# Hmm I found this on eBay..



## beckyl92 (Jun 13, 2009)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...bayphotohosting

do you reckon it'll work?

im thinking of buying it.


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## Rick (Jun 13, 2009)

It might but why do you think you need it? A small funnel works great.


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## beckyl92 (Jun 13, 2009)

Rick said:


> It might but why do you think you need it? A small funnel works great.


true..

how does a funnel work though?


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## Rick (Jun 13, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> true..how does a funnel work though?


Since I culture them in 32 oz insect cups I cut a hole in the side of the cup. I remove the foam plug from the hole and stick the funnel into the mantis enclosure which also has a hole. Then I tap the fruit flys from their culture through the funnel and into the mantid enclosure. Often I will first put the flies into a fruit fly vial which is small and then use that to put them into the mantid enclosure using the funnel since the vial is much smaller and easier to manage than the 32 oz cup.


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## PhilinYuma (Jun 13, 2009)

Rick said:


> Since I culture them in 32 oz insect cups I cut a hole in the side of the cup. I remove the foam plug from the hole and stick the funnel into the mantis enclosure which also has a hole. Then I tap the fruit flys from their culture through the funnel and into the mantid enclosure. Often I will first put the flies into a fruit fly vial which is small and then use that to put them into the mantid enclosure using the funnel since the vial is much smaller and easier to manage than the 32 oz cup.


Haha! Follow Rick's advice Becky! There is a well known guy over here whose company sells house and fruit flies, though his real business is spider venom. He recommends syphoning up flies using a mechanical suction device, not your mouth. I guess he had some bad experiences! I used to make my own pooters when I was a kid, and occasionally I would get a mouthful of insect protein!


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## beckyl92 (Jun 13, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Haha! Follow Rick's advice Becky! There is a well known guy over here whose company sells house and fruit flies, though his real business is spider venom. He recommends syphoning up flies using a mechanical suction device, not your mouth. I guess he had some bad experiences! I used to make my own pooters when I was a kid, and occasionally I would get a mouthful of insect protein!


yeah i was pretty scared of that happening to be honest x)

ill go with ricks advice. the only bad thing is i was planning on keeping the new born nymphs in a large plastic tank. would a 32 oz plastic cup be the right size? :s

id of thought ited be to small.. but ive never actually seen a new born mantis.


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## Rick (Jun 13, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> yeah i was pretty scared of that happening to be honest x)ill go with ricks advice. the only bad thing is i was planning on keeping the new born nymphs in a large plastic tank. would a 32 oz plastic cup be the right size? :s
> 
> id of thought ited be to small.. but ive never actually seen a new born mantis.


I keep all mantids in 32 oz insect cups. Some small mantids can live in those their entire lives while others are moved into someting larger when they outgrow them. The 32 oz insects cups are THE BEST containers in my opinion. If you want your nymphs to all stay in a larger tank that is fine too. In that case you just dump the flies in. If the opening is large enough you don't even need a funnel. I can post pics if it will better help you understand.


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## Katnapper (Jun 13, 2009)

The 32 oz cups will be plenty large for hatching an ooth of P. chlorophaea.  Make a hole in the side to stick the end of the funnel into to feed, and to mist (don't use funnel for that). Then you won't have to take off the entire lid. Because if you take the lid off... the babies all want to get out and go all over the place. Then your fruit flies will wake up while you're distracted with the baby nymphs, and they will also start scattering everywhere but in the cup. Believe me, you'll wish you hadn't opened the lid if you end up having very many, lol!  :lol:


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## lectricblueyes (Jun 13, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> The 32 oz cups will be plenty large for hatching an ooth of P. chlorophaea.  Make a hole in the side to stick the end of the funnel into to feed, and to mist (don't use funnel for that). Then you won't have to take off the entire lid. Because if you take the lid off... the babies all want to get out and go all over the place. Then your fruit flies will wake up while you're distracted with the baby nymphs, and they will also start scattering everywhere but in the cup. Believe me, you'll wish you hadn't opened the lid if you end up having very many, lol!  :lol:


I remember when I had first begun this hobby. I would open the Fruit Fly culture lid, tap it, and the fruit flies would fall onto a glass plate. I would then "pinch" each one and drop it into the cup. I only had 4-5 mantids. It was time consuming but, I was able to manage.

Than, I got more mantids and it was a pain to pick up each fruit fly and drop it into each cup. That's when I came here to ask.

Rick told me to drill a hole in my fruit fly cup, and a hole in my mantis cup, then stop up the holes with foam stoppers. Open the fruit fly hole, tap the fruit flies into the mantis cup. This worked great, for a while.

Then I got even more mantids and it became more troublesome. I had to

(A. Open mantis cup

(B. hope the mantis doesn't climb out

(C. Tap the fruit fly cup

(D. Try to get the mantis back into the cup before the fruit flies crawl out.

