And a happy betta.
Today is that day. I happened to look over at the culture and it was really dark. Looked closer and it was filled with fruit flies. I fed some to the fish and dumped some out because there were so many.
If you have too many to feed in one session, freeze the rest in a plastic container with a lid and use them later on.
I might do that. Right now I'm counting on having an ongoing supply of live ones. But you never know. The cultures might crash or I could lose them some other way. Or maybe I could just share them with other fish keepers.
The culture will crash eventually, in my experience usually after a few weeks. That's why I try to keep two or three going at a time. I think mine crash simply because so many pupae shells accumulate that the remaining flies can't reach the food, so they starve. But by that time, things are usually getting stinky, so it's time to freeze the bottle, wash it out, sanitize it, and start a new culture.
I always have more than one culture. Just in case something happens to one or the other. I actually started another culture a few days ago. I'll start a third one in about a week. I'd prefer to just have two since I don't really need that many. But I want to get an idea of how long they last first before settling on that.
My first culture did crash. As expected. I decided to start a new one each week and have 4 rotating cultures.
OK, full disclosure: I like the idea of washing out the glass bottles and reusing them. But thus far, I have simply thrown them away, treated myself to a frappuccino, and started over with a new bottle. There, it feels good to have that off my chest.
Can you post a picture of one of your bottle cultures? I'd like a better idea of how you do this. And I want an excuse to drink more frappucinos.OK, full disclosure: I like the idea of washing out the glass bottles and reusing them. But thus far, I have simply thrown them away, treated myself to a frappuccino, and started over with a new bottle. There, it feels good to have that off my chest.
This is the container , the perching material , the nifty breathable lid and the single serving food all from The Fruit Fly Shop out of San Diego , California . The culture shown was started July 26th and has about run its course . Some flies made their escape as I took the picture but a house spider in my fish room will hunt them down .
That all looks reusable. Maybe not the lid. I notice that the piece of coffee filter I tape over a hole in the lid gets stained. I use excelsior for perching. I have to get over how disgusting the crashed culture is then I can reuse the cups.
