Surface area in Fruit Fly Cultures: Excelsior or Coffee Filters?

One of the most common variables overlooked in culturing fruit flies is the surface area used. I have seen cultures with everything under the sun used as surface area. The two most common sources of surface area in fruit fly cultures are coffee filters or excelsior. Each has their pros and cons.

For best results, coffee filters need to be folded so they look like pie slices. I will fold 5-6 together and push the point into the media. Coffee filters will absorb excess moisture in the culture media and therefore act as a moisture barrier, so they are less likely to dry out or become soupy. The downside to coffee filters is that they can get too wet and will collapse and bury the fruit fly media and hurt production.

Excelsior has been a long time staple in fruit fly cultures. It creates tons of surface area and takes less time to use (just grab a handful and throw it in the culture). The downside is that is quite messy to use as some of the fibers will inevitably fall out with the flies when feeding.

All cultures sold at Josh's Frogs will be setup with excelsior, but our fruit fly kits can be ordered with coffee filters or excelsior.

Poison Dart Frogs as Pets

More and more people are acquiring exotic pets every year. A lot of these pets can get too large to be properly cared for by the average hobbyists and others can harbor diseases that can be passed on to humans. Still others require foods that are hard to come by, messy, or expensive. Poison Dart Frogs, on the other hand, are a great choice for an exotic pet.

Poison Dart Frogs come in all kinds of colors including blue, orange, red, black, bronze, yellow, and a host of other colors. There are poison dart frogs that reach an adult size no bigger than your thumbnail and others that are 2”-3” as adults. While bigger is always better when building a terrarium, these animals can be kept in pairs in tanks as small a 10 gallon aquarium.

While deadly in the wild, these creatures lose their toxicity in captivity due to the change in diet. In the wild these frogs get their poison from ants and beetles that eat poison plants. Without contact to these specific insects, Poison Dart Frogs lose their toxicity.

Poison Dart Frogs are fed a staple of fruit flies. The fruit flies used to feed poison dart frogs are wingless fruit flies or larger flightless fruit flies, so they are much easier to work with than one would think. When it comes to culturing fruit flies, they are far easier then other feeder insects.

Poison Dart Frogs are beautiful animals that are easy to care for, amazing to look at, and allow people the opportunity to own exotic pets with less of the drawbacks associated with other exotic pets.