Phorid flies & possible nematodes - help me develop a protocol?
- Thread starter asunshinefix
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Ever heard of coincidences? People with many tarantulas experience deaths all the time, even without flies. It's physically impossible for the flies to harm a tarantula in any way.
Paul1126
Arachnoangel
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Not everyone is a biologist you know? It is a coincidence when all of a sudden multiple Ts die off when these flies are able to infest?
Maybe explaining why it is impossible for them to cause harm to a T is a good start, not to mention NOBODY will want these flies in their homes, getting rid of them is what any sane person would do, harmful or not.
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Ok: The mouth parts of those flies cannot bite through the exoskeleton of a tarantula, not even a small one. They are scavengers. Their eggs develope in soil and so do the larvae. Yes, they are annoying. Using yellow stickers is a good idea. A better idea is to create a healthy, varied microfauna in the wet parts of the soil, like adding dirt from outside (wood area, pesticide free), containing nematodes (yes, they are good!) and other worms and all kinds of stuff. Further, you can add springtails. Springtails will eat practically anything, including phorid fly eggs and small larvae. Fighting nature with nature is a much better way than trying to keep things sterile - the latter never works, because nature (flies, mites, fungus, whatever) has the habit of just coming in and making their home wherever it can. Sterile soil is just the perfect environment for every pest you don't want. And keeping spiders on dry paper towels with nothing else is just abusive.
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YA!!.Well don't be gone so long,lady.
.Welcome back.Havent been this stoked since @14pokies paid a visit.
StampFan
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Tarantula keeper rule #1: DON'T PANIC!!!
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I'm no fly expert, but other flies leave a smudge when squished, and pouring bleach down a drain kills practically anything- doesn't sound too specific to identify phorid flies. Ants leave a smudge too, they aren't flies.
I've had phorid flies due to decaying organic matter I didn't know of. They populate VERY quickly.
Those gifs, looks like there's an earthquake, can't make out a thing.
I took all Ts out, gave them a new container with new SUB.
I took old containers, poured out sub OUTSIDE in gargbage.
I put all containers in ziplock bags. Ultimately all flies died.
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Oh, wow, I feel really flattered nowYA!!.Well don't be gone so long,lady.
Havent been this stoked since @14pokies paid a visit.
asunshinefix
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I definitely panicked, but at least I panicked by asking people who know more than me? Thank you guys for all the advice and feedback. I think I've just about got all the phorid flies under control - everyone's on dry substrate and they're looking more comfortable. Tomorrow I'm going to make a bunch of traps.
Paul1126
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But yet shipping them is fine?
StampFan
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I agree with that guy. You provide a lot of good information in this forum. Check in regularly, would ya?!?Oh, wow, I feel really flattered now
Paul1126
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@cold blood as much as I love your face palming there is literally no difference between shipping a T and keeping a T on paper towels until the flies die off
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I disagree
Putting a healthy t in a shipping container and putting an unhealthy one in the same position for recovery are vastly differing things.
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I think there is some over excitement going around in this thread. Is temporarily keeping a tarantula on paper towels abusive? No. Is it going to hurt them? No. They maybe uncomfortable for a while, but they tend to be uncomfortable when rehoused too. Tarantulas, in general, are not weak, fragile things that need perfect conditions to be fine.
Arachnid Addicted
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@boina I was going to comment about some experiences I had in the past with phorid flies, but after read your comments, I have some doubts and I believe you can help me out here.
I know there a lot of different Phorid species, but I thought of them (or most of them, at least) being parasites. In case of Ts, I've read once that they can lay eggs while tarantulas are molting, and that could be harmful (even deadly) to them. Other thing I saw was in a friends house. He had phorid in his T room and one of his Ts dropped an eggsac. When he pulled it out and opened it, hundreds of phorids got out of the sac, and there were only a few viable nymphs there (I dont remember the species).
As for myself, there are lots of these flies in my T room and I've never bothered about them as I've never had any problems with them.
