9 replies to this topic

[PTAntFan]

I have not had these long enough to know their longevity (claim 5 weeks), but the first issue I see is that within a few days there were countless flies hatching.  That's problematic if they all hatch within a week and then you have none left.

 

Two, they're NOT flightless.  I'd call them flight-limited.  These things jump. A lot!  It makes an interesting challenge for my ants but delivering the flies to my ants is problematic to say the least.

[MrmrGatlin]

Haha a new breed, the latest in athletic insects, jumping flies!!! 

[Saftron]

Yeah I was deciding on buying fruit flies or mealworms from petco and the flies were jumping for days! So I just bought the mealworms from Petco

[MrmrGatlin]

Nice! I've been considering picking up some meal worms and starting a culture. Currently I have a white dwarf isopod culture starting up but they take their sweet time. I have about 100 that just hatched from the few adults I was able to find. I think once the growth starts to compound that it'll work out great though.

[Batspiderfish]

I have a two-culture D. melanogaster setup (started from a PetCo culture) that works pretty well. I harvest the whole lot of the flies a while after the first adults emerge. A portion of them are used to seed the new culture, and the rest are frozen. I have to set up a new culture every two weeks, but that's with an organic medium. Drosophila are a favorite food for all of my ants.

[PTAntFan]

I have a two-culture D. melanogaster setup (started from a PetCo culture) that works pretty well. I harvest the whole lot of the flies a while after the first adults emerge. A portion of them are used to seed the new culture, and the rest are frozen. I have to set up a new culture every two weeks, but that's with an organic medium. Drosophila are a favorite food for all of my ants.

 

Can you please either post here or send me DM some pictures and further details?  I would love to replicate.

[drtrmiller]

Easily preserve fruit flies for months from only a single culture:

Simply take a test tube and funnel, and shake the flies into the tube. Plug the tube air-tight and freeze.

 

A rubber plug may work better than a polyethylene stopper to keep the contents sealed and fresh.  Ensure the contents never thaw prior to use, so that they stay separated in the tube and easy to dispense.

Edited by drtrmiller, August 19 2016 - 4:04 PM.

[PTAntFan]

SO OBVIOUS!  duh.

[PTAntFan]

Thanks for helping my silly brain Dr. T.  But I am still interested in the culturing method.

[Batspiderfish]

They grow very well in just about any oxygenated jar or container. You can put a half-inch or so of nutritious medium (I just use instant potato flakes and homemade kombucha or organic cider vinegar) and then push in some coffee filters: done deal.

 

I was silly once and 3d printed a shape to fit the interior of one of my Drosophila cultures, but I gave the object no walls and a light infill that made an awful and deliberate mess of a tower as it printed. It's not the hardest thing in the world to clean (PLA, so hot water softens it), but it's so much more convenient to just throw away coffee filters.

Edited by Batspiderfish, August 19 2016 - 6:05 PM.