How to Culture Fruit Flies?

dacrazycanadian

dacrazycanadian

Established Member
Hi everyone!

Once again I'm posting to gain some knowledge into what to do when the panther babies hatch. Since I assume as babies they will only be eating fruit flies until they get bigger (correct me if I'm wrong) I was wonder how do you culture fruit flies for them successfully?

I saw a video on josh's frog's (link below), is this basically the same for panther chameleons or does the substrate and other stuff have to be different? I don't want to feed toxic flies to my first set of babies, you know?

http://www.joshsfrogs.com/food-nutrition/feeder-insects-supplies/fruit-flies-culturing-supplies-2.html

Thank you,
Damion
 
simca357 said:
hi im planning on breeding chams too.. is it true that they only eat fruit flies as hatchling? O.O
Click to expand...

Babies are no different then adults. They will attempt to eat anything they can pull to their mouth. Fruit flies are the easiest and cheapest food item to provide.

Depending on the species you can offer couple day old silkworms, pin head to few day old crickets, or aphids. Just like with adults variety is important.

Carl
 
Thank you guys. Much appreciated.

Where would you recommend me ordering my first culture from though? And is it also possible to order them in bulk or does the quick life cycle mess that up? And lastly how long are they usually eating these, few weeks or a couple months?
 
I would get a kit if I were you to start - It's good to have a few in various stages of hatching- I had 3 going when I had one baby jackson - too many fruit flies in a culture or too few causes them to fail (at least that was my experience) My jackson would eat them up to about 6 months but jacksons don't grow as fast - My panther wouldn't look at them at about 3 or 4 months -
With a kit you can start a couple and use what hatches to start more cultures and experiment with some of the homemade recipes. How fast they hatch depends on what temps they are kept at - as long as you don't feed off all the fruit flies they will continue to produce for about a month. You want to feed off of the culture about every 3 or 4 days to give it time to hatch out more - and have some spare containers to put in any over flow- the dry mix last for quite a while.
My jackson got pinheads a few days after I got her and she was only about two weeks old - I didn't have much luck keeping them alive for long though - and the shipping killed me -If you can hatch your own crickets it's the way to go with crickets -
I ordered stabble flies from mantis place at about a month and they worked well for me - but they don't keep as well as bluebottles.
 
Josh's frogs. Start by buying 4 or 6 producing cultures. Take 1 or 2 of the cultures and use those to seed the new cultures you make. Start new cultures every one or two weeks depending on how many babies you have to feed.

Follow the link Scott posted when making your own new cultures.

Carl
 
I will have like 30+ babies to feed so still go with 4-6 producing cultures? Or more? Or should I have just a few be producing and the rest be not? And I'm assuming I go with the smaller fruit flies first or are the bigger species still small enough?
 
Josh's is a good source. I have been culturing ffs for my dart frogs for over 10 years and it's pretty easy. There are two species of ffs typically available - hydei and melanogaster. The hydei are larger, have wings, and are flightless. I have found that they take about a week longer (4 weeks) to start really producing, but they are more productive than melanos. However, their cultures tend to smell more than melanos. Melanos are smaller and wingless. You might want to get some of both and start feeding with the melanos.

Good luck!
 
If I go with the Josh's Frogs setups would I use that bug cutter powder or whatever that is that fights off mites? Or is that toxic to chams?
 
I prefer anti mite paper because you can easily line the shelves of all the insects you keep.

Carl
 
dacrazycanadian said:
I will have like 30+ babies to feed so still go with 4-6 producing cultures? Or more? Or should I have just a few be producing and the rest be not? And I'm assuming I go with the smaller fruit flies first or are the bigger species still small enough?
Click to expand...

You should be fine starting with the larger hydei for panther babies.

The more producing cultures you start with the better. How ever many you do get set a couple of them a side to use for seeding the cultures you are going to start.

Carl
 
Hydei is fine for baby panthers, stagger start times on new cultures so that they all aren't peaking at the same time. Also try bean beetles I love them they're about the same size as hydei.

Scott
 
CarlC said:
I prefer anti mite paper because you can easily line the shelves of all the insects you keep.

Carl
Click to expand...

Where would I find anti mite paper? And I do have a 2 year old in the house so would it be preferred to use the "bug blade"? Or is it not healthy for the chams still? Also *stupid question* but are the premade cultures already done setting up in this aspect, or would I for some reason need to use the "blade"?
 
Sorry for all the questions guys but I have one more:

This is another dumb question, but do I supplement the FF with the vitamins and calcium for babies as I would my adults or is their ratio different than the D3 and Multi twice a month and No D3 all other days?
 
I get the paper from Black Jungle. It would easy enough to keep the cultures on a high shelf so the little one wouldn't get to it. You would need to keep the cultures out of reach anyway.

I have no idea of what the bug blade is so cant help.

Carl
 
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