# Hello from NYC



## JonRich (Dec 25, 2014)

Hello All,

My name is Jon . I live in Manhattan NYC and I work for a major search engine company. I keep a few exotic pets (mostly reptiles and amphibians). I added mantids to my collection a few months ago after a recent trip to a Reptile Expo.

I picked up 1.1 pair of Ghost Mantis ( Phyllocrania paradoxa). Currently both have molted to adults. The male was first and the female followed about 2 weeks after . I kept them separate for 2 weeks then moved them to a 10g vert set up as a breeding tank . 2 days later the pair were coupled for about 24 hours. The male them made a b-line to the back of the tank . He was then moved . I'm awaiting ooths. Female is eating everything in sight . Mostly dubias and blue bottle flies.

I also picked up 0.0.2 Orchid Mantis ( Hymenopus coronatus) I believe . They are kept speratly in 32oz deli cups . Not much action out these guys . I believe they have molted 2 times in my care . They were pretty small when I got them .

I'm trying to figure out how to post pix here . I can't find the forum on tapatalk .


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## JonRich (Dec 25, 2014)

Full tank shot of the Ghost Mantis breeding/rearing tank .

Oh and Merry Christmas .. ?


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## LAME (Dec 25, 2014)

welcome to the community!


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## CosbyArt (Dec 25, 2014)

Hello Jon and welcome to the forum





Ghost mantises are great, but the beautiful ones I believe would be your Orchids. Nice selection to get started in the hobby.

Looking at your breeding tank it's obvious you have been in the reptile and amphibian hobby for a long while. Let me guess you have/had Dart frogs? They seem to be some of the most elaborate setups and would build some skills.


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## JonRich (Dec 25, 2014)

LAME said:


> welcome to the community!





CosbyArt said:


> Hello Jon and welcome to the forum
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Ghost mantises are great, but the beautiful ones I believe would be your Orchids. Nice selection to get started in the hobby. Looking at your breeding tank it's obvious you have been in the reptile and amphibian hobby for a long while. Let me guess you have/had Dart frogs? They seem to be some of the most elaborate setups and would build some skills.


Lol, yes I keep about 7 different species of dartfrogs. I also keep Uroplatus sikorae, Panther Chameleons , 2 species or Bradypodion (dwarf chameleons), Lygodactalus williamsi and Chinchillas . LolI build/have built quite a few tanks (species specific ). Considering putting my orchid mantis in this .


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## mantiseater (Dec 25, 2014)

welcome im from NY as well


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## LAME (Dec 25, 2014)

That enclosure is wicked!  !!!


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## JonRich (Dec 25, 2014)

mantiseater said:


> welcome im from NY as well


Nice . Where in NY?


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## CosbyArt (Dec 25, 2014)

JonRich said:


> Lol, yes I keep about 7 different species of dartfrogs. I also keep Uroplatus sikorae, Panther Chameleons , 2 species or Bradypodion (dwarf chameleons), Lygodactalus williamsi and Chinchillas . LolI build/have built quite a few tanks (species specific ). Considering putting my orchid mantis in this .


Lucky guess on the Darts :shifty: Quite the selection of exotics, the Uroplatus sikorae looks like a really amazing species. With pets like that I bet you have a awesome pet room too. Your fit right in here, seems many really branch out in pets (several chams and other owners here too), and most like to keep little exotic zoos.

Ah Chinchillas, I imagine this is your hands on pet and takes the place of a cat/dog. My local pet store got in a few this past week (standard grays) - what color(s) do you have?

That is a awesome tank! It would be wonderful as a self-sustaining terrarium (or it's own ecosystem) even - You are a artist using plants.


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## JonRich (Dec 25, 2014)

LAME said:


> That enclosure is wicked!  !!!


Thanks . I have a build thread for it somewhere . It's a 18x18x24 ExoTerra . I also have a few other builds on Instagram (user name JonRich1320). If you are you on Instagram, have a look.

I usually try to get a feel for the bio-type of whatever animal I keep and try to replicate it as best I can .


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## JonRich (Dec 25, 2014)

CosbyArt said:


> Lucky guess on the Darts :shifty: Quite the selection of exotics, the Uroplatus sikorae looks like a really amazing species. With pets like that I bet you have a awesome pet room too. Your fit right in here, seems many really branch out in pets (several chams and other owners here too), and most like to keep little exotic zoos.
> 
> Ah Chinchillas, I imagine this is your hands on pet and takes the place of a cat/dog. My local pet store got in a few this past week (standard grays) - what color(s) do you have?
> 
> That is a awesome tank! It would be wonderful as a self-sustaining terrarium (or it's own ecosystem) even - You are a artist using plants.


I like to keep things that interest me. I had some interesting sruff when I was younger. Haha. I have a decent herp-room. And the chinchilla was an impulse buy on my wife's part. We have 4 (2 mosaic and 2 standards). They are pretty hands on and get about an hour free-range time at night. All my animals are pretty hands on . Lol (see attached photos, haha). I messed up by adding the creeping ficus (the lush green plants on the left wall). It's a weed and will overwelmed the tank of not trimmed. I lost a few miniature orchids under it . Had to move the rest. Aside for that plant the tank is pretty self sustaining .


