Making Cultures & Caring for Cultures

If you would like to start your own cultures of feeder insects, for either fruit flies or springtails, both are fairly simple and will save you money.  

FRUIT FLY MEDIA

The media for fruit flies is a simple recipe that I got from Understory Enterprises Inc's website and modified a little:

Here is the recipe from their site:

An easy recipe is as follows:

1. Blend together roughly equal parts Banana and Applesauce. When these are blended stir in oatmeal (some cheap variety; plain oatmeal flakes). Mix the oatmeal until the mixture becomes a wet dough-like consistency. (Potato flakes could also be used here)
2. At this time mix in a table spoon of baking yeast. Fish foods can also be added if you like. From here, find some old bottles, (Snapple Juice bottles, Mason jars etc.) and put about an inch of the mix in the jar, then sprinkle on top of the mix a few grains of yeast.
3. This next step is important, allow the culture to sit out/open for about 20-24 hours. This allows the yeast to react and release carbon dioxide. Adding the flies before the CO2 has had a chance to dissipate will cause the flies to suffocate.
4. Next add the flies, about 30-40 flies is fine to start a new culture. Then place a layer of cloth with an elastic band over top of the opening, and place the culture in a warm dark place. (75-80F is fine).

Our modifications are that we buy ripe bananas from the discount bins in grocery stores, peel and freeze the bananas. We do that because the bananas are super ripe, we can build up a good supply of bananas for our next batch. Freezing the bananas first, then thawing them, brings out a lot of sticky water so we know how much we will need to thicken the mix so the media isn't watery when thawed. 

We add in apple cider vinegar or white vinegar, which is supposed to help keep the cultures from molding. We also add cinnamon, which I am told should go on top to prevent mites, but we mix it right in because it makes the cultures smell better... at least for a while.

We make huge batches of media every couple of weeks and freeze them in deli cups . How often we need to make it varies depending on our sales. 

For us, it's worth the hassle of making our own media versus the expense of buying powder formulas (like Repashy Superfly). 

What you choose to do is completely up to you. It will be a matter of time and mess vs expense and ease. 

SPRINGTAILS

Springtails are pretty easy to feed, we simply give them bakers yeast every few days. There are several ideas of what to feed, from mushrooms to fish food to a more complex recipe with different grains and dried veggies. We've tried a lot of different recipes but found brewers yeast or bakers yeast works best for us. Even nutritional yeast will give a bit of a boost sometimes.

There are several ways to culture springtails from varying sizes of charcoal (chunk charcoal to filter charcoa) to baked soil. Make sure whatever you choose to culture you springtails on is safe (ie no fertilizers in soil, no charcoal that isn't natural hardwood). Rinse charcoal to remove dust and bake soil to remove any organic material that may be harmful to the culture. 

VITAMINS/SUPPLEMENTS

There are a variety of vitamins on the market and we have tied many of them. For a good basic calcium supplement that has what your frogs require, Repashy Calcium Plus is a good choice. 

If the frogs are going through heavy breeding times, adding vitamin A is helpful but only used every 2 weeks, generally. Vitamin A toxicity can happen fairly easily so don't make it a daily supplement. 

We use, or have used, a variety of supplements (Repashy, Repti-Cal, Dendrocare, Ranarium, Arcadia etc.) and a variety of schedules but we mainly stick to feeding/supplementing adult frogs every other day and froglets every day.

Vitamins should be replaced every 6 months, or sooner, as they get old and lose their strength. Refrigerate to keep the vitamins from degrading as quickly. Vitamins and supplements should not be pre-mixed, mix only when feeding or alternate between feedings if you are using several supplements.