Fruit flies are the perfect food for a immature praying mantis. Also frogs, modest spiders and ants will eat fruit flies. You can purchase fruit flies in most specialized pet shops, but it's much cheaper to brood them yourself.

Here I will describe how to breed your own fruit flies. This is the do-information technology-yourself version without whatever special powders or fruit-wing-medium-mixes. It's just stuff yous can find in your kitchen or in a normal supermarket. The special mixes probably accept better results or less hassle, but this method is easier and cheaper.

Breeding fruit flies - This is what we're going to make

Breeding fruit flies – This is what we're going to brand

What you will need

To start breeding fruit flies y'all volition need the following supplies:

  • Flightless fruit flies, like Drosophila hydei or Drosophila melanogaster with a mutation that makes their wings underdeveloped. They are not able to fly even though they have wings. Yous tin buy them in specialized pet shops or order them online.
  • Plastic containers with lid, with a volume around 300 to 600 milliliters. I employ 500 ml plastic containers.
  • Newspaper tissues
  • Plastic, forest or paper strips used for packaging filling (meet picture on pinnacle)
  • Pair of scissors
  • Beer (it does not matter which brand of beer, so take the cheapest)
  • White vinegar (the cheapest, not for cleaning but for cooking)
  • Mashed potato powder (powder to make instant mashed potatoes, it should not take herbs or anything special)
  • Yeast (stale yeast is sold in the baking department of most supermarkets)

Making the container

Take a container with chapeau and take the pair of scissors. Cut a oval or round pigsty in the hat of the container. There should be at least one cm between the edge of the lid and the pigsty. A small hole is no trouble.

Take a piece of tissue paper and place it in between the hat and the container. The newspaper volition allow air to pass in and out of the container without letting the fruit flies escape.

Making fruit fly food medium

The fruit wing nutrient, chosen fruit fly medium, can best be made in quantities for around 8 breeding containers. Of course it's also possible to measure out the ingredients for less containers, just this will be a hassle.

For 7 to 8 containers of fruit fly medium you need to mix 500 ml of beer with 200 grams of dry out mashed potato powder. Mix information technology with a spoon or spatula. Add around 100 ml of white vinegar and stir once again. The resulting mix should exist smooth looking without obvious liquid puddles. If information technology'due south too dry you can add together a piffling bit of water. If information technology's too liquid you need to add a bit more potato powder.

If it looks proficient yous need to add 1 minor tea spoon of yeast pulverization to the mix. Stir information technology well and employ a spoon to portion the fruit wing nutrient medium to all 7 to viii containers. The plan is non to fill the container up, the food should only accept up a few centimeters of the lesser of the container.

Adding everything together

If yous have the fruit fly medium in the containers, you can add together the plastic strips to the containers. It should autumn on tiptop of the medium and stay at that place. If it gets engulfed in the medium you need to make the medium less liquid or y'all demand to use better quality strips. Plastic or wooden strips are better than newspaper ones. The strips serve as stable ground for the fruit flies to sit on. They will drown in the medium without the strips when the medium gets more liquid later on a few days (because of the action of the yeast).

Now it'due south time to add together the fruit flies! Keep the lid and fitted tissue paper close by. Open the new container and take the container with the live flightless fruit flies. Tap the container with the fruit flies firmly on the table, making all fruit flies fall to the lesser. Go along borer and open the lid of the container. Tap all fruit flies to a corner of the lesser of the container and and so shake or tap xv to 30 of fruit flies into the new container. Tap the full container again on the table and shut the lid. Tap the new container and close that chapeau besides. Done!

Letting the fruit flies develop

fruit-fly-developmentThe fifteen to 30 adult fruit flies will swallow from the fresh food medium and will lay their eggs inside the medium. Already after a few days yous will see tiny fruit fly maggots inside the medium. They will be hard to spot at outset, especially for the small Drosophila melanogaster fruit wing species, but as they get older you can see a tiny black dot moving up and down in the medium. That's the head of 1 of the fruit fly maggots eating away.

Keep the container at twenty to 30 degrees Celsius. Development is faster at high temperatures. Don't go on the fruit flies below 15 °C. At around 25 °C the development volition take effectually 2 weeks. The smaller fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster)develop a scrap faster than the larger ones (Drosophila hydei).When you start to see fruit wing pupa on the side of the container you will know that the adjacent generation is just a few days abroad. The pupa of fruit flies are orangish – brown in colour and stick to the walls and paper of the container.

The nutrient in the container will dry out a bit later i to 2 weeks, this is not a problem. At this time the food is most depleted and the maggots volition have reached machismo. If you are not planning to feed the fruit flies to your praying mantis shortly, you should add a piffling bit of medium or a small piece of fruit to the container to make the adult flies live longer.

Volition breeding fruit flies aroma bad?

If everything works out correctly there volition be minimal smell to breeding fruit flies. If in that location are some problems in the food medium information technology could offset to smell. For example if mucus starts to grow or if the nutrient medium is too liquid. If you start adding weird things like fruit or sugar the medium volition smell bad for sure.

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