Some Tips on Dealing with Fruit Flies

The first question a lot of people ask is "How do I get the flies out of the cup, without them going every where?" Well there is a little bit of a trick to it, the flies cannot walk up walls when their feet are coated with the dusty supplement. I put a bit of my two supplements in the cup, which is the same size as the cups the cultures are in. I then tap the culture on my hand, to knock the flies down from the top of the cup. Then I remove the lid, and carefully bring the fly culture up to meet the mouth of the cup with my supplement in it. By now the flies are almost to the top of the culture, and as the two cups meet, you fully invert the culture, so it is over the feed cup, and tap it lightly. Care should be taken not to tap too hard, as the media can be dislodged if the cup is tapped too hard.

At this point, most of the flies from the culture are in the bottom of the feeding cup, in the supplement. Put the lid back on the culture, and swirl the flies in the dust, to coat them thoroughly. At this point, if you are feeding frogs in a shoebox, I would open the box, find the frog or frogs and check to see that they look ok, and perform any maintenance jobs needed. Then tap a few flies out of the cup near the frogs….just a few now! The frogs should begin feeding pretty much right away. Watch as the eat, and when they are out, give them some more. Continue like this for several cycles, these frogs can really pack the flies in! Or if pressed for time, put in about thirty flies for each frog, close the lid, and don't open it again any time soon, since if you open it right away, the flies will walk right out. The flies have walked in the moist substrate, and the supplement has washed off their feet, and now they can walk the walls again. If you did not over feed them, the frogs should eat most of the flies by the next day. You can help by tapping the lid occasionally to knock the flies down from the top of the shoebox, so the frogs can more easily get to them.

If you are feeding frogs in a tank, I recommend the same basic procedure. Make sure as you put your tank together that there are no cracks for the flies to get out through, and you should not have a problem with flies running free in the house.