(E. Close the lid, killing 2-3 fruit flies and sometimes trapping a mantis arm/hand/foot/leg/antenna in the lid.

I came back to the forums. Rick took a picture of how he does it. Yes, I'm that dense.. I needed an actual picture. He uses a beaker (test tube) which is roughly the same size as the hole in his fruit fly cup, and his mantis cup. He transfers the fruit flies to the glass tube, puts his thumb on the top, opens the hole in the mantis cup, drops the fruit flies from the glass tube into the cup. No escapees, very easy, simple, and gets the job done.

Later, I hung out at Katnappers house. She showed me a fantastic trick. She would scoop out a bit of FF medium (with eggs/larva included) into a small condiment cup that you see at McDonalds or any restaurant you can get take-out from. Little tiny plastic cups. Then she cuts a bunch of holes in the lid of this tiny cup, places that inside her 32oz cup, adds maybe.. 10 fruit flies.. and boom... your all done for like 1 month. Fruit flies just hatch from the little cup or the fruit flies already inside the 32oz cup can eat and stay alive much longer than just FF's without food/water. The mantis usually stays at the top of the cup but if the mantis DOES walk on top of the fruit fly medium, the lid has holes in it.. so they don't get stuck in the medium but the holes are big enough for larva/ff's to enter and exit the little medium cup.

Does that make sense? Do you see how I evolved my feeding technique? I just gathered info from everyone else and improved. Now, I barely feed my nymphs new fruit flies because I have "mini" FF cultures inside each of my 32oz cups.


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## beckyl92 (Jun 13, 2009)

Rick said:


> I keep all mantids in 32 oz insect cups. Some small mantids can live in those their entire lives while others are moved into someting larger when they outgrow them. The 32 oz insects cups are THE BEST containers in my opinion. If you want your nymphs to all stay in a larger tank that is fine too. In that case you just dump the flies in. If the opening is large enough you don't even need a funnel. I can post pics if it will better help you understand.


Could you post a picture?  

thanks


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## beckyl92 (Jun 13, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> I remember when I had first begun this hobby. I would open the Fruit Fly culture lid, tap it, and the fruit flies would fall onto a glass plate. I would then "pinch" each one and drop it into the cup. I only had 4-5 mantids. It was time consuming but, I was able to manage.Than, I got more mantids and it was a pain to pick up each fruit fly and drop it into each cup. That's when I came here to ask.
> 
> Rick told me to drill a hole in my fruit fly cup, and a hole in my mantis cup, then stop up the holes with foam stoppers. Open the fruit fly hole, tap the fruit flies into the mantis cup. This worked great, for a while.
> 
> ...


wow thanks  

that really helped. ill try it


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## keithjmc (Jun 20, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> Later, I hung out at Katnappers house. She showed me a fantastic trick. She would scoop out a bit of FF medium (with eggs/larva included) into a small condiment cup that you see at McDonalds or any restaurant you can get take-out from. Little tiny plastic cups. Then she cuts a bunch of holes in the lid of this tiny cup, places that inside her 32oz cup, adds maybe.. 10 fruit flies.. and boom... your all done for like 1 month. Fruit flies just hatch from the little cup or the fruit flies already inside the 32oz cup can eat and stay alive much longer than just FF's without food/water. The mantis usually stays at the top of the cup but if the mantis DOES walk on top of the fruit fly medium, the lid has holes in it.. so they don't get stuck in the medium but the holes are big enough for larva/ff's to enter and exit the little medium cup.Does that make sense? Do you see how I evolved my feeding technique? I just gathered info from everyone else and improved. Now, I barely feed my nymphs new fruit flies because I have "mini" FF cultures inside each of my 32oz cups.


Do you know if there is a more detailed thread on this? That sounds like a great idea. I'm a little confused by the containers you use.

You use the little paper cups filled with medium, then you put it in a bigger plastic cup with holes which is then placed into the enclosure?


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## cloud jaguar (Jun 20, 2009)

Didn't Ming Ming just eat a mouth full 'o crickets with one of those things?


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## MingMing (Jun 20, 2009)

Arkanis said:


> Didn't Ming Ming just eat a mouth full 'o crickets with one of those things?


Nope... The cricket insident would had never happend if i had one of this thing... what i had was a thin plastic tube with a sponge on on side,...

I would buy this though... or make one myself... you could get all the material for free at any lab.


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## kmsgameboy (Jul 11, 2009)

BeckyL said:


> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...bayphotohostingdo you reckon it'll work?
> 
> im thinking of buying it.


I have seen those before. The actually sell them in educational toy stores.


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## a1_collection (Jul 11, 2009)

That vacuum is also called an aspirator. I use it along with entomologists to catch small bugs.


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## ABbuggin (Jul 12, 2009)

I made myself one a while ago. It is "mega sized" so that I can even suck of things as large as bubmble bees! :blink: It is priceless to me, especially for as much as I use it. If you want a pics let me know. They are very easy to make.


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