Drosophila basic set

Drosophila Starter Kit – Easily Start Your Own Feed Insect Farm

With the Drosophila Starter Kit, you can easily breed fruit flies yourself and use them to regularly produce fresh live food for your terrarium animals. The kit contains all the essential components you need to start a new breeding colony.

Raising your own Drosophila is especially convenient if you regularly care for small jumping spiders, mantises, or other invertebrates. Instead of constantly ordering new feed animals, you can use an existing culture to start new batches over and over again.

The Drosophila Basic Set is suitable for both Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila hydei. The fruit flies themselves are not included in the set and must be added from an existing culture.

Mix the breeding powder and get started right away

The included culture powder makes preparation especially easy. You don’t have to make your own mixture from various ingredients; you can simply mix the culture directly.

To start a culture, use:

23 g breeding powder
100 ml water

Alternatively, we recommend:

23 g yeast
90 ml water
10 ml table vinegar

Table vinegar helps reduce the risk of mold growth in the culture medium.

After that, the mixture can be prepared further right away.

Wood wool provides structure for the flies

After mixing the growing powder, gently press the wood wool it contains onto the surface.

The wood shavings create additional walking surfaces and texture inside the rearing container. At the same time, the flies can rest there without constantly coming into contact with the moist rearing substrate.

Next, add a few flies from an existing Drosophila culture to the new culture.

Now the actual breeding process begins.

Suitable for Drosophila hydei and melanogaster

You can use the Drosophila Basic Set for both Drosophila species that are particularly common in terrarium keeping.

Drosophila melanogaster is smaller and is therefore particularly well-suited for very small young and young jumping spiders.

Drosophila hydei is larger and is therefore suitable for correspondingly larger larvae and other small insectivores.

This way, you can set up different Drosophila cultures using the same basic kit and adjust the size of your food insects to suit your flies.

The first offspring appeared after just about two weeks

Store the prepared mixture at room temperature and keep it out of direct sunlight.

Under the right conditions, you can expect to see the first new fruit flies after about two weeks.

Temperature has a significant impact on development. In warmer conditions, development proceeds more quickly, while lower temperatures slow it down.

This way, you can stagger the start times of your batches and thus ensure a continuous supply of new feed animals.

Several approaches ensure a reliable supply

If you feed Drosophila regularly, you shouldn’t rely on just one culture.

Instead, start several batches at different times. While you’re already feeding flies from one batch, the next one is still developing.

This allows you to build up a steady supply. At the same time, you’ll have a reserve in case an older culture starts to fade or a batch doesn’t turn out as expected.

This method makes raising prey insects much less stressful, especially when you have several jumping spiders or mantises.

A pleasant banana scent instead of an unpleasant musty odor

The breeding powder has a pleasant banana scent. This makes it easy to set up a Drosophila breeding setup right in your living space.

Of course, you should still check the cuttings regularly and replace old plants in a timely manner.

By keeping things clean and using table vinegar, you can also help reduce unwanted mold growth.

Perfect for raising your own feed animals

Raising your own Drosophila is especially worthwhile if you need a steady supply of small feed animals.

You decide when to start new cultures and how many to run at the same time. This allows you to adjust the number of fruit flies produced to your actual needs.

This makes the Drosophila Basic Set appealing to both beginners and experienced breeders with multiple flies.

Advantages at a glance

• A Simple Introduction to Breeding Your Own Drosophila
• Pre-mixed breeding powder
• With wood wool as the base material
• Suitable for Drosophila melanogaster
• Suitable for Drosophila hydei
• Easy to prepare with water
• Alternatively, use 90 ml of water + 10 ml of table vinegar
• Pleasant banana scent
• First offspring after about two weeks
• Development can be influenced by temperature
• Ideal for a continuous supply of feed animals
• No Drosophila included in the set

The Right Accessories for Your Live Feed Animals

Drosophila Instant Mix – perfect for refills if you want to start additional culture batches after using the Basic Set. According to your product information, a 1,000-ml bag is enough for about 32 batches.
Drosophila Beaker 500 ml – the ideal reusable breeding container for new cultures. The foam plug provides ventilation while also making it easier to remove the flies.
Wood shavings —create additional walking surfaces in the breeding cup and prevent the fruit flies from constantly coming into contact with the moist breeding mash.
Large fruit fly – serves as a starter culture for a new batch of Drosophila hydei and provides larger feeder flies for jumping spiders, mantises, and other small insectivores.
Small fruit fly “Ant” – ideal as a small starter culture and therefore especially suitable for feeding very young larvae. We offer it directly as a perfect complement to the Drosophila Starter Kit.
MilbenEx for Drosophila hydei – complements your own Drosophila breeding program and is specifically designed for managing mites in Drosophila hydei; it can also be used directly as a supplement to the Basic Set.

Conclusion

The Drosophila Starter Kit makes it especially easy to get started with your own fruit fly breeding. Simply mix the breeding powder, add the wood shavings, introduce fruit flies from an existing culture, and then let nature take its course.

Under the right conditions, you can start feeding the first batch of offspring after about two weeks. The kit is suitable for both Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila hydei.

Especially if you regularly feed jumping spiders, mantises, or other small insectivores, it’s a good idea to start several cultures at different times. This way, you can establish a continuous and reliable supply of fresh prey with minimal effort.