great fruitfly media

[geganewt]

that is the best media i've found

1tblsp wheat germ
1tblsp ground unsalted peanuts (not peanut butter, it doesn't work at all)
1/2 a banana
1/8 a packet of active dry yeast

mix it all to gather and stir it down every time it rises (every hour or so) till it doesn't rise any more
add 10 or 12 fruitflies and cover with some filter paper

it make huge amounts of flies, my container is fill to the brin with fly pupa
and it doesn't smell to bad, the only is it takes a wile to produce (like a week)

[geganewt]

i got the recipe mixed up it's 1/4 a banana

[otterwoman]

Do you grind up the peanuts yourself? And how finely?

[morg]

Never heard of using peanuts in fruit fly cultures before lol.
Through the years ive tried out lots of cultures for raising , and have to admit that all i use know for fruit flies is banana and yeast, and all i use now for waxmoth larvae is bran and honey.
Both of these work perfectly well if the culture vessels are kept clean while setting the cultures up

[geganewt]

i did grind them my self and pretty fine, it still had a few very small chunks, just put them in a plasic bag and smash them with a hammer until it sticks to gather or use a morter and pistal (that's what i did). The organic peanut butter might work but couldn't have any preservetive

[geganewt]

uh...i may have mess it up again, you may have to double the wheat germ and peanuts. It should look
brown and have lots of specks in it, if it doesn't add more wheat germ and peanuts

[Jennewt]

When you said that it "takes a while to produce", do you mean that it takes a while for the flies to start hatching? Or that it takes a week of stirring until it's ready to use? I hope you don't have to stir it every hour for a week! How long do you have to stir it?

[geganewt]

i do mean it takes a while for the flies to hatch and just stir it for a day (or until it stays down)
this recipe is for people with pretty limited space, i put it in an empty one of those carnivorous plant containers (the rectangle prismatic ones that they sell at Lowe's, the small one) but the main point is it make lots of flies in a small space

[azhael]

Personally i have had horrible results with banana. Nearly no flies produced.
I´ve had my best results with potato flakes.

[morg]

Everybody seems to have a favourite method, and one that works best for them.
potato flakes is one of the many methods ive tried, and although it produced a good amount of flies,the smell was horrific, no matter how many flies i used to start the culture.
the bananas i use are aged brown ones that i have frozen, then defrost before use.
I generaly put a few folds of kitchen paper in the bottom of the culture vessel, drain as much juice as i can from the defrosted banana,add that , add small amount of dried yeast, some crumpled kitchen paper[so the flies dont stick to the banana], leave for a few hours then add flies.
a simple method that i have found to be effective, and if enough flies are added to start with, there is not much smell either