[EvilLost]

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On 12/27 I made 3 new cultures from the 2 originally made on 12/01.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?

 

[oneshot]

One of the more experienced people will chime in, but they're going to want to know the temperature of where you keep them. I found that I was keeping them too cold, once I changed that I really saw them booming...

 

[EvilLost]

I keep them under my grow-lights at 78-80F.


I originally had them slightly higher and ended up drying out (and thus losing) a set of cultures so I learned to move them down. They've been in the same spot for the past 2 months now (with no problems other than the waving mentioned).

Also, I had the same problems before when I kept them on top of my fridge, which was probably the same temperature but 2-3F cooler .... ~76-78F (but i had a temp drop overnight in my house, whereas my growlight is on 24/7)

 

[SnakePaparazzi]

Are you feeding/culling the cultures when they boom or just letting them go? In my experience, if you keep a booming culture and don't feed it out after time, it crashes.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.022665,-117.120849

 

[oneshot]

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.


When you made the culture on 12/1 you didn't immediately start feeding from it, right?

 

[Micro]

here check this out for timing your FF cultures....i found it pretty useful and this chart is if you make 1 new culture a week

 

[BR5]

Quote: Are you feeding/culling the cultures when they boom or just letting them go? In my experience, if you keep a booming culture and don't feed it out after time, it crashes.

Evil: Snake has a point; also various cultures produced at the same time don’t equal simultaneous hatching or success. Could be mold, drying our, mites, temps or just sh*! happening. I normally try to keep 20-25 going and still have times when nothing is hatching and several crash. Try to eliminate the variation by starting with mite paper, not using old cultures to start new ones with etc.

Good luck!
Brian

 

[Ed]

There are probably several factors going on in the issue but let's start with what I think is one of them. If I understand you correctly from the original post you are waiting 26 days before making the new cultures from the old ones (if I've misunderstood my apologies and skip to the next message). This is close to the effective life of a culture, when mite populations are approaching boom time and the flies are often runty or have other issues. This can significantly impact the ability to get new cultures working consistently. Ideally you should start the new cultures closer to the beginning of the culture period and not keeping cultures for more than 30 days (or at least don't keep them near your newer cultures). Ideally don't start them from the first main emergence (or mix it with a culture that is having the second main emergence) as that selects for flies intolerant of the conditions as the cultures get older leading to crashes, you want the cultures to be more stable until the end of the culture's life.

Depending on your needs, you should start new cultures between every 7-12 days so you have a constant supply of them and the ability to rotate out older cultures. I would suggest that you not use any cultures over 20 days old to start new cultures to try and keep the mite numbers down.

Some comments,

Ed

 

[EvilLost]

There are probably several factors going on in the issue but let's start with what I think is one of them. If I understand you correctly from the original post you are waiting 26 days before making the new cultures from the old ones (if I've misunderstood my apologies and skip to the next message). This is close to the effective life of a culture, when mite populations are approaching boom time and the flies are often runty or have other issues. This can significantly impact the ability to get new cultures working consistently. Ideally you should start the new cultures closer to the beginning of the culture period and not keeping cultures for more than 30 days (or at least don't keep them near your newer cultures). Ideally don't start them from the first main emergence (or mix it with a culture that is having the second main emergence) as that selects for flies intolerant of the conditions as the cultures get older leading to crashes, you want the cultures to be more stable until the end of the culture's life.

Depending on your needs, you should start new cultures between every 7-12 days so you have a constant supply of them and the ability to rotate out older cultures. I would suggest that you not use any cultures over 20 days old to start new cultures to try and keep the mite numbers down.

Some comments,

Ed

@Ed: nope you understood pretty much spot on and it sounds very much like you may have nailed my problem.

I do start seeing some white spots on the sides of the cup after awhile, I'm under the impression those are the mites (but they typically don't show up for quite awhile)

 

[Ed]

If you are only seeing them towards the end of the life of the cultures, you have been lucky. Nothing like looking at your cultures and finding that there are white dots crawling all over everything near the cultures.

Ed

 

[kgb]

I got 'bug b gone' paper at home depot and it has worked wonders. My culture that had mites was surrounded by dead mites that tried to escape into adjacent cultures. Use mite paper, dont let cultures touch, keep them above room temp, and make new ones weekly from cultures less than three weeks old

 

[bakaichi]

There are probably several factors going on in the issue but let's start with what I think is one of them. If I understand you correctly from the original post you are waiting 26 days before making the new cultures from the old ones (if I've misunderstood my apologies and skip to the next message). This is close to the effective life of a culture, when mite populations are approaching boom time and the flies are often runty or have other issues. This can significantly impact the ability to get new cultures working consistently. Ideally you should start the new cultures closer to the beginning of the culture period and not keeping cultures for more than 30 days (or at least don't keep them near your newer cultures). Ideally don't start them from the first main emergence (or mix it with a culture that is having the second main emergence) as that selects for flies intolerant of the conditions as the cultures get older leading to crashes, you want the cultures to be more stable until the end of the culture's life.

Depending on your needs, you should start new cultures between every 7-12 days so you have a constant supply of them and the ability to rotate out older cultures. I would suggest that you not use any cultures over 20 days old to start new cultures to try and keep the mite numbers down.

Some comments,

Ed

i agree with ed,
i discard my culture after 4 week , coz at that pint it will be filled with mites.
you can feel them on the outside of the deli cup.

for my my malanogaster start booming at 3 to 4 week and after is pretty much done for the cultures.

but i did receive culter form my friend that continouse to bloom for 3, 4, 5 week. prob due to we use different ratio on media and the cleaniness of cultures. But lot of factor come into play.

 

[EvilLost]

the reason I have been a bit confused about the mites is that everybody talks about them moving / etc.



I get some white dots on the sides of my cultures after a few weeks, but I have never observed any movement...its just some white dots? I can't be that blind but I'll look *REALLY* carefully next time

 

[bakaichi]

the reason I have been a bit confused about the mites is that everybody talks about them moving / etc.



I get some white dots on the sides of my cultures after a few weeks, but I have never observed any movement...its just some white dots? I can't be that blind but I'll look *REALLY* carefully next time

Mites are everywhere no matter where u look,
even if you try you best to prevent them. some will get transfer form old to new culture when you are making new cultres.

mites will gather and populate where the condition are suitable for them. ie our ff cultures. The are smaller enough to get in and out of the vented lids or any small opening.

Like Ed said many time. best way to deal with mite is to keep their population in check.
Discard old culture, keep new culture away form old. and repeat the cycle when new cultures get old
mite usually start to bloom around 3.5 week on malano cultures.
They travel slow, and will get to their destination eventually


But for some reason, on hyei culture i dont see as much mite and i cant figure out why lol. anybody got a clue on this ?