I use 1/4 cup of Mc Cains instant mashed potatoes, 2 tsp. of corn flour, 1 tsp. brewers yeast, and a 1/4 tsp. of white granular sugar. Mix to a buttery paste with pure apple cider vinegar.

- Charlie Drew

Take a quart mason jar, put about 3/4" or 20mm of media in it. Put a piece of embroidery backing in it at an angle. Use a piece of gauze or window sheer instead of the glass lid and screw the metal cap on. The culture should last 4-6 weeks, producing flies from the first week. Each quart jar feeds about 20-30 killies a day on average.

I don't have fruit flies all the time, falling back mosly on white worms which are mush more reliable and less work and do not seem to have the rumord ill effects if fed exclusively. They are, after all, what the fish eat in the wild.

If I had flies more often I think I'd try something I've always thought of doing but never actually did - putting a piece of media, whether a cerial mix or a pieceof banana and floating it on a piece of styrofoam on the top of the water in an aquarium. Presumably the tank is already pretty well sealed if there's killifish in there (or there won't be, for long) so the flies should stay in.

The flies will get into the killies mouths. I've seen some of the lengths these fish will go to to get terrestrial insect that are, what you would think, just out of their reach. Something else for the "future file" is some sort of a plenum that lets small insects (and nothing larger) from outside crawn directly into the aquatium. Between the light in the tanks and the sheer number of insects here at some times of the year one would think this would work out great. One day...

- Richard Sexton