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Fruit fly culturing

firedreams

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Hi,

I recently purchased a fruit fly culture for my sals, and I was wondering if I should be adding any food to the culture to maintain it?
 

firedreams

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I was getting about 10-20 adult flies a day for the first 2 weeks of having the culture, and now I am barely getting any. There appear to be a lot of maggots on the glass of the culture jar, but none are turning into flies. I was keeping them in the fridge at first, but have had them out of the fridge for the last few days in the hope of speeding up their maturation, but no luck. Am I doing something wrong?
 

Greatwtehunter

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The fridging definitely slowed down the flies. Mid 70's seems to be the magical temperature range for optimal growth of your culture. Now even though you took them out a few days ago you won't see a noticeable increase in flies until at least a week later, probably 2 though.
 

Adogowo

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LOL not all of us live in climates where fruit flies can be an issue, they die quickly outside of artificial conditions here in Colorado.:D
 

Molch

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I was getting about 10-20 adult flies a day for the first 2 weeks of having the culture, and now I am barely getting any. There appear to be a lot of maggots on the glass of the culture jar, but none are turning into flies. I was keeping them in the fridge at first, but have had them out of the fridge for the last few days in the hope of speeding up their maturation, but no luck. Am I doing something wrong?

Sounds like your culture is winding down. Cultures last about a month or so (depending on container), after that you'll have to set up a new one. So yes, you do need food to do that, and some surviving flies to start a new culture. John's link should lay it all out. You can also buy pre-mixed feeding medium from some online places, or make your own.

And they like it warm! In the fridge they'll stop functioning and may even die.
 

Molch

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okay - just realized I responded to an ancient post. Duh. Nevah mind...
 

Fishfur

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You have to remember, what one country calls a fruit fly, another country calls a pommace or vinegar fly. The Drosphila we culture for live food are not the type of fruit fly, such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, that did so much damage in California to fruit still on the trees, and are terrible agricultural pests in many countries.

North Americans call pomace or vinegar flies fruit flies commonly but they only infest rotting fruit or veggies, not fruit on trees. Different species.

It is not hard to culture the flies. I culture wingless ones and those with stunted wings that don't work. Flies vary also by species. D. hydei has a month long life cycle, so it takes some time to get production going. They don't like it too cold or too hot.

D. melanogaster are smaller than hydei, half the size, and only two week life cycle. Maggots will pupate and hatch into flies in two weeks from the egg hatching into a maggot, or larva. A bit less fussy about temperature but cold will really slow them down too.

If you want a culture to continue producing, you do need to start new ones before the old ones die off. Get a suitable food, either commerical or find a recipe online. Or I can post mine. Add about twenty five or thirty flies to the new culture with a bit of netting or something for adult flies to land on and let them get working. This way you can keep them going for some time. If you have several jars on the go, if one becomes infested or moulded, you have others. If one crashes, you have others.

Melanogaster, I find, is just easier to raise than Hydei, but if you need a larger fly, Hydei is the one you want. They also come in flightless variants.
 
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