Grain mites (white colored) in Fruit Fly Cultures, normal or disasterous?

[Dave]

Ok, I placed an order from Josh's Frogs, and while his media smells great and produces very healthy flies, they contained grain mites, white mites that target mainly the media, something I've read to be normal and nothing to be worried about as the fruit fly larvae tend to overproduce the mites out of the culture.

Josh has told me this is 100% normal, and can be prevented with throwing out the cultures after 28 days. In the meantime, I've noticed mites in attracted to the "real fruit media" over the "potato and brewers yeast media".

Can I get some other opinions on this matter? As operator of Small Pet Feeders, I need to make sure our product is up to the highest standard, and if the information I've obtained thusfar about this matter is misguided, I need to know so I can pitch the stock and sterilize our equipment.

Thanks for the help, my friends.

-Dave
SPF

 

[ataraxia]

i know some them personally....i want to start off sayin they are wonderful to deal with...great people. however from my personal experiences. the mites are bother some and most importantly crash cultures. At the moment i am starting completely over. My melano's werent producing as muc halthough they were but my hydei were done for. I am doing my own media this time . I calculated josh's media to around .47 cents a culture. making your own will cost you around .10 cents and no mites!

 

[Dave]

Josh is an awesome guy to work with. I just noticed that the mites seem to be much more attracted to the real fruit in his mix than standard potato/brewers yeast mixes.

I'm testing a few formulas for Small Pet Feeder's brand of Fruit Fly Media, I should have the results in 2-4 weeks, upon which we'll be selling our brand. Until then, I think I may dispose of these cultures and redo everything.

Sucks, but quality has to be maintained. Thanks man.

-Dave
SPF

 

[ataraxia]

i agree with you.

 

[xanthoman]

keeping ff cultures/culturing relatively mite free

mites love ff cultures
grain mites themselves arent usually a huge issue, but there are other mites that are a problem, that may be attracted to the grain mites.

imo , the only way to deal with the problems is to have a zero tolerance policy. mites are literally everywhere, so in order to keep your cultures mite free, you are correct you have to throw out your cultures and sanitize all equipment with a 10% bleach solution. bleach is a great all around cham surface sanitizer. bleach is one of the most readily available sanitizers that is also usda approved for use with food contact surfaces. in simplified terms bleach is made by passing an electrical current through salt water, and reverts back to a mostly saltwater state shortly after being oxidized. so as long as everything is well rinsed and given a chance to dry, there is virtually no risk. imo this makes bleach the best all around cham sanitizer.

cultures dont just stay mite free by chance. if you want your cultures to be mite free you need to start with mite free cultures. and you need to adopt a protocol that discourages their introduction to your new cultures, ie; a ff culture station designed to keep your mite free cultures, mite free. to do that is fairly simple, but it wont do you any good unless you start with mite free cultures, and adopt a hygienic protocol.

to make a mite resistant culture station,
1.simply start with a small (disposable) table, end table. nighstands or other object that have a lot of side surface area are not the best choices, you want something that is mostly legs and top, without a lot of side wall area.
2. on top of the table either put a cut to size piece of contact shelf paper sticky side up and tape down all of the edges(so the mites cant colonize under the paper), (or you can use lidane insecticidal self paper). use a several flat style thumb tacks to tack the overall area of the paper, so it doesnt come up if you have to lift your tank.

3.smear the legs and any remaining surface area with Vaseline. mites will avoid anything greasy, so be sure to put it on liberally and not smear it to thin.
4. on top of the table i use a 10 gal aquarium, that has had a border of 1-2" double sided tape applied around the entire perimeter, just below the upper plastic rim of the tank. next for the inside upper 2" portion of the tank you can use either double sided tape or vaseline. mix about 1qt. of water with about 4or5 drops of antibacterial liquid dish soap (dont use bleach because it will oxidize shortly and return to its saltwater state) and pour that in the aq. you want about an 1/4" of water in the bottom of the aquarium, any deeper and your cultures will begin to float.
5. always clean and sanitize yourself and work area before and after starting any culture work. be careful not to touch any unsanitized/unnecessary items during culturing. a large lighted magnifier is a great tool for aiding in keeping your cultures mite free
6. once you have prepared your clean cultures then simply place them in the soapy water of the aq., being careful not to let them touch the sides or each other. mites now have no way to reach your cultures unless you handle your cultures unnecessarily in an unsanitized state.
7. you can still use heat mats either underneath or taped to the side of your aq, top heat is not recommended as having lights or other equip suspended above directly above your cultures can allow mites to drop on your cultures. aquarium lid is not recommended either, if you take it off, you have to set it somewhere, if that somewhere is not mite free, then when you replace the lid, you will just contaminate your tank. remember a cord is like a superhighway to mites, so always vaseline your cords or any equip leading to your culture platform.
8. alternatively, if you dont want to use a table you can just tape a piece of contact or insecticidal shelf paper to the wall and mount a small shelf directly to the wall. still use contact or insecticidal paper to cover the shelf top and grease anything like wires or shelf brackets that lead to your platform, try to keep you aq at least 2-3 inches from the wall
9.even cultures prepared as above, that start out relatively mite free, will have mites in them by the time they mature. once you take cultures from the aq and use them in a cage or wherever, they should be considered infected, and not returned to the aq. so as not to re-introduce mites into your aq held cultures. so a separate tank could be used for those.
any equip kept in the vicinity of other reptile equip should be considered infected.
no matter how clean it looks. a couple of unseen mites can re-introduce mites to your entire culture stash. so,when starting new cultures, dont just assume your culture containers are mite free, wash and inspect with a lighted magnifier. keep any unused equip/containers in a plastic bag with a piece of insecticidal shelf paper. or in someplace cold, most mites die at temps in the 40'S.
10. the vast majority of commercially available cultures come with mites pre-installed, this makes finding relatively mite free starter cultures the hardest part of the whole equation. because petstore cultures are usually kept in close proximity to poorly kept crickets, petstore cultures almost always have mites.
11. a 10 gal aq. holds 6 -32oz culture cups. even cultures prepared by the above method may start out with a few mites, the trick is to use the culture before the mites explode. mites will almost always be present in cultures nearing expiration , regardless of the hygienic practices used. so when starting new cultures from your stash use cultures that are just beginning to hatch. imo, since cultures are cheap to make once you get going, is just make more cultures than you need, so you can always abandon a culture without hesitation if inspection determines it is infected.
about once every 6 mths, i like to tear everything down and resanitize start over. i usually just take everything to the car wash and hot wax it lol. jmo
edit; if you are using prepared dry media you may want to give this a try http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ultimate-Fr...078?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20bb5dc0d6
also if you are using dry media, 2 practices that can help, are freezing the media, you can keep dry media frozen or you can refreeze your cultures after mixing and preparing them (but before inoculation of course) another thing you can do is use boiling liquid (water, vinegar etc) when you hydrate your media, but it should be noted that this practice can be an issue for media containing vitamins, probiotics or other supplemental additives. also, the above culturing practices can be applied to any feeder that uses a grain based medium or where mites are a problem for example mealworms/oats.

also, if you cant come up with a clean starter culture, there is a way to clean an early producing culture for use as a clean starter culture, but thats a whole nother post or just pm. jmo