14 Wingless Fruit flies (Drosophila species)
Description
This article is from the Aquaria: Food FAQ, by Oleg Kiselev, Don Wilson, and Steve Bartling.
14 Wingless Fruit flies (Drosophila species)
Uses:
The fruit flies are the closest analog to the natural diet for
most killifish and many other small fish.
Culturing:
1/2 gal fruit juice bottles can be used as culture containers.
The media is a mail order instant mush that seems to be some
sort of instant mashed potatoes substance that smells like pure
starch mixed with fungicides. Use enough to get a 1/4-1/2"
layer of media at the bottom of the bottle and add enough water
to get it to a sour cream-like consistency. It should be dense
enough to not run when the bottle is tilted. Next, place a 2
layer roll of plastic "bug screen" mesh into the bottle, so the
flies and maggots have somewhere to climb out of the wet goo --
it seems to help their survival. Dump in a few fruit flies,
perhaps a dozen. Finally, stopper the bottle with a wad of
filter floss, so the flies can't get out and wild fruit flies
and other critters can't get in.
Two weeks later there will be newly hatched fruit flies ready
to be fed to the fish. The culture keeps producing for 2 months
or so and should be "cloned" after some 6 weeks of operation.
When the previously cream-colored media become dark and "used
up" looking, it's time for the new culture. It's probably
easier and safer to clone the culture every 4-6 weeks and be
ready for the eventual crash of the old culture.
To feed the fish, sharply shake the bottle to knock the flies
away from the stopper, open a fish tank cover, open the bottle,
turn it up side down and give it a few taps, shaking out a
dozen or more flies every shake. The media gets thick enough by
then to not drip out.
CAUTION! These flies are wingless and flightless, but not
legless. They will walk up the sides of the tank, crawl out
through the cracks and head straight for the fruit which has
been left out in the kitchen. They may be fish food, but they
are still fruit flies. Feed them to fish in small doses.
There are several different strains of usable fruit flies. Some
are smaller than 1/8", others are over 3/16". Some are
completely wingless or have vestigial stubby wings (wingless),
others have the wings that are so large that they are useless
(flightless).
CAUTION! The "wingless" fruit flies will sprout functional
wings if they are kept at high temperatures, so keep the
culture cool. If this becomes a problem, open the jar outdoors,
let the winged flies fly away, then make sure the rest pupate
at a cooler temperature.
HINT: a jar of Drosophila can be chilled in a refrigerator for
a few minutes to make them sluggish and/or immobile. This makes
them lots easier to handle when a new batch is being bred, and
also makes them less likely to wander off. The fish might
prefer them to be more active, though.
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