In this video, I demonstrate how to remove fruit flies from cultures, how to dust them with calcium, and how to feed them out to dart frogs! I include some tips I've picked up in my years of keeping dart frogs!!
Great video! I just subbed...being that I'm a brand new owner of 2 dart frogs. I spent the last 2 months building a paladarium from scratch and today was the day I introduced the frogs! I bought a fruit fly culture today and will definitely be looking to self-culture, so thanks a million in advance!
thanks for this video. I have jumping spiders, mourning geckos, wolf spiders, and gold dust day geckos they all get fruit flies as one of the feeders. no dart frogs yet. your video is informative and helpful.
Excellent video. I have my Vivarium all established and will soon be buying frogs. Your very knowledgeable, most of my questions get answered just by watching. Thanks!
dbcooper1961 7 months ago Excellent video. I have my Vivarium all established and will soon be buying frogs. Your very knowledgeable, most of my questions get answered just by watching. Thanks!
Researching fruit flies always gets me results that are absolutely bonkers to me. I get that most people buy these things for dart frogs and those things eat a ton each feeding, but i'm just trying to feed little baby jumping spiders that will eat maybe one fruit fly a day, lmao. They reproduce faster than my spider can eat, and trying to just get one fruit fly out at a time is an ordeal. It's easy with the little vials of melanogaster you can just buy at pet stores, but they don't seem to make those for Hydei fruit flies and my spiders are getting too big for melanogaster.
I use a medium sized sterilite tote with tall walls instead of a sink.(they breed in sinks I'm convinced) I have a stack of three 16oz containers 32oz would work too. In a stack I shake the flies into the first one then shake all the ones that got out in the tote back into it and apply vits, then I try to carefully shake the flies into the second to remove most of the extra powder. From there I go tank to tank and tap from the second into the third to feed each tank by the last one I can separate all the extra powder I missed along the way. My plants do not do well with that powder on them or they just look ugly at the front of the tank. Always try and recycle your cups and lids. What I do is once I know a culture is done I put it in the freezer for a day to kill everything then put some bleach and water to fill the cup let it sit for the afternoon the lid will get ugly but don't worry. Go dump the contents outside and spray the containers with the garden hose to remove all the left over pupates. Wash with dish soap and then take the lids and soak them in a 10% bleach solution for a few hours and spray don't scrub it will ruin the filter material repeat as necessary for me twice. I get dozens of uses out of mine.
Hello! I had a question regarding feeding pinhead crickets. From my understanding, don’t they eat ants, termites, beetles, etc in the wild? Compared to crickets, aren’t the exoskeletons of those all much harder than crickets? I always thought of crickets as soft bodied. I haven’t researched anything on this though, so just curious if you think crickets would be harder on the digestive track than their wild diet?
I have a question so a couple of weeks ago I found tadpoles in my pool and I have been raising them. One of them just turned into a frog and I was just worried Will the flys escape from the mesh topping of the cage? I have like a 20 gallon enclosure (long) with mesh topping? Thanks so much.
wow thats exactly what i been trying to figure out is how many cultures i would be needing to make. im about to be making a order for 2 or 3 dendrobates tinctorius azureus
I was doing it this way until I got a bit smarter about the loss that occurs. I now place the dust in a Rubbermaid container then place that in my bathroom sink. I shake the flies into the rubbermaid, close the fly container and then shake the rubbermaid to dust the flies. I then tap the flies into my smaller feeding container. Now less wasted dust and flies.
My fruit fly cultures tend to crash early on. I rarely see fruit flies emerge from the pupate stage. I'll just have hundreds of shells in the container. Any tips on what to do?
I think they're cute and a littleannoying to handle, obviously they're everywhere if you don't keep an eye on it 😂 But those who can fly! Uuuugh I really really hate those 😅😤 Almost was a disaster when I cultured some today but I managed to catch some who tried to escape and a lot I pretty much squeezed a little too hard😬
A culture of mine is doing something I wasn't expecting. The flies seem lethargic. I am feeding them to praying mantids and a surprising number of mantids are dying. Could the 2 problems be related?
Thank you so much this video is exactly what I was looking for! I have a baby tarantula who I've been feeding these flightless fruit flies too but I was making a huge mess and killing a lot of them as they jumped away -_- Doubt anyone will see this, but tarantulas don't really have as strict of nutritional requirements.. do you think I could get away with using something like flour to dust the flies?
tarantulas don't need calcium or vitamins dusted on their food on there is actually a bit of controversy over whether or not additional calcium would have bad side effects on tarantulas. most spiderlings can take on crickets or small dubias unless theyre under say 1/4"
Very informative Could you explain at what week would you use flies to restart another culture at? Do you think its possible to harvest the maggots to feed as well and how?
That depends but usually in my experience 2 maybe three. Always make more cultures than you think you can use each week. Shit happens cultures crash and you don't have to stress yourself trying to feed. If you end up with too many, the extra ones can be put in the freezer to well lets be honest neutralize them. Also you need to leave flies in the cultures to continue breeding the next wave. In my area a culture from the store is like $10 I can make them for say $1 so always make more than you need so you don't have to run to the store in an emergency.
@@badmandansanchez1823 Yeah I've been trying to get by with one culture a week with 7 dart frogs. I'm gonna start culturing two. Because I've been feeding more than 3 times from each culture per week since I keep running low.
How about with flying fruit flies? I have a flying fruit fly culture that's getting a bit old and would like to move them but am not sure how to without them flying all over. Please help, I've got a video of them on my channel.
It looked like you took almost all of the fruit flies out of each culture, when you go to feed again will you be using the same cultures or are you using different ones?
There are likely tons of larva ready to hatch in the coming days but it is wise to leave some flies to make the next generation and to populate new cultures
Is there a risk of the flies' next generation randomly re-developing wings? I once tried culturing flightless fruit flies as fish food, but after two generations some of them started hatching out with functional wings and they were soon flying everywhere. I have no clue what happened 😂
Do you dust for praying mantids? We have 3 2 week olds and just got our culture today. Been trying to feed baby mealworms but not digging them too much. Help!!
Go to a bait and tackle and ask for maggots. Spikes. Cut their heads off and touch the insides to their mouths. They’ll start eating. Also baby dubias are loved by all my mantids.
Is there a typical disease frogs can get? Like on fish you might have white spot ....I guess that is what it is called ...keep up the the good work ...again ...greetz from Holland
My parents hate fruit fly’s. They won’t let me culture them even in the garage what’s a good idea to convince them to allow me to culture flys. I know how to care for dendrobeates so I would like to buy some
Cost of up keep is almost nothing. Or more importantly if you get a larger reptile that requires crickets your parents would wish they had fruit flies. Crickets are just horrible in ever conceivable way. The stench alone
Start talking about culturing roaches for a couple weeks, then switch back to Flies. Most would much prefer the idea of fruit flies compared to roaches. Lol
Jake's Reptiles it's just a precaution against mites. All of the mite infestations I've experienced throughout the years have led me to some of these such practices... I'm grossed out by the older cultures possibly being covered in mites, and also I hate getting things under my nails. Gloves kill all these birds with one stone! Helps me work quickly and more efficiently. I work in food service so gloves are an extension of me at this point!
They are likely Tinctorious azureus one of the best starter frogs. Very hardy compared to others. I keep at this point 5 types of darts and continually research them I'd be glad to try and answer your questions. I'm a year in now I've picked up a lot of knowledge and have a local group of enthusiasts to draw from. Hope they are doing good so far.
