# Will darts eat maggots?



## poison_addict (May 17, 2007)

I just bought a new tube of pinheads and put them in the keeper, but when I went to feed them this morning there were maggots on some of the dead crickets that came out of the tube into the tank. I've heard that maggots will swarm anything and eat it, but will the darts eat them or will I have to clean the tank completely?

Thanks,
Jeff


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## melissa68 (Feb 16, 2004)

yes, they will. Hardest part about feeding any type of maggot, is preventing them from crawling into the substrate.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

If they are small enough, the frogs may go after them. Frogs can regularly be fed FF maggots/larvae, but I'd lean away from feeding them the maggots feeding on the dead crickets... those are not flies you want to have around. Make sure to keep your cricket bins clean! As long as the maggots don't have anything to feed on, they may not be an issue, but if it's one of the flies I'm thinking of, they have been the bain of many a zoo and museum collection.


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## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

Yes they will indeed, and I encourage you to do it. There are a few simple techniques. Jon Werner and Darren Meyer gave me this idea. Use a plant stake label. The flat long plastic thing that you write the name of the plant on. They scrape it along the side of a fruit fly container before they pupate. If done well you can even dust them. They nutritional ratios are even different in maggots than flies too.

A simpler method, and one I employ is to simply set a well maggoted culture on it's side. The frogs will have no problem going into the culture and nabbing the squirmy wormies.


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## spydrmn12285 (Oct 24, 2006)

I'm assuming that the frogs won't have problems with the FF media?


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

I would also advise against feeding the maggot found on a dead cricket...crickets are known to carry lots of nasty parasites and or pathogens.
The frogs won't have a problem with a little ff media in their diet.
Actually, when I feed ff larvae, I just put a little glop in, media (containing larvae) and all.
If you have you're tanks seeded with springtails and isopods, usually the next day you will see them cleaning up the leftover media...another bonus...usually, if I have springtails and such to spare, I will feed them to the frogs the day after feeding the ff larvae.
I don't recommend doing that for small quarantine containers though.


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## EDs Fly Meat (Apr 29, 2004)

I've been doing maggot feedings the above way for a few years. So far no problems with media. Frogs are so precise with their tongues anyways.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

i actually find it difficult for my tincs to pick them up with their tongues. It takes them a few tries before they can grab them.

Tricolor seem to be more fond of the maggots than the flies. 

I just scrape them with a tea spoon off the sides of a container and rinse them in a brine shrimp net. Then, I dump them in the frog tanks.


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## poison_addict (May 17, 2007)

WOW!!

I'm sure glad I joined this forum!! You guys are awesome. I'm not too proud to say that I'm extemely new to this and allof the info I'm getting is alot to digest all at once, but very helpful. Sprintails? Isopods? All new stuff to me, and not at my local store. I guess I should let you know what I have in my tank(soon to be converted to a viv). I'll probably get yelled at for this, but like I said I'm new to this and I'm 6'4" 260 and thick skined so I can take it. LOL 

I have a 20 long, with
female green and black auratus(getting extremely fat)
male and female blue and black auratus
male and female six point
male and two female tincs
three red spotted newts

I maintain 80% humidity and I have a Habba mist set to mist every 3 hours for 45 sec. I use gallon bottled drinking water for the mister and the water dish, and have a substrate bottom about 2"deep with that seaweed looking yellow moss on top of it.

I know this is probably irrelevent, but all of the frogs and the newts seem to be living in harmony. The tincs hang in a group of three, they all share the cave together, and generally short of acually smiling, seem very happy.

Ok, bash away. I'm good with constructive criticism. I understand it's not personal, but for the well being of the frogs, and if anyone wishes to call instead of typing a novel, please feel free. 561-389-7184

Thanks,
Jeff


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

My favorite thing about FFs... they are like two feeders in one!

I don't know who I got the recomendation from (been at this long enough that stuff starts meshing together after a while) but I actually was told (and have used) one of the quirks of FF cultures to develop a "feeder larvae" culture. Basically, a regular culture with no excelsior... add flies... when you've got larvae the size that you want to feed your frogs, add water to the media, so it is wetter than they prefer. They climb up the sides due to the wet media (you'll see this anytime you have media that's too wet for them) and you can scrap them off the sides (the plant marker is a good idea... I've used the flat side of a plastic knife, and if you do it a lot, a mini rubber spatula also works well). Dump the clump onto a dish and you're set. Unfortunately, this method makes for wet larvae... they can be harder for a frog to pick up, and not ideal for dusting. If you can dry them off they'd be better for dusting.

I believe the larvae are also relatively gut-loadable? I know I can turn them colors depending on the media  The adult flies are limited in what they eat, so little can be done to "gut load" them, but the larvae are actually eating the media...

I'm not as worried about the pathogens crickets carry as the reason not to feed the cricket eating maggots. We feed crickets to our frogs too, all our feeders can carry pathogens. If they are cultured correctly and cleanly, this is greatly reduced. My worries are the habits of the maggots present on the crickets themselves... they are obviously carnivorous, and carrion flies can be trouble. I had troubles in a lab I used to work in where an outbreak of carrion flies - that originally was most noticable on the dead crickets in the cricket bins - eventually invaded preserved specimens, and even caused problems on live animals... in the case of a copperhead, maggots appeared in her cloaca, and eventually caused enough damage that she died. I consider these flies signs of bad husbandry of the feeders, and would not want them anywhere near my animals. I immediately dispose of/freeze any I kind to stop them from pupating, as a large population in a confined space causes problems.


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