I don't have any evidence to believe it is anything, I'm just winging it in a vain attempt to not be minus one mantis because I've gone through so much trouble to hopefully have a successful breeding population and now I only have one healthy female (the sick one is still barely alive <_< ). I didn't start with an ooth, as it's my first time and didn't want to try that just yet, so I don't have the number of mantids I would like. I've invested what my meager minimum wage paying job as a lab aid would consider a substantial amount of money, so I don't see myself trying to expand my population size if that is what's required. Besides, is throwing antibiotics at a problem, despite evidence or lack thereof, much different than what the average general practitioner would do?
What I've read on the forums is that poor ventilation can lead to conditions that are conducive to the growth of harmful bacteria and this could be introduced to the mantis' system. This is what I mean by bacterial infection, but if there is some sort of fallacy with the term or my logic I do invite you to educate my naive self.
I did spray quite a lot of water and haven't cleaned my sprayer in a minute.... However, the water tends to evaporate fairly quickly and I've never considered it a problem. It also could have been transmitted from the flies. The other mantids use the same food source and are fine, so maybe that's not it. Another possibility I've considered is that I left my heat lamp on for two days as I was off spending the past couple days drinking w/ my combat engineer buddy who was in town for a limited time, and I didn't want to drive home from a friend's apartment the other night. Perhaps stress got to her? I'm new to this but I haven't completely failed yet. I do feel like my care for my mantids has been consistent and I have tried to maintain sanitary conditions. I'm also aware of the "sometimes they just die" opinion and maybe it's due to poor genetics or an inability to provide conditions similar to the natural environment of the species, but they obviously die of something. I will tell you what I have learned from this experience so far. Taking care of mantids takes a considerable amount of planning and effort, and, while I originally entered this hobby with the grand plans of owning as many species as possible, I think, in all likelihood, I will only rear a couple species at a time and take pictures to catalog my adventures.
