Hey all,
Can anyone clear up some TIMINGS for me?
-life cycle
-larva lifetime
-adult lifetime
I have been trying to culture FF cultures for like 9+ months now, and it is just super hit and miss....not that I have a winning culture and a losing culture, but my cultures seem to wave (not in sync) and I can't really predict it...
Perhaps I can explain with an example:
I made 2 cultures on 12/01/11 seeded with like 50-100 FFs.
I fed out of these cultures (alternating) until 12/27.
On 12/27 I made 3 new cultures from the 2 originally made on 12/01.
As of today (1/5/12), 1 of 2 12/01 cultures has a ton of flies, the other is empty/everyone is dead.
1 of 3 12/27 cultures is "filled" but not booming, 1 of 3 has several larva present but the overall population seems about the same as the seed, and the last one is dead (or so it seems).
Now what confuses me is that if I just leave my dead cultures for a week or two, they will pick up again. I understand that this is the larva that was already placed but not yet morphed...but WHY would this happen? if my flies are regularly making new larva there is no reason for the entire fly population to die out before the next larva population morphs in...??
This is how my cultures have been for the past 8 months and I can't figure out if I just misunderstand the life cycle timings or whats up....
I thought it was a 5 day life cycle which should mean that my culture would be getting a noticeable increase roughly every 5 days if i dont feed out of it at all, and this increase should continue until the food/water, mites/etc attack, or it overpopulates itself (which i'm nowhere near), etc.
I've never noticed mites (i don't use mite paper) but I have seen little white specs after around 3 weeks that I assumed were mites...however I have never seen anyting actually moving other than the flies in any of my cultures (mites are visible with the naked eye i thought?)
I'm talkin about D MELA but i dont think it matters....what am I missing?
Can anyone clear up some TIMINGS for me?
-life cycle
-larva lifetime
-adult lifetime
I have been trying to culture FF cultures for like 9+ months now, and it is just super hit and miss....not that I have a winning culture and a losing culture, but my cultures seem to wave (not in sync) and I can't really predict it...
Perhaps I can explain with an example:
I made 2 cultures on 12/01/11 seeded with like 50-100 FFs.
I fed out of these cultures (alternating) until 12/27.
On 12/27 I made 3 new cultures from the 2 originally made on 12/01.
As of today (1/5/12), 1 of 2 12/01 cultures has a ton of flies, the other is empty/everyone is dead.
1 of 3 12/27 cultures is "filled" but not booming, 1 of 3 has several larva present but the overall population seems about the same as the seed, and the last one is dead (or so it seems).
Now what confuses me is that if I just leave my dead cultures for a week or two, they will pick up again. I understand that this is the larva that was already placed but not yet morphed...but WHY would this happen? if my flies are regularly making new larva there is no reason for the entire fly population to die out before the next larva population morphs in...??
This is how my cultures have been for the past 8 months and I can't figure out if I just misunderstand the life cycle timings or whats up....
I thought it was a 5 day life cycle which should mean that my culture would be getting a noticeable increase roughly every 5 days if i dont feed out of it at all, and this increase should continue until the food/water, mites/etc attack, or it overpopulates itself (which i'm nowhere near), etc.
I've never noticed mites (i don't use mite paper) but I have seen little white specs after around 3 weeks that I assumed were mites...however I have never seen anyting actually moving other than the flies in any of my cultures (mites are visible with the naked eye i thought?)
I'm talkin about D MELA but i dont think it matters....what am I missing?