Yes, there is a difference between "wingless" and "flightless" fruitflies! Wingless don't have any wings or may have little clumps of wing material where the wings once could be found. Flightless flies have wings, they just can't use them. The Flightless fruit fly that we use is a species called "Hydei." They are much bigger than regular wingless fruit flies,

Both regular and flightless can be cultivated the same way, so rather than have to use all of the words ... we're just going to call them FF.

We use commercial media to raise our FF in. We are not lazy, it's just a bother to mix pasty things up. Drives the kids crazy because they think we're experimenting with dinner again. The commercial culture can be ordered from Carolina Biological Supply Company. You can email them at carolina@carolina.com or call them at 1-800-334-5551. They also sell FF cultures.

The easiest bottle to raise these critters in is a water bottle like the one your favorite spring waters might come in. We use pint sized units. We cap the tops with a big wad of cotton or sponge. Recently we have started putting a small amount of plastic netting into the culture prior to adding the media. The FF seem to be doing better with the netting. How significant the improvement is, we don't know and no one in this fishroom is going to dump the FF out to count them.

The media is a 1:1 ratio. We put 1/4 cup of media in the bottle and then 1/4 cup of water. A pinch of Fleischmann's yeast is added and then we wait five minutes or so for the mixture to completely solidify. Then add your FF culture and plug the top of the bottle with cotton.

A major difference between the regular and the Hydei varieties of FF (besides their size) is the gestation period. The larger variety takes a month to complete their life cycle, whereas the little ones take as little as 14 days. The smaller FF hop around on the surface tension of the water, while the larger ones flutter attractively on the surface.

Harvesting is a little tricky, Tap the bottom of the container in the palm of your hand and then pull out the stopper. Shake a few out, or perhaps tap on the container to knock a few flies out onto the water surface of the tank. Put the stopper back into the culture bottle. We find that the fish will come to the surface when they hear the tapping on the palm of my hand.

6-8 flies per fish per feeding is an ample rule of thumb, A few less for smaller fish and a few more for larger ones. Each of our Blue Gularis take a couple dozen of Hydei at each feeding. Like any food, give too many flies and they will not be eaten. While the surface tension of the water will keep the vast majority of flies in the tank, occasionally you will find a FF wandering near the edge of the tanks. Both types can escape from the water tension and crawl out of the tank. We don't find this to be a problem as it is generally only a fly here and there, not like an army of them.

We start new cultures every week. The cultures will go bad in about a month to six weeks. The media becomes black and has little food value for the larvae. Don't wait until the media is bad to start a new culture.

You will probably find out that your top feeding fishes go nuts over FF. Surface feeders in particular tear into FF. Some of the bottom feeder/dwellers don't attack the FF. You will want to observe your fishes' habits and make your own decisions. We find the FF very helpful with most of our Killies (especially the Epiplatys) and all of our Bettas.