Drosophila Larvae - Growing Drosophila Larvae (Aug/08/2005 )
I'm having trouble keeping my larvae alive on mating plates. Here's what I'm doing:
I'm putting Drosophila larvae into mating bottles so that they'll lay their eggs on mating plates (plates with a layer of apple juice agar on top). After I remove the plates, I put the lid on top and parafilm them. When I look at the plates the next day, I usually have a 50% chance of finding all the larvae dead or very weak while some plates are fine. I thought that there was a problem with humidity, so I didn't put parafilm on some of the plates, and most of those plates grew fine, but I had some trouble with some larvae traveling from one plate to the other, so I've gone back to parafilming the whole plate again. Any suggestions? 
...so frustrating lol...
I'm putting Drosophila larvae into mating bottles so that they'll lay their eggs on mating plates (plates with a layer of apple juice agar on top). After I remove the plates, I put the lid on top and parafilm them. When I look at the plates the next day, I usually have a 50% chance of finding all the larvae dead or very weak while some plates are fine. I thought that there was a problem with humidity, so I didn't put parafilm on some of the plates, and most of those plates grew fine, but I had some trouble with some larvae traveling from one plate to the other, so I've gone back to parafilming the whole plate again. Any suggestions?
...so frustrating lol...
Well, larvae need oxygen too! Here is how I've grown up larvae before:
1) Use small grape plates to collect embryos.
2) put a dab of yeast paste at the center of the plate
3) put the plate into a large petri dish with a damp piece of paper towl and cover it
You don't really need to seal the sides up if you use the yeast trick. All of the larvae will go for that yeast blob as soon as they come out.
Good luck with it.
Thanks a lot. I removed my plates from my mating bottles today and laid them down using your technique. I'll give you the results tomorrow!
Worked perfectly! Thanks a ton.
[hi there,
put the flies pair in the milk bottle avilable for maiting and on the lay egg close with a cotten plug. you can go for santadard sucrose yeast medium...... once eggs are layed then you can release the flies and keep them as seperate stock.....