# Dusting fruit flies, how often?



## SilverShaded (May 19, 2017)

How often do most people dust their flies? I read in a vet book doing it too often can be dangerous.


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## aberreef (Aug 10, 2010)

I dust every feed, mainly because it makes the flies easier to handle! I keep little pots of culturing media in each viv though so the flies stay put and well fed until they get eaten. The dust brushes off the flies in an hour or so.


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## SilverShaded (May 19, 2017)

The vet book i was teading was reccomending once or twice a week. They had done some experiments with dart frogs and found dusting every time you fed was overdosing the frogs and leading to higher death rates.

Just curious what most hobbyists do in practice.


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## aberreef (Aug 10, 2010)

I suppose that will be influenced by how often you feed. I tend to only feed 2-3 times a week but there's always left over flies in the vivs hence the little pot of FF media to feed/hold the left over flies


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## SilverShaded (May 19, 2017)

Makes sense. I started off feeding every day, but have settled down to a few times a week. We put a small slice of banana in and the flies feed off that. We have one frog though that guards the banana and chases off the other frogs, they have sorted out small territories for themselves in effect.

The mouldy banana is also feeding the sprintails.


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## soundstounite (Sep 6, 2009)

It might be relevent to what exactly is in the dust ?? as not all vit products are equal !!

Simply, We use repashy Ca plus and it's designed for every feed,conversely and as a dart example vit A (supervit I think) also made by Allen might cause OD if used too frequently here one might only use every two weeks at the utter most

How old was the book?? I'd pretty much say if ya keeping darts then the respashy range is about as good as it gets you can also tap into keepers like Huw and I whom would utterly not call ourselves experts (ok Huw :2thumb:is but I'm bloody not) that have used these same products for years now.

If it helps I have leucs auartus mysties and god knows what else here being given their vits at every feed for 6 or so years still here still fine still knocking out kids good strong un's too. So I guess that speaks for it's self,if there was something out of kilter with the vit regime I'd have to know by now surely?

A few years does not an expert make but with something like a vit regime if it's wrong I'd have to know,I just don't think there is a way around that one

all the luck

Stu


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