Misquito Larvae Story

[Loko17]

Well recently I set up a bucket in the woods so I could collect misquito larvae everyday for food for my Killi. Everyday I go out with a turkey baster and a jar and collect 20 or so larvae each day then I bring them inside and add them to the jar with some larvae I already have up in my room and everyday I feed my killie a few live larvae twice a day and when I'm done I put a tissue on top of the jar with a rubberband and I always think "I'll be fine without the tissue but I'll do it anyways". Well this morning I decided I'd go and eat breakfast before I fed my fish then I got on here and read a few posts then went upstairs for feeding, well when I get to my killifish I look in the jar with larvae and theres 2 misquitos! I was thinking how lucky I was that I put that tissue lid on but then I did something stupid, I took the lid off to hopefully feed the mature misquito to my fish and they flew away into my house! Now I know I havent been bitten but I feel all itchy . I'm just hoping those were male misquitos because only the females bite. I was so surprised because i read online that they are larvae for like a week then turn into this pupae thing and stay on the top, then I realised just as I was writing this that I had been mistakeing the pupae things for seperate organisms. Lol I guess I'll have to feed the pupae as soon as I get them next time. For all of you that collect misquito larvae to feed, watch out for the little stubby looking things, they're the pupae.

 

[riverman444]

That's hardcore. I've fed a few bugs and whatnot I found crawling around. But catching your own fish food? That's crazy.

 

[sammy86]

I do that too! i have a nice big bucket full of ready live food XD
i basically feed a whole net full of the wee beasties, they gorge them!

however i tend to get very bitten doing down the side of the shed to get them XD

 

[Loko17]

Yea Whenever I go to my bucket I either run through 10 spider webs or I get eaten up by the misquitos trying to lay their eggs. I like that I catch my killies food because its live and he loves it.

 

[K.J.]

Haha, I used to feed my bettas mosquito larvae (now we're running out and I mostly use frozen bloodworm) and one day I caught a batch and put it in my current only betta's tank. A few days later I had at least two mosquitos in my room. Probably because I didn't use lids back then.

 

[BigC]

Never tried culturing your own fruitfly for your killi's. Wingless or Vestigial winged are excellent.
Regards
BigC

 

[Loko17]

How would I go about culturing fruit flys C?

 

[BigC]

Drosophila melanogaster (vestigial winged or wingless)
I used small jam-jars with muslin around the top with an elastic band to keep this on. For the medium I mixed some cheap porridge oats mixed with a little concentrated orange juice and crushed in some grapes and a spoonful of mollasses sugar. I gently heated this mixture in a saucepan and placed equal amounts in the jam-jars. The consistancy should be fairly moist. Add a crushed piece of kitchen roll and a wooden lollipop stick for the flies to mate and crawl around on. Add your starter culture (around 15-20 flies in each jar) and cover. store at at room temp 65'F. After a few days you will notice small white maggots crawling around in the medium where they will feed for around 10-20 days then they will crawl up the sides of the jar and pupate. They will hatch into flies after another couple of days and will be ready to mate within two days after that. The flies will live for around 2-3 weeks. So keep the cultures going on a rotational basis.
Be careful when obtaining your original stock as the stunted wings are sometimes temperature related and if you get your temps wrong the wings form normally and you could end up with a lot of flying insects.
When you want to feed the flies place the jar in a fridge or a cool spot for a few minutes (this will imobilise the flies, remove the muslin and gently tap the jar to add some of this excellent food to your fish. Get the muslin back on as they wont stay imobile for long.
Always keep the medium moist and not too runny (practice makes perfect)
This may seem a lot of trouble to go to, but believe me in the Winter months when livefood sources become scarce they sure fill a gap in your feeding regime.
I hope this was of some help to you or anyone else contemplating cultureing Fruitfly.
Regards
BigC

 

[Loko17]

Thanks Big C, You should copy that whole thing and put it in its seperate topic in the DIY section and see if it gets pinned, I'm sure it could help some people out. I might try this but I really dont know where to get the fruit flys to start it. Do I just catch them or what?

 

[samyboy]

i started doing this in a small 2.5g tank with a simple bubble filter and some mucky water full of larve the fish loved the larve and the larve kept multiplying, a few days later im at my computer at night and theres several small mosquito type flys i then realised they'd hatched and flown out tryed bloodworms but they just seemed to die within a matter of hours

 

[BigC]

but I really dont know where to get the fruit flys to start it. Do I just catch them or what?

http/www.dartfrog.co.uk/livefoods.html

scroll down to fruitfly.
Regards
BigC

 

[Loko17]

Thanks but theres only one problem, I live in the U.S.

 

[Captain Retardo]

http/www.well.com/~debunix/fish/LiveFoodCultures.html

Some great ways to grow live foods