Are some of them really harmful and my friend got unlucky to had a harmful species? Or arent they harmful and, I dont know, was it just a coincidence, indeed?
Tia.
I know there a lot of different Phorid species, but I thought of them (or most of them, at least) being parasites. In case of Ts, I've read once that they can lay eggs while tarantulas are molting, and that could be harmful (even deadly) to them. Other thing I saw was in a friends house. He had phorid in his T room and one of his Ts dropped an eggsac. When he pulled it out and opened it, hundreds of phorids got out of the sac, and there were only a few viable nymphs there (I dont remember the species).
As for myself, there are lots of these flies in my T room and I've never bothered about them as I've never had any problems with them.
Are some of them really harmful and my friend got unlucky to had a harmful species? Or arent they harmful and, I dont know, was it just a coincidence, indeed?
Tia.
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There are really a lot of different Phorid fly species - and the vast majority are actually scavengers. Very few are parasitic and those are not the ones that show up in your room. There's this weird panic of parasites going on, but remember: every parasite needs to come from somewhere. So if a Phorid fly was actually a tarantula parasite (I actually don't think there is a species that is, but let's hypothesize), so if a phorid fly was a tarantula parasite it needed to come from another infected tarantula. It's not just going to appear out of thin air. The saprophytic flies, however, live everywhere because there's always some decaying organic matter somewhere. These are the ones you'll find in masses in your home.@boina I was going to comment about some experiences I had in the past with phorid flies, but after read your comments, I have some doubts and I believe you can help me out here.
I know there a lot of different Phorid species, but I thought of them (or most of them, at least) being parasites. In case of Ts, I've read once that they can lay eggs while tarantulas are molting, and that could be harmful (even deadly) to them. Other thing I saw was in a friends house. He had phorid in his T room and one of his Ts dropped an eggsac. When he pulled it out and opened it, hundreds of phorids got out of the sac, and there were only a few viable nymphs there (I dont remember the species).
As for myself, there are lots of these flies in my T room and I've never bothered about them as I've never had any problems with them.
Are some of them really harmful and my friend got unlucky to had a harmful species? Or arent they harmful and, I dont know, was it just a coincidence, indeed?
Tia.
Second point: the egg sac. Eggs are actually much more vulnerable to predators than tarantulas, and they will also fall to opportunistic predators, like some Phoric flies. I can imagine a Phorid fly lying eggs in the tarantula eggs while those are being laid and the phorid larvae then devouring the tarantula eggs and developing to flies. That's really unlucky but I can see that happening. However, that's really different from flies attacking a healthy, or even a molting tarantula - not possible. Fly eggs cannot develop on a tarantula. First of all, they'll desiccate before hatching because they need moisture. If they actually manage to hatch the larvae cannot pass the exoskeleton. If they get in through the mouth or anus they get digested - why do people always ignore the presence of digestive enzymes? Parasites actually have to be really specialized to get in that way and opportunistic parasites (if there were any of those flies) never make it. So no, Phorid flies do not harm tarantulas.
Edit: As seen a few posts below there are actually Phorid flies that parasitize tarantulas. Still, the argument that those are not the ones in your home still goes. The article describes that the larvae enter through the book lungs.
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ghostly
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@asunshinefix Any updates on your Ts? I have no experience with phorid fly infestations (thankfully!) so I can't really give you any advice, but wishing you all the best and hoping that everyone will pull through! I'd love to hear some news.
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Indirectly i think they can harm the spider by stressing them because a terrarium is a constrained area. In the wild i think they are harmless?. It depends how many there are in a certain cage, but when i had tgat huge infestations i had 50-100 of them in some terrariums. The spiders spended most of their time brushing them off. I lost a few spiders, i think due to stress? Or maybe the larvea killed them. I never saw any larvea on the spiders, but those pesky flues where everywhere
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Thank you for posting this, I hadn't seen it and it's really interesting.
That doesn't change the fact, though, that usually you will not find these parasites in your home, because they'll have to come from an already infected imported tarantula.