# my first chinese ooth



## iceman1609 (Apr 25, 2008)

as promised i would keep you informed on my progress with my ooths, the first chinese ooth hatched yesterday morning and ive spent the whole day seperating them. did well from that ooth i got 232 babys with no deaths as yet. dam lively little monsters lol. i managed to hang my narrow=winged &amp; european ooths which im sure is correct so hopefully ill have more on the way soon. i will post a few pics asap but they wont be as good as most of yours ,my digi cam is pants thats nxt on hit hit list i want a decent slr  

thanx again for all your help &amp; support


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## Rick (Apr 25, 2008)

Congrats. I prefer to keep them together until about L3 and by then you will have a number you can more easily manage. Be prepared for many deaths as that is quite common and another reason to leave them together for awhile. Good luck.


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## OGIGA (Apr 25, 2008)

Congratulations! I can't imagine separating all 232 of them... must have taken you half the day.

Like Rick was saying, a lot of them will probably die so it's really a lot easier to keep them together until you think most of them will stay alive.


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## iceman1609 (Apr 26, 2008)

yeh took all day and now ive ran out of netting for the cups so still got 100+ left to seperate in tubs of roughly 10.can any of you guy recommend a good slr camera as i see most the pics you guys have taken are brilliant.1 last thing, whats the best way to feed fruitfly &amp; microcrickets. their that small i cant see how to seperate them without them jumping all over my house and i cant see how i would grap hold of the fruitflys again their tiny so really cant use tweezers.


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## macro junkie (Apr 26, 2008)

from L1 - L2 your going to loose at least 50%..they will just die for no reson.like rick said L1-L3 best to leave them together..your just going to make work for your self and half will end up dieing any way.

most species can live together to L3 with no cannibalism if u feed them right.


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## iceman1609 (Apr 26, 2008)

macro junkie said:


> from L1 - L2 your going to loose at least 50%..they will just die for no reson.like rick said L1-L3 best to leave them together..your just going to make work for your self and half will end up dieing any way.most species can live together to L3 with no cannibalism if u feed them right.


the reason why i seperated most of the mantids was to my understanding as newborn you can loose alot from cannibalism so i thought id try seperate them &amp; see just how much of a difference if any it would make.agreed it took alot of time to do but if i get less losses im well chuffed and proved that extra time is worth while.my nxt chinese ooth im planning on keeping them in groups like you say until like l3 stage so i will be able to see what if a difference there is between the 2 methods.


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## Malnra (Apr 26, 2008)

For the FF's just dump a few into the containers .... yours are not the kind that fly are they ? IF yours can fly, then you chill them in the freezer for 1 - 2 mins then quickly dump them into containers. It will be difficult as you only have 30 - 45 seconds before they wake up. Crickets I use a small paper scoop to put them into a smaller container and just dump them in. As long as you only have a couple crickets in there and the crickets have been fed, you are ok to have more than 1 at a time in there.


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## macro junkie (Apr 26, 2008)

got the bug said:


> the reason why i seperated most of the mantids was to my understanding as newborn you can loose alot from cannibalism.


if u chuck food in every day u wont get any cannibalism from L1-L2.mayby L3 they would...any way..your see..50% will die no matter what u do.so potting them up untill there L3 is pointless imo..this species has a massive hatching number because half die dont matter if u have the perfect conditions they just die for no reason like i said above..Small speices like ant mantis will hatch 30 nymphs and not 1 will die...

Good luck with them tho.they grow super fast


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## asdsdf (Apr 26, 2008)

:blink: WOW! All 232 of them....WOW!!! How long does it take to feed them?


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## iceman1609 (Apr 26, 2008)

asdsdf said:


> :blink: WOW! All 232 of them....WOW!!! How long does it take to feed them?


i think it prolly took bout 1 1/2 hours to feed them all.was quite a pain as they all trying to escape,runnig &amp; jumping everywhere lol. they that small i couldnt feel them on my fingures until them got to the back of my hand lol.dam good fun though and good experience.i noticed they all slowed down after having a good feed though so thats a good thing.


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## iceman1609 (May 2, 2008)

all is good with my little chines as yet only lost maybe 20 upto yet and they all feeding well.roughly how long does it take before they shed for the first time.


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## Trademark (May 4, 2008)

got the bug said:


> all is good with my little chines as yet only lost maybe 20 upto yet and they all feeding well.roughly how long does it take before they shed for the first time.


With every day fruit fly meals, mine shed a week after they hatched, some a couple days later. Out of the 24, though, 16 survived.


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## iceman1609 (May 7, 2008)

Trademark said:


> With every day fruit fly meals, mine shed a week after they hatched, some a couple days later. Out of the 24, though, 16 survived.


what you only had 24 hatch ? lol i must have mis-read that. i think a few may have shed now but now evidence to prove it they just look alot bigger than rest.ive been feeding mine on micro crickets as my fruit fly cultures had weird looking bugs in so through them all away.got another half dozen on order then gona make my own i think,well try.


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## Trademark (May 7, 2008)

got the bug said:


> what you only had 24 hatch ? lol i must have mis-read that. i think a few may have shed now but now evidence to prove it they just look alot bigger than rest.ive been feeding mine on micro crickets as my fruit fly cultures had weird looking bugs in so through them all away.got another half dozen on order then gona make my own i think,well try.


Oh, no, a ton hatched, I just kept 24 and released the other nymphs cause.. I can't keep all those bugs. lol. And now after their first shed I'm left with 16.

Yeah, that's how I could tell mine shed. I was like "###### where did all this big guys come from???" lol. And eventually I'd start finding the exoskeletons at the bottom of the tank. I'm trying to make my own fruit fly culture too, actually.  Good luck to us, right? hahaha.


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## iceman1609 (May 7, 2008)

yeh ive got i think 4 recipies for the ffc's am gona try them all and see whats best for me.i wish you all the luck with yours and ya nymphs


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## iceman1609 (May 8, 2008)

finally 2 of the nymphs have shed  all others now hanging too &amp; not eating so think they are getting ready to shed too


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