I just pop my fruit flies into the freezer for about an hour or so to slow
them down or to kill them. It avoids the problem of toxic residues, and
smells alot better.
>My main success, though, came from my using an airbrush - it was
>powered by CO2, and I got the idea of squirting some of it into the
>terrarium; that was the first time I had really flourishing plants.
>When I mentioned this several months ago, it started a long thread
>of how to administer CO2 without the high-tech gadgets I use (I
>believe it was finally decided that an acid slowly dripped over
>something like baking soda or limestone would yield CO2 which could
>be administered to the terrarium through a trap to keep the acid
>fumes out - some thought of using yeast, but the acid seemed
>cleaner and easier). Just increasing ventilation by putting a tiny
>fan into the terrarium would probably help - I thought of getting
>one of those tiny CPU fans for a terrarium which does not have a
>CO2 feed. Then there were those who felt that just growing the
>plants was better than messing around with all of this stuff (which
>is fine, but I assure you that the success of all growing endeavors
>can be greatly enhanced by addition of the right amount of CO2 and
>the proper wavelength and quantity of light).
A trick we use to create high CO2 atmospheres for getting algae to mate
(yes we do strange things late at night in our labs :) is to put a few Alka
Seltzer tablets in a shallow pan of water. Cover the top of the terrarium
to keep in the gas. Might be worth a try.
By the way, if you use yeast, the smell of the fermentation products should
attract scads of fruit flies. Strategically located containers of yeast
might help attract flies to the traps as well as supplement the CO2.
Heers,
Liane
Liane Cochran-Stafira
Dept. of Ecology and Evolution
The University of Chicago
1101 East 57th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60637-5415
phone: 312-702-1930
e-mail: lcochran@midway.uchicago.edu