Sir Spiral Tail
New Member
Is it bad for my babies to eat the maggots? I was thinkin about just leaving the lid to my culture open for a short time, and letting my two babies go crazy on it, but i wanted to check first on some opinions...thanks
Hydei flies
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xanthoman
Avid Member
to feed or not, you decide?
that would depend on the health and ingredients of the culture you were growing them in. if your cultures are healthy, then its probably ok to feed a limited # of maggots, most ff culture media is not the healthiest in cham terms, because its meant for culturing flies not feeding chams. most ff culture media contains things i am guessing a cham shouldnt have a lot of: mostly starch, sugar, yeast, & vinegar (vinegar can break the bond of calcium and make it soft). most commercial cultures use methyl paraben (aka tegosept, a mold inhibitor) in place of vinegar. so i would say if your cultures are healthy,then its probably ok in moderation. how to tell if your cultures are healthy, was discussed in this thread; https://www.chameleonforums.com/fruit-fly-culture-gone-bad-30785/ if you already have maggots you could store your cultures at 86* (max) and have flies in as little as 3-4 days. once you have flies,rather than just dumping a bunch in at once, a good way to feed is to make a 1/4" hole in the lid and put a bamboo skewer in the hole down to the media, the flies will walk out of the culture and up the stick a few at a time, when they have had their fill just pull the skewer and place some tape over the hole.
ps on the rare occassions when i do feed ff maggots, i scoop out a bunch of maggot containing media and rinse them in a tea strainer until clean and free of external media, and then feed them out of a small feeding dish
that would depend on the health and ingredients of the culture you were growing them in. if your cultures are healthy, then its probably ok to feed a limited # of maggots, most ff culture media is not the healthiest in cham terms, because its meant for culturing flies not feeding chams. most ff culture media contains things i am guessing a cham shouldnt have a lot of: mostly starch, sugar, yeast, & vinegar (vinegar can break the bond of calcium and make it soft). most commercial cultures use methyl paraben (aka tegosept, a mold inhibitor) in place of vinegar. so i would say if your cultures are healthy,then its probably ok in moderation. how to tell if your cultures are healthy, was discussed in this thread; https://www.chameleonforums.com/fruit-fly-culture-gone-bad-30785/ if you already have maggots you could store your cultures at 86* (max) and have flies in as little as 3-4 days. once you have flies,rather than just dumping a bunch in at once, a good way to feed is to make a 1/4" hole in the lid and put a bamboo skewer in the hole down to the media, the flies will walk out of the culture and up the stick a few at a time, when they have had their fill just pull the skewer and place some tape over the hole.
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Sir Spiral Tail
New Member
very nice...thank you very much!
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