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reed frog food: fruit flies?

4K views 19 replies 4 participants last post by  Will 
#1 ·
I know this is a dart frog forum, but I wasn't able to get much information at Kingsnake.com. Will reed frogs eat hydei flies or melangastor? I know they like small crickets, but wonder if hydei or melangastor can be subsituted. I like to avoid dealing with crickets if I can avoid it.
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#11 ·
not flightless though: American Cricket Ranch has flies

They aren't flightless though. I did check out carolina biological supply, I couldn't find flies when I searched on them, but I did find them thanks to your link.

American Cricket Ranch http://www.americancricketranch.com carries houseflies, but to my knowledge, none are flightless.

How do you culture flies without creating foul odor?
 
#12 ·
I was answering Derek (who did not specify flightless - if these are for Reed Frogs - you want them flying, not flightless).

American Cricket Ranch gets their Houseflies from the same source that I cited (I know this for a fact). The only good news is, they do allow smaller orders.

And... you do not culture Houseflies without a stink. Hence I knew where to order them from.

s
 
#13 ·
Scott, maybe you can help explain this to me. A friend of mine a while back, Jason, had all those frog's of Rex's and would order gobs of flies like you used to. How do you feed thme to the frogs without getting flies all over the house? He told me he sed jars or something? And where to you keep the flies you haven't used yet? He told me phyllos love the flies as well, so may as well give thme a try. I saw them at American Cricket Ranch, but had forgotten the name. I think I'll be purchasing 10 H. argus tomorrow and these flies would help.
 
#14 ·
They come as pupae... and the pupae will hatch out according to what temps they're kept at.

Jars will work, tupperware is what I used. I would put the pupae into my container... the longer I was planning on keeping the container (in other words, if you're keeping it cooler so it will hatch out slower) the more pupae I'd put in it.

The first couple containers (kept warmest), would have about 30 or 40 pupae in it (vary for your purposes).

The next couple - kept in a cool spot in the basement. Would have 10 more.

The next couple - kept in the fridge for a couple days, then in the cool spot in the basement, would have 10 more than that.

You get the idea.

I have NO idea how you're going to feed this with top opening tanks though. Front opening tanks worked well for me. I just put the container in there and popped the lid and closed the door. The flies go straight up anyway so it works.

With top opening, you'll likely need to pop the lid just enough so they get out (and not swarm out)... then get the lid back on the tank ASAP.

Make sense?

s
 
#17 ·
I talked with Yeager and he mentioned putting thme in the freezer for a minute or so and thne put thme in. This would reduce me hurrying and frightening the frogs. I will make the front openings this summer, but this will have to do until then. The flies would recover once the top is on and everything sealed. Also, what media is good?
 
#18 ·
I've never raised these... and the few times I bought ones that were raised by someone else... they stunk worse than anything you have now (trust me).

You really do not want to raise these as housefly pupae need protein. Most people use powdered milk to provide that.

It stinks.

Bad.

s
 
#20 ·
As Scott said, culturing musca stinks. If you find the brewing beer like odor of ff culture bad, wait till the straight up sh*t smell you get from musca culture.

If you do indeed plan on culturing musca the setups I have seen are about 10" x 10" x 10" with a plastic frame and bottom and mesh sides. One side is fitted with a long screen sleeve so you can put your arm in and not have a hundred escapees. To collect flies simply tap them into a narrow jar from the top of the cage, if you continually shake the jar the flies will not be able to escape.
 
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