Welcome to the fruit
fly section
Keeping Fruit Flies
Fruit flies are the ideal food source for many
young carnivorous insects like praying mantis as they are high
in sugars and minerals. They are also good for tadpoles and young
froglets. When buying fruit flies make sure you get the flightless
ones as these are far easier to control, there's nothing worse
than a cloud of fruit flies getting in to your fruit bowl!
Single standard tubs of crickets, mealworms, locust etc are £2.49 INCLUDING Royal Mail First Class delivery from Global Live Food (UK & EU only)
The best type of fruit flies come in what is known
as a culture, this is essentially a blob of munched up fruit with
a wad of cotton wool over the top. When you receive your culture
it may look as though you have bought a tub of mush but in reality
the mush contains the fruit fly larvae (maggots) and over the
following few days they will begin to crawl on to the cotton wool
to pupate and hatch.
Keeping the culture going
If you want to keep the culture going after using
some of them then the easiest way to prolong the life of the flies
is to add some mashed ripe banana and a fresh wad of cotton wool.
The fruit flies will not only eat the banana but they will lay
eggs on it and these will quickly develop. The cycle lasts only
around 10 days so you can easily keep the pack going.
Temperature & Humidity
Keep your fruit flies at 18 - 22C and they will
breed like wildfire, if you want to slow down the process keep
them cooler. Humidity is not a main issue with fruit flies as
the tubs have air holes (covered by netting) which allows plenty
of air in to prevent fungal infections.
Breeding Fruit Flies
If you want to increase your levels of flies then
keep the main batch in a fine net cage and introduce some unventilated
cricket tubs containing mashed banana topped with cotton wool.
After 6 days remove the new tubs and secure the tops with fine
meshing, the easiest way is to cut a square out of the cricket
tub lid and then place net curtain over the tub and replace the
lid.
Single standard tubs of crickets, mealworms, locust etc are £2.49 INCLUDING Royal Mail First Class delivery from Global Live Food (UK & EU only)
|
