# Methods for "dispensing" fruit flies....



## Twisted (Aug 31, 2009)

So I have an A. Purpurea sling that of couse needs feeding. I don't have a good local source for pinhead crickets and can't justify ordering a grip of them for the one sling. I picked up a jar container of cultured flightless fruit flies. So far he seems to like eating them. He doesn't go looking for them but as soon as one gets near him he takes right away.

My question is does anyone have a good method of dispensing them? Its pretty sad that I open the lid and as a few of them "escape" I catch them by hand the best I can and drop them in with the sling. Its a matter of coordination and timing and a few always wander loose of course. Luckily they just drop into my aquarium where the fish eat them but there has got to be a better way of getting a few of them into the sling container.

Or does anyone have any better luck with any other feeder options?


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## Ariel (Aug 31, 2009)

those thing are so nasty IMO. I was using them to feed a tiny baby praying mantis. It's very hard to prevent escapees, I usually beat it against something a couple of times to knock them to the bottom before I open the lid. but I never found a good meathod of catching them and putting them in the enclosure before I decided I hated them and tossed them. 

I know your pain though, When I kept small tree frogs I fed them pinheads and there was a while where no one had them. I wish I could help and recommend a different feeder, but once I ditched the fruitflies I started to just catch the seed moths (from the bird food) in my house and gave the mantis those. I would *not* recommend this or wild caught insects for your T.


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## Kirk (Aug 31, 2009)

Twisted said:


> So I have an A. Purpurea sling that of couse needs feeding. I don't have a good local source for pinhead crickets and can't justify ordering a grip of them for the one sling. I picked up a jar container of cultured flightless fruit flies. So far he seems to like eating them. He doesn't go looking for them but as soon as one gets near him he takes right away.
> 
> My question is does anyone have a good method of dispensing them? Its pretty sad that I open the lid and as a few of them "escape" I catch them by hand the best I can and drop them in with the sling. Its a matter of coordination and timing and a few always wander loose of course. Luckily they just drop into my aquarium where the fish eat them but there has got to be a better way of getting a few of them into the sling container.
> 
> Or does anyone have any better luck with any other feeder options?


I 'sprinkle' a bunch of flies out of the culture vessel into a small plastic dish. Cover the dish and place it into your refrigerator for about 15 minutes, which will immobilize the flies. Then you can drop them into the enclosure as close as possible to the spider. The flies will become active again very quickly.


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## scottyk (Aug 31, 2009)

Almost all slings will take freshly killed food, and can be considered scavengers if the opportunity arises.

Go buy a dozen pinhead crickets, gutload them, feed your sling what it will eat, then throw the rest in the freezer. They will stay good for weeks and you won't have to worry about a cricket catching your sling during a molt and chewing on it. Just toss one in and take the remains out the next day.

I, and many others here have been doing this successfully for years. It's cheap and convenient. With one sling you won't need to stop into the LPS more than once a month....


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## Twisted (Aug 31, 2009)

scottyk said:


> Almost all slings will take freshly killed food, and can be considered scavengers if the opportunity arises.
> 
> Go buy a dozen pinhead crickets, gutload them, feed your sling what it will eat, then throw the rest in the freezer. They will stay good for weeks and you won't have to worry about a cricket catching your sling during a molt and chewing on it. Just toss one in and take the remains out the next day.
> 
> I, and many others here have been doing this successfully for years. It's cheap and convenient. With one sling you won't need to stop into the LPS more than once a month....


Thats not a bad idea but its not that I don't want to go to the LPS, just none of the local ones to me even carry pinheads.


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## scottyk (Aug 31, 2009)

Just find one that sells ones on the smaller side and freeze them all. You can snip them in half with while frozen with no worries about the cricket being too big and strong for the sling. They will feed on dead insects that are bigger than thay are!

You'll get 24 good meals out of a dozen crickets, which will probably last longer than the fruitfly culture...

Reactions: Like 1


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## Randomhero148 (Aug 31, 2009)

If you have large crickets let them lay eggs into a container of substrate. In a week and half or so you should have tons of pin heads.. Just an idea.


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## Miss Bianca (Aug 31, 2009)

Ariel said:


> those thing are so nasty IMO. I was using them to feed a tiny baby praying mantis. It's very hard to prevent escapees, I usually beat it against something a couple of times to knock them to the bottom before I open the lid. but I never found a good meathod of catching them and putting them in the enclosure before I decided I hated them and tossed them.
> 
> I know your pain though, When I kept small tree frogs I fed them pinheads and there was a while where no one had them.



I second this.

Same thing happened to me, before my colony had even been jump started I had tossed the container, found them gross...

I say cut a cricket in two, and you have food for two slings...
if it's a big crick just yank off a hind leg...

Those fruit flies just aren't for me... especially their reproductive cycle and having various containers... ugh... 

as for dispensing them though, shake'n'stun works...


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## barabootom (Aug 31, 2009)

I knock the side of the container a few times and dump most of the flies into another tall deli cup, quickly closing both containers.  Then I put the deli with just the flies in the freezeer for about 45-60 seconds.  The flies will look dead but you can sprinkle them like salt and pepper into your deli cups.  They will revive in a couple of minutes so if they show movement before I'm finished I stick them back into the freezer for another 30 seconds.  

I'm trying to switch to bean weevils at the moment and can't say if they work well or not yet, but the weevils seem to be a lot cleaner than the fruit flies.  

For just one sling, I'd take a mealworm and slice it into pieces and feed it to the sling.  Fruit flies aren't worth the trouble unless you have lots of slings.


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## dianedfisher (Aug 31, 2009)

If you're feeding other tarantulas, just pull the hoppers off of full size crickets and use them to feed your small slings.  Di


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## Spyder 1.0 (Aug 31, 2009)

I use a giant paper funnel to funnel them into small blood vials, then segment them into other vials until I have 3 per vial.


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## Venari (Nov 10, 2009)

Oddly, my slings dont' seem to eat pre-killed crix. I've been using fruitflies for a while now. Still can't figure out how to make mold-free media.


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## Lucille (Nov 11, 2009)

Venari said:


> Still can't figure out how to make mold-free media.


Add methyl paraben according to directions, you can get it at some fruit fly media sites.


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## Vaughn (Nov 11, 2009)

Lucille said:


> Add methyl paraben according to directions, you can get it at some fruit fly media sites.


A teaspoon of apple cider vinegar added to the media works for me .


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## Vaughn (Nov 11, 2009)

Twisted said:


> So I have an A. Purpurea sling that of couse needs feeding. I don't have a good local source for pinhead crickets and can't justify ordering a grip of them for the one sling. I picked up a jar container of cultured flightless fruit flies. So far he seems to like eating them. He doesn't go looking for them but as soon as one gets near him he takes right away.
> 
> My question is does anyone have a good method of dispensing them? Its pretty sad that I open the lid and as a few of them "escape" I catch them by hand the best I can and drop them in with the sling. Its a matter of coordination and timing and a few always wander loose of course. Luckily they just drop into my aquarium where the fish eat them but there has got to be a better way of getting a few of them into the sling container.
> 
> Or does anyone have any better luck with any other feeder options?


Put them in the refrigerator for about a minute , shake out into a deli cup what you need then feed . They thaw rather quickly so be quick about it .


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## Bill S (Nov 11, 2009)

I've set up a bunch of fruit fly cultures in small bottles (Starbuck's coffee bottles).  I bought the media from a commercial online source, and haven't had much problem with mold.  I modified the lids of the jars by cutting a small hole in the center, and I plug this hole with a piece of foam rubber.  To get a few flies out I tap the bottle a few times and remove the foam.  Place an inverted vial over the hole, and the flies climb up into the vial.  When you've got enough, plug the hole again.  

My wife has a slightly different approach.  She taps the bottle a couple times to get most of the flies away from the lid, removes the lid and taps the first flies to emerge onto the counter.  Replace the lid, capture the few escaped flies by placing inverted vials over them.  The flies almost always climb quickly up into the vials, and it's easy to tap the vials and dump the flies into the spider container.

This is all with the flightless _D. hydei_ flies.  Flying _D. melanogaster_ is a different story.  Stick the bottle in the refrigerator until they deactivate.  Tap the bottle a couple times to get them to let go of the lid, then open the bottle and dump a few flies into whatever container you want them in.  Or even just hold the lid of the fly bottle over the spider container and tap it a couple times to drop the few that always remain clinging to the lid.


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## Venari (Nov 13, 2009)

Same topic, different question:  When it's time to clean out the container( ie moldy media, soggy tissue/coffee liner) what's the best way to move all of the live fruitflies to a new container, which has fresh media and tissue?  I've been doing this outdoors, basically just opening both containers, and "pouring" the flies into the new container.


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## JC (Nov 14, 2009)

Venari said:


> Same topic, different question:  When it's time to clean out the container( ie moldy media, soggy tissue/coffee liner) what's the best way to move all of the live fruitflies to a new container, which has fresh media and tissue?  I've been doing this outdoors, basically just opening both containers, and "pouring" the flies into the new container.


Your not supposed to clean out fruit fly containers, you just pour some flies into a new container to start a new colony.

I really don't understand the escaping problem you guys are talking about. I have 1000+ and I don't have any escapees. You need a tall enough container so that all of them don't come up at when you open the lid. Bang the top before opening, and dump which ever ones come out into an climb-proof container. 

These guys really aren't all that nasty, and they are defiantly cleaner than roaches and crickets. It all depends on the type of medium you use.


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## Bill S (Nov 14, 2009)

Venari said:


> Same topic, different question:  When it's time to clean out the container( ie moldy media, soggy tissue/coffee liner) what's the best way to move all of the live fruitflies to a new container, which has fresh media and tissue?  I've been doing this outdoors, basically just opening both containers, and "pouring" the flies into the new container.


When the food in a container is pretty much used up, or if the fly populations starts to drop, it's time to change containers.  I usually do this with two or three containers at a time.  I make some fresh media and set up the new containers.  While the media in the new containers is cooling I have the old containers in the refrigerator.  Then dump the remaining flies from the old containers into the new ones.  _D. melanogaster_ will have new flies appearing much quicker than _D. hydei_.  Since it takes a while for either to start producing, it helps to have colonies of flies and only change out about a third of them at a time.  That way you'll always have a couple at maximum production and a couple fresh ones starting.


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## nakazanie (Dec 3, 2009)

Interesting thread.  I just started feeding my _H. maculata_ spiderling flightless fruit flies.  I bought a pre-made culture at a pet store for five bucks or so.  I tap them to the bottom and then salt-shaker them out into the s'ling's house.  S/he LOVES them.  Eats them like crazy, and I find it very convenient. 

Nak


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## BorisTheSpider (Dec 3, 2009)

I go with the _tap the container on the counter method_ . It seems to work just fine , as long as you move quickly .

Reactions: Like 1


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## TheTsupreme (Dec 3, 2009)

yea as many other says, you can take adult roches or cricket and just split em and try feeding em with youre pincers, but dont leave em as long as 24 hours cuz dead animals rotten very fast


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## Kaimetsu (Dec 3, 2009)

I'll just ask this here rather than make a new thread since this topic is close enough to my issue.  I've got a half inch 3rd instar A versicolor who i'm having alot of trouble feeding.  Shes eaten a few times so shes probably ok but i'm being paranoid because of all the problems people have with versi slings.  I have alot of trouble getting a feeding response out of her, her web only opens on the top at a funny angle and once a cricket gets to the substrate she'll never get it.  I've tried dropping crickets through her web and she runs from them (this particular cricket may of been slightly too big) or she doesnt notice them and they escape her web.  I've tried crippling the crickets but they don't move around enough and she ignores them.  Shes eaten around 3 times in 3 weeks, i've read that might be ok but ideally i'd want her to eat twice that.


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## UrbanJungles (Dec 3, 2009)

Just FYI, several hobbyists including myself have experienced molting problems thought to be associated with feeding fruit flies exclusively for too long.  Most spiders (slings) will readily tackle a 1/4" cricket which can be as big as the spider itself.  Turns out FF are severely lacking nutritionally.


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## Xian (Dec 3, 2009)

Kaimetsu said:


> I'll just ask this here rather than make a new thread since this topic is close enough to my issue.  I've got a half inch 3rd instar A versicolor who i'm having alot of trouble feeding.  Shes eaten a few times so shes probably ok but i'm being paranoid because of all the problems people have with versi slings.  I have alot of trouble getting a feeding response out of her, her web only opens on the top at a funny angle and once a cricket gets to the substrate she'll never get it.  I've tried dropping crickets through her web and she runs from them (this particular cricket may of been slightly too big) or she doesnt notice them and they escape her web.  I've tried crippling the crickets but they don't move around enough and she ignores them.  Shes eaten around 3 times in 3 weeks, i've read that might be ok but ideally i'd want her to eat twice that.


If she's eaten three times in as many weeks, I'd have to say there really is no problem with her. Sorry to say, it's not what you want her to eat, rather what she wants to eat.


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## beaker41 (May 26, 2012)

I've been feeding 15 new slings on D. melano's and D. hydei's and it's a royal pain at times. Getting enough into a clean tub but not too many, then trying to land them in those tiny vials is hit or miss, not enough or too many ! Plus trying to get the lids snapped back on without disturbing them if they did pounce on the fly is near impossible .. I need to go to the chem store and find tiny glass funnels


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## Obelisk (May 26, 2012)

When I had a flightless fruit fly culture for mantis nymphs, I made a hole in the the lid and put a vial (without the cap) over the hole. There were always a few flies in the vial. So whenever I'd need a some, I'd just take the vial and cover the hole on the lid before putting the vial back.


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