31 replies to this topic

[Foogoo]

What's the difference between the two (other than the obvious)?

[Gregory2455]

Sadly, my Drosophila hydei culture was almost completely wiped out today, I have only ~10 flies left! I moved them to a new culture and they seem to be mating though, so maybe I can get it working again, which I hope because these are the ones I use the most often!

[Gregory2455]

Drosophila melanogaster are smaller and come in a variation without wings- perfect for smaller ants/ colonies.

 

Drosophila hydei come with wings, and some adults even have a mutated gene of even being able to glide, but my larger ants/ colonies love them.

Of what I have seen, about 10% of the adults have the ability to glide, and even jump a few inches off the ground with a boost from wings. As the generations keep coming, weirdly this seems like a recessive trait.

 

I guess I have both because I figured "why not".

Edited by Gregory2455, October 16 2014 - 9:29 PM.

[dermy]

I have gotten a fruit fly culture going from 4 flies greg, 10 should be good. They breed quite quickly.

[Gregory2455]

I know, but I do not know what was killing them out in the first place, so I don't know if it will kill these too. I moved them out of their old culture as I may have mentioned earlier, so hopefully the problem will not have followed them.

[Foogoo]

How do you keep your cultures going? They grow way faster than I can use them and I don't want too many sitting in the freezer. For my next batch, I am thinking of only keeping 10-50 or so flies. That way it will be a few weeks before they enlarge to a full culture again. Has anyone tried that?

[dermy]

I have, they start out slower, but once the first batch is flies they explode again.

[Tpro4]

how to culture them, but first off, how to catch them.

[Gregory2455]

I bought both of my cultures.

[anttics]

I found the holy grail medium for fruit flies. its one ingridient base. its called kifer it's used to make yogurt. it's anti bacterial. anti fongus. Anti mold. it's acid kills most mites.
this is how I do it. put milk on it. let it convert it to yogurt. them wait a bit more until it becomes a paste like liquid.
the kifer will grow too. filter the yogurt. and use the kifer it self. with small amount of thick yogurt you just filter. put sugar or protein powder and whoala. it can be used for months. since it does not decompose or mold.

[Dmitry_serg]

in Russia, the keepers kept a colony of the beetle witch doctor it's good for ants and my parents eating beeeee

[CamponotusLover]

I once got a fruit fly culture from petco, it did pretty well at first but sometimes I have very shaky hands so was hard to collect some when I needed them, it also stank alot. Sadly I left them in an air conditioned room and they all died within a few minutes. I have never been any good with keeping a culture.