be more at home on the ground, than they are in the air. They spend a lot of time quickly "scuttling" about the substrate. When they fly, to the untrained eye, they look a lot like a fungas gnat, which accounts for your second bug, the flying "fungus gnat", which is of course, the exact same bug as your "beetle".
Finally, you have the babies, the larval stage of the same bug. The phorid fly larvae are exactly as you describe them.

Unfortunately, they are extremely invasive. When mentioning their speed, I called them the thumbnail of flies. Much like thumbnails, they can squeeze through the tiniest of gaps...or ventilation holes in the lid.
If you were using the .3 micron filters, it would have blocked them, and prevented them from spreading. I'm sorry to say that it is highly likely that all your cultures are contaminated, by the time you put your finger on the problem. I've found that you can let a fungas gnat problem run it's course. Not so with phorid flies. They just keep breeding. Trying to starve them out doesn't work, as the bugs you mean to culture, die off first.

Easiest clean up would be to throw them out, and get all new ones, but it is possible to clean them. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/fo...clean-your-mite-contaminated-springtails.html
Then make sure you keep them clean. http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/food-feeding/94348-3-micron-filters-why-how-where.html


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

am going to Google them....I will let you know what I see!


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

Phorid flies and frogs
Aug
13
by Brian Brown	

Phorid flies are characterized by my colleague, Henry Disney, as the most biologically diverse family of insects. With each passing year, we find more and more unusual lifestyles and larval food preferences that support this statement.

Female Agalychnis spurrelli. Photo by R. Horan III

In the New World tropics, there are a huge variety of frogs found in rain forests. Many of them live in the canopy and come down to the ground level only for mating. Often they lay their eggs on leaves over water bodies, apparently to try and limit depredation by aquatic predators. This creates an opportunity for phorid flies.

My co-author, Robert Horan III, found that eggs of the gliding leaf frog, Agalychnis spurrelli, were turning a strange white color in his study on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. Further investigation showed that maggots of a small fly were eating the eggs. He reared some adults, sent them to me, and they turned out to be a new species that we named Megaselia randi. The name was a tribute to an influential herpetologist, Stan Rand, who helped Robert in his early career.

Healthy frog eggs. Photo by R. Horan III.

Infected frog eggs. Photo by R. Horan III.

This is not the first instance of phorid flies feeding on frog eggs in Latin America. Frogs in two other genera, Phyllomedusa and Leptodactylus, are also attacked. A colleague of mine recently contacted me about a frog egg feeding species in Ecuador.

Phorid larvae in eggs. Photo by R. Horan III.

There are probably thousands of species of Megaselia in the Neotropical Region, most of which are unknown, and the lifestyles of the 350 or so known species are also relatively unstudied. It is possible that among them there are a whole range of flies attacking frog eggs. Herpetologists, keep the possibility of phorid flies in your mind!

Reference: Brown, B.V. & R.V. Horan, III. 2011. A key to Neotropical Region frog-egg-feeding species of Megaselia (Diptera: Phoridae), with a new species from Panama. Contributions in Science. 520: 1-4
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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

what I saw re the "beetles" didn't look at all like the bug stage...the bugs I have actually look like anorexic ants without any antenna...they run too fast to catch damnit.... And will have to catch a couple of the FF invaders to look more closely...Thanks Doug...the true bug man......


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

okay...caught one of the damn flies..one yesterday that was dead today so I could really take a look at it...and I believe Doug is correct...and it was distressing to read that the larval stage is 170 hours to fly stage.....and that 500 eggs can be laid by 1 female, and that the eggs are invisible to the naked eye...great......gotta ponder my options......


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

Doug...if I keep pulling the larvae that is on any food item out...I've already taken the cultures to the back porch and blew on them to encourage the fliers to leave...will I be able to salvage them? How can I eliminate whatever flies are out and about? Should I close the vent holes in any culture top? Can they breed through the typical culture cup top that has the fiber? So pleased that you chimed in...I already have the micron filters on hand, but never used them--never have had a problem up 'til now....funny that will two plant grow out tanks do not have any of them...just the damn spiders that take over the frog room...


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## Judy S (Aug 29, 2010)

I gave up...threw out all my spring cultures and most of the iso cultures...am going to sterilize the containers and start over. Looking forward to meeting up with Michael Shrom at Hamburg...am really depressed by the whole thing.....and two master cultures seemed to be doing great...went to feed them this a.m.--every springtail was dead...what the hell?


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