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## sally (Dec 26, 2014)

Welcome


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## CosbyArt (Dec 26, 2014)

JonRich said:


> I like to keep things that interest me. I had some interesting sruff when I was younger. Haha. I have a decent herp-room. And the chinchilla was an impulse buy on my wife's part. We have 4 (2 mosaic and 2 standards). They are pretty hands on and get about an hour free-range time at night. All my animals are pretty hands on . Lol (see attached photos, haha).
> 
> I messed up by adding the creeping ficus (the lush green plants on the left wall). It's a weed and will overwelmed the tank of not trimmed. I lost a few miniature orchids under it . Had to move the rest. Aside for that plant the tank is pretty self sustaining .


I imagine so, nothing wrong with that. Wow, blaming your wife on the forum already? I think it took me a week to get there with mine



Very nice, 2 sets of Chinchilla's - and it seems your daughter(?) loves them. I must admit I was curious why the Chinchilla's as they seemed so out of place with the rest of your pets.

It's great to be able to interact with pets, allows a much more fulfilling relationship. Heck even most mantises are that way; however, mine would rather head butt my hands and run away. Lots of nice photos thanks for sharing them.

I had my wife look at the photos and she asked, "Why are we looking at just a stick?". A few seconds later she discovered the possible outline of your Uroplatus sikorae in photo three. It really does have amazing camouflage.

Easy mistake on the weed, but sounds like a good choice for a fast growing plant. I've used various weeds before in my freshwater ADF (African Dwarf Frog) tanks - it was a great source of food (the roots), and one of the few plants to survive their thrashing. It also allowed their tadpoles a place to hide when we bred them - great experience.


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## LAME (Dec 26, 2014)

I would love to see that build thread  

Though I'm not on facebook,twitter,instagram,ect.. Just here...


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## Rick (Dec 26, 2014)

Welcome


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## mantiseater (Dec 26, 2014)

JonRich said:


> Nice . Where in NY?


Westchester


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## Jay (Dec 26, 2014)

Welcome to the community!


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## JonRich (Dec 26, 2014)

sally said:


> Welcome


 Thank you



Rick said:


> Welcome


 Thanks for the welcome



mantiseater said:


> Westchester


 Cool. Are you familiar with the mantis vendors at the WhitePlains show?



Jay said:


> Welcome to the community!


Thanks


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## JonRich (Dec 26, 2014)

LAME said:


> I would love to see that build thread
> 
> Though I'm not on facebook,twitter,instagram,ect.. Just here...


I'll be building a few extra 10g verts for mantis and I'll post in the enclosure section here .


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## LAME (Dec 26, 2014)

that'd be killer, I'm looking forward to seeing it! Ive got an extra 10g ive been thinking about doing something new with.


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## JonRich (Dec 26, 2014)

CosbyArt said:


> I imagine so, nothing wrong with that. Wow, blaming your wife on the forum already? I think it took me a week to get there with mine
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Lol. She knows . It went from "aww, soo cute. Can we get one?!?!".So we left the pet shop with a shy little female. We quickly found out that they are nocturnal and highly social. Ended up looking on Craigslist and found another. Found another female (this one a mosaic) for adoption. They were great for about a year together, until a baby appeared (standard .het for mosaic) . Turns out the mosaic we adopted was a male. 7-8 months later there was another baby (this one a mosaic). So now we have 4. They actually make great pets, aside for being pooping machines .

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices with plants . But I'll be pulling the ficus from that tank and replacing it with something slower growing . Something that sningles . Possible Mcgravia .


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## CosbyArt (Dec 26, 2014)

JonRich said:


> Lol. She knows . It went from "aww, soo cute. Can we get one?!?!".So we left the pet shop with a shy little female. We quickly found out that they are nocturnal and highly social. Ended up looking on Craigslist and found another. Found another female (this one a mosaic) for adoption. They were great for about a year together, until a baby appeared (standard .het for mosaic) . Turns out the mosaic we adopted was a male. 7-8 months later there was another baby (this one a mosaic). So now we have 4. They actually make great pets, aside for being pooping machines .
> 
> Sometimes you have to make sacrifices with plants . But I'll be pulling the ficus from that tank and replacing it with something slower growing . Something that sningles . Possible Mcgravia .


Yeah the, "aww so cute" line always means trouble.





Nice, so you have been through the life cycle and raised the babies. There is no other feeling like that of owning a pet from birth - and gives them ample time to get adapted to their owners. I know the pets we had since birth are always a bit more special with their behavior, temperament, or otherwise.

I watched a few Youtube videos of the Chinchilla's in action yesterday. I was amazed at the amount of fecal pellets they laid around a enclosed tiled room in a 5 minute span.



That is most definitely a rodent trait - my hamster, gerbils, rats, and such I had growing up all did that too. Only positive is theirs were very low moisture typically and easy to clean.

You will have to make a new post in the Enclosures and Habitats section with a brief tutorial with links to plant supplies and such sometime. As there are many members here who would love to have something like that for their pets - and have no idea where to begin.


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## JonRich (Dec 26, 2014)

LAME said:


> I would love to see that build thread
> 
> Though I'm not on facebook,twitter,instagram,ect.. Just here...


I just made a quick video for the conversion for the Ghost Mantis 10g vert.

http://youtu.be/yGyzzRvFbUc


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## dmina (Dec 26, 2014)




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## Ralphys_Mantids (Dec 26, 2014)

Welcome to our community!

I was actually born in the Bronx. