Flightless fruit flies

[EightLeggedFrea]

Can anyone tell what is the best flightless fruit fly to breed? I'm looking to start breeding tarantulas (and possibly scorpions) and I'll be needing lots of small food items.

 

[Villosa]

I'd say D. hydei would be best for those inverts. It's a bigger species of fly so it would take a little longer to mature into adult. I'd plan on making several cultures at 2-3 weeks apart to insure you always have adults available. But depending on the size of the sling or scorpion, if they're small, D. melanogaster (the smaller species) might work better.

 

[petshopguy]

The best response I can give you is to breed both. It takes D.melanogaster approx 2 weeks to go from egg to adult and it takes D.hydei approx 3-4 weeks. The melanogaster is about half the size of hydei, so you would have a variety of sizes for different stages of development in your inverts. Having both species and extra cultures of both (recommended) would protect you from those cultures that occasionally crash. I also breed mealworms and superworms, but I just heard about a micro mealworm (Tenebrio obscurus)that I want to start breeding for very small stages of inverts.

 

[jynxxxedangel]

Ugh!

I just happened to notice this post..

I've had my first ever D. melanogaster culture head south today. When I woke up this morning, the food in the vial was covered in white fuzz, and all the maggies and pupae were black looking.

It's been so gd humid the past few weeks, I'm sure this is the reason.

How do I keep this from happening again??