More excelsior or less?

[Steverd]

What is better more excelsior or less in a culture?
I think I use a little less than a baseball size amount per container, but does more or less effect production?

[TropicalDartFrogs]

I've always gone with more but this is just my personal preference. Good question...

[jbherpin]

You don't need a wad of excelsior. What you want is a breathable layer of it. Something the flies will be able to climb on and through. If it is too dense, the flies won't reach the media in a sufficient quantity and you will end up with stalled production.
After the media thickens, shake/tap out the container of loose excelsior, as this has never failed to annoy me when feeding.

JBear

[Shinosuke]

I had an issue with my cultures crashing for a while. Ed learned me that all the excelsior I was using was preventing them from breathing correctly, rotting the excelsior, causing mold build-up and eventual crashing.
I vote for less.

[Steverd]

Yes, makes sense! I am going to start using less and see what happens!

[frogmanroth]

Use more flies.

[jbherpin]

Originally Posted by frogmanroth

Use more flies.

What do you mean?

JBear

[bruce]

I started using those plastic scrubbing pads that are reusable. They seem to have a great surface area when opened up alittle, they are reusable and seem to be the perfect size for normal ff culture vessels.
(I got frustrated with the "save the planet" idea when I was producing bags and bags of waste ff culture vessels as landfill)

[ilovejaden]

I just use coffee filters..2-3 filters per culture..can get 100 of them at walmart for $1.75 -.-

[frogmanroth]

Some people say only 50 flies to start cultures. I make less cultures and seed them heavy 250-300 then I use those for starting the next week and so on and so on. It makes a huge difference for me. I make 6 melo and 6 hydei every week and that's more than enough to feed about 100 adult frogs and when I have a bunch of froglets I just make another couple Melos each week.