# mite "free" source of fruit flies



## vjf000 (Jun 14, 2008)

Is it OK to ask for members to PM me with relatively mite free sources of ordering new fruit fly cultures? One place I have used is mite "free" but they really don't know how to ship and 1/2 the cultures come dying or dead. Thank you.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Anyone who has advice for the OP should send it privately.

You can LIST ff vendors all day long - when you proffer an opinion on them, you drift off in to Vendor Feedback land, and VF needs to be proffered in the Vendor Feedback area (or privately).

s


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Why are you having so many issues with fruitflies?

In my experience - you order them once, and then you keep them going by making cultures weekly.

s


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## vjf000 (Jun 14, 2008)

I have trouble with the fruit flies because I keep them in a cabinet and try to keep the humidity high but eventually they produce less, especially in the winter when its hard to keep the humidity high. I put a strong air pump in the cabinet and pump the air outside to reduce the smell, which also dries out the cultures more. It is a difficult balance to keep them viable and they dry out or produce less and I need to order more after 2-3 months. I have tried a humidifier in the cabinet but it soaks everything including the mite paper the cultures are on and recently I have put a plastic container in the cabinet, aerate the water and circulate with a computer fan. Blah, blah, blah. How long can you keep them going for?


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## JeremyHuff (Apr 22, 2008)

You likely won't have mite issues if you toss them by one month old. It is after this time that mites become an issue. I haven't had issues with mites in years by adhering to the one month rule. As for drying out. Add a little extra water than normal and you can tape some of the lid vents or keep them in a sweater box.


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## RobR (Dec 24, 2011)

I bought my first cultures over a year ago and haven't had to buy any since. How often are you making new cultures?


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Or - keep developing cultures in one place, and feeding cultures in another.

Also - when winter comes along - add a little more water to your cultures when you need to. 

I create ff cultures weekly (thankfully not as many as I used to). I use the 2 week old cultures to create new ones, then add a little water to the 2 week old cultures. Those cultures then get moved to the "feeding" culture area.

Keep developing and feeder cultures separate - as Jeremy points out, the older the culture, the more likely you'll get mites. I LIKE having older cultures around - so I keep them in a slightly different locale.

s


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Before I moved 2 years ago - I used the same line of ffs for 15 years!

s



RobR said:


> I bought my first cultures over a year ago and haven't had to buy any since. How often are you making new cultures?


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## vjf000 (Jun 14, 2008)

I can try these techniques and see how it goes. The biggest problem is them drying out
and the smell which I cannot smell but my wife can.............and this is when keeping them in the basement with the setup I described.


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## jeeperrs (Jan 14, 2010)

Many of the above suggestions are right on target. However, you will have to accept there is never a mite free culture. It is all about mite management. The "mite free" cultures tends to be a marketing thing, as everyone will tell you that mites happen.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

And the best way to mitigate the issue is to keep the developing cultures away from the older/feeder cultures. Mites migrate from the older cultures to the new (if given a chance).

I had not been having smell issues until recently. I'm resurrecting my older flax seed ff recipe. I used to use it when I had to make many more cultures. Now that I need to make fewer - I'd been using a bought media. Back to making my own to see if it helps at all.

s


jeeperrs said:


> Many of the above suggestions are right on target. However, you will have to accept there is never a mite free culture. It is all about mite management. The "mite free" cultures tends to be a marketing thing, as everyone will tell you that mites happen.


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## curlykid (Jan 28, 2011)

okay, i'm not sure what smell your wife could be smelling. Aside from home-made media, there's no reason for an odor to be coming from the containers.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Scott said:


> And the best way to mitigate the issue is to keep the developing cultures away from the older/feeder cultures. Mites migrate from the older cultures to the new (if given a chance).
> 
> I had not been having smell issues until recently. I'm resurrecting my older flax seed ff recipe. I used to use it when I had to make many more cultures. Now that I need to make fewer - I'd been using a bought media. Back to making my own to see if it helps at all.
> 
> s


Scott, I had flax seed in my fruit fly recipe, mostly as a thickener, so I could add more water in Colorado's dry winters. 
Ed pointed out to me (and I verified online) that flax seed is quite rich in Tocopherols (a form of vitamin E). I think you know what that means, but I'll break it down for others.
Fruit flies sequester Tocopherols. This means they do not process it, or pass it. Instead, it accumulates in the fruitfly. In it's brief life in the media, the levels of vitamin E in the fruitfly can reach hundreds of times what is found naturally. This is ONE fly, with hundreds of times the amount of vitamin E that it should have. Of course your frogs won't stop at one fly. Your frogs will be consuming as many as possible. That's a lot of vitamin E.
The problem this presents, is actually a bit indirect. Your frogs don't drop dead from an overdose of vitamin E. Instead, the extremely high levels of vitamin E in the frog, will block other vitamins from being utilized properly. Both vitamin A and vitamin D can be blocked. Once the vitamin D is blocked, your frogs can no longer utilize calcium, even though plenty of calcium may be available. Once the blood calcium levels are low enough, you frogs can be stressed more easily, go into spasms, and die.

Obviously, I have chosen to drop the flax seed from my recipe. We all know Ed's sick sense of humor, though. He waited until the day after I made up a couple gallons of dry media, before informing me.  (just kidding Ed!)
I switch back and forth between Repashy Superfly, and a modified, homemade, Carolina media, now.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Many of the folks in the Pacific NW have been using this recipe - for years. We're talking many old timers here. I know they're still selling offspring. 

s


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