the fruit fly cultures that i have gotten in the past have had many different amounts of fruit fly media in the bottom.. my question is... exactly how much should be at the bottom to produce a GREAT culture.??

I use an inch and it lasts a month depending on how many flies are added.

Manny, the culture media Casper gave you calls for 1/2 cup media to 1/2 cup water but with our dry weather I use 3/4 cup of boiling distilled water.

good to know. im starting my first culture today. how often should i start a new batch?

Hi Manny,

It really depends on whose media you are using and the temp/humidity in the room, and even what type of medium you have in there for them to crawl on. You want enough volume so that it doesn't easily dry out early, but it's a good practice to throw out cultures before they are older than a month and you don't want to throw out cultures that still have a lot of food in them still.

It will probably take some experimentation to get it dialed. I use 1/3 cup media to 2/3 cups boiling water with coffee filters.

And the best advice I can offer is make new culture(s) once a week. I make mine on Saturday. You will probably have more flies than you need, but it will give you cultures in different stages to pull from for new cultures. It will also protect you when you experience an inevitable culture crash that everybody seems to get now and then.

Hun, the culture recipe came from me and Tim.
Just try the instuctions above and let me know.

thanks again for the info. the last thing i need are some hungry frogs. my little beasts eat like they have never eatin before. i will let you and tim know how it turns out