# Hocus Pocus Sharing Her Digs



## Krissim Klaw (Dec 26, 2010)

Since I always enjoy looking at the set ups other people post I thought I would share one of my mesh cages. Of course I had to get the resident female, Hocus Pocus's permission first. =p

Here is a shot looking in the open screen door. As you can see fairly simple though she seems to enjoy it.







Close up of some of the plants. I really love the fabric Exo Terra plants. Since I tend to kill real ones, I find these make a nice substitute.






Here is a close up of my favorite mantis purchase ever. I love this plant and as you can see, so does Hocus Pocus. All the mantises love sitting on this plant, and I often move it from the cages to my desk where they can hang out with me. Christmas morning Hocus spent her time hanging from it out on a counter in the living room watching the family open presents.






Hocus Pocus says she hopes you enjoyed seeing her home.


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## PhilinYuma (Dec 27, 2010)

Very cool!


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## warpdrive (Dec 27, 2010)

I really like your setup. I hope to have something that nice for my mantids some day.

Harry


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## Krissim Klaw (Dec 27, 2010)

Thank you both.

Warpdrive, decorating up the larger mantis cages are always fun and I'm sure you'll come up with something neat. I love the screen cages because for the space you get they are very affordable. The fake plants are not priced bad either, especially since once you get them they will pretty much last forever. I'm jealous though of some of the sticks I've seen other members using. I think I need to look around more for a better selection one of these days.


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 27, 2010)

She is funny, did u get her a gift from santa? haha, love the last one!


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## Rick (Dec 27, 2010)

I like that one. Is that a bowl of water on the bottom?


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## Hannibal (Dec 27, 2010)

Very nice set-up, thanks for sharing.


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## Krissim Klaw (Dec 27, 2010)

hibiscusmile said:


> She is funny, did u get her a gift from santa? haha, love the last one!


Lol actually she and all three of the nymphs all got a little something from Santa. She got a new fake plant I thought would look nice back in the corner where I stuck that old aquarium piece you can see in my pictures. Unfortunately it was a little too big to fit well and made the cage look cluttered so she was nice enough to let me stick it in my hanging exo terra mesh cage that has been needing a nice stable ground plant.


Rick said:


> I like that one. Is that a bowl of water on the bottom?


I do use it for water but not so much standing water. I stick some paper towels in it and mist them as needed to help hold some extra humidity. One of these days I'll have to try that fancy moss stuff everyone here seems to use. The container itself is the cut off bottom of those one gallon plastic water jugs. I find the method does a pretty good job maintaining the humidity in the smaller screen cages where I tend to raise up most of my still growing mantises. I usually wait for them to reach adulthood before I move them into my fancier large screen cages.


Andi said:


> Very nice set-up, thanks for sharing.


Thank you. =3


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## Rick (Dec 28, 2010)

Oh ok. You could just line the bottom of the cage with paper towels too. That also helps with cleaning because all of the feces and insect parts will be sitting on the towel. Fold itup and remove and replace. I like your set up. It is one of the better ones I've seen lately on here.


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## nebrakacinese (Dec 28, 2010)

Looks truly awesome,I have a couple of 10 gal. tanks I want to use when the time comes with my ghost.


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## Krissim Klaw (Dec 28, 2010)

Rick said:


> Oh ok. You could just line the bottom of the cage with paper towels too. That also helps with cleaning because all of the feces and insect parts will be sitting on the towel. Fold itup and remove and replace. I like your set up. It is one of the better ones I've seen lately on here.


Neat, so you do just set them on the bottom. That does sound more efficient. I thought about doing that, but the paranoid part of my brain was worried that even though the paper towels aren't that wet or anything the moisture might leach through the bottom or something in the mesh cages. For the smaller cages I do a pretty similar method with clean up. I will fold the paper towel up to catch all the waste that fell on it. Then I will just take and lightly tap the clean side around the bottom of the cage real quick and the little bit of moisture in the paper towel tends to cause any remaining feces/insect bits to stick to it. In my larger cages however I often just grab my trusty dust buster and lift my plant with one hand and vacuum around everything else real quick. The mantises do glare a bit at that, but hey I haven't accidentally sucked anyone up... yet. :innocent: Thank you for the compliment on my set up. =3



chinese ne said:


> Looks truly awesome,I have a couple of 10 gal. tanks I want to use when the time comes with my ghost.


Thank you for the compliment and you will have to share your tank once you have the time to set it up. Even though I prefer mesh, the tanks really do end up looking nicest afterwords because you can see through the glass so easy and get such a nice view of the bugs.


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## Rick (Dec 29, 2010)

I put the clear plastic side of the cage facing down. That way nothign can soak through. It also frees up one more surface the mantis can easily grip. Seems most people turn the clear plastic side to look through.


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## Krissim Klaw (Dec 29, 2010)

Rick said:


> I put the clear plastic side of the cage facing down. That way nothign can soak through. It also frees up one more surface the mantis can easily grip. Seems most people turn the clear plastic side to look through.


*Facepalm* I wonder how long if ever that would have occurred to me. I prefer the large cages in the more vertical position since I like to put in some of my taller plants and hanging stuff, but the little cube cages would work perfect like that. Hahaha, I do have a bit of an excuse though for not thinking of it. I only just got myself some of the cube mesh cages for Christmas that most of the people on the board use. All these years I have been using another style of pop up screen cage that is a slightly different build. They don't have any plastic sides but instead the bottoms have the sort of material you would expect on like a windbreaker while the four walls and stuff are mesh. They also have a slightly triangular shape to them and the mesh is softer and more delicate. I'm actually pretty smitten with them since I've had such good luck with raising mantises up in them, but they have been discontinued for a number of years now so I thought I would try some of the cubes. Thanks for the trick. It is nice sometimes getting a quick easy view through the plastic, but its not a feature I use all that much.


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 29, 2010)

I have sucked them up before, not a pretty site :angry:


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## Rick (Dec 30, 2010)

Krissim Klaw said:


> *Facepalm* I wonder how long if ever that would have occurred to me. I prefer the large cages in the more vertical position since I like to put in some of my taller plants and hanging stuff, but the little cube cages would work perfect like that. Hahaha, I do have a bit of an excuse though for not thinking of it. I only just got myself some of the cube mesh cages for Christmas that most of the people on the board use. All these years I have been using another style of pop up screen cage that is a slightly different build. They don't have any plastic sides but instead the bottoms have the sort of material you would expect on like a windbreaker while the four walls and stuff are mesh. They also have a slightly triangular shape to them and the mesh is softer and more delicate. I'm actually pretty smitten with them since I've had such good luck with raising mantises up in them, but they have been discontinued for a number of years now so I thought I would try some of the cubes. Thanks for the trick. It is nice sometimes getting a quick easy view through the plastic, but its not a feature I use all that much.


Haha. I did notice with the larger cages they are not square. However with the 12x12 size they are square and it works then as a floor. Seems a lot of people in this hobby don't think outside the box and only use something the way they were told to use it. I have no problem seeing through the mesh since mine are under flourescent lights. Glad I could help.


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## Krissim Klaw (Dec 30, 2010)

hibiscusmile said:


> I have sucked them up before, not a pretty site :angry:


I better make a mental note of keeping my distance when you have a vacuum in your hand.  


Rick said:


> Haha. I did notice with the larger cages they are not square. However with the 12x12 size they are square and it works then as a floor. Seems a lot of people in this hobby don't think outside the box and only use something the way they were told to use it. I have no problem seeing through the mesh since mine are under flourescent lights. Glad I could help.


You would think us mantis folk would already be good at thinking outside of the box with our pet choices, but clearly some of us need to get out of our bug rooms more. I blame it on the mantises. I still say they are mini aliens who snuck down on their flying saucers to drain my brains while I sleep.


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 31, 2010)

Aliens! Oh My! I do believe that there is something funny goin on here! :tt2:


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## dgerndt (Jan 1, 2011)

I always knew they were aliens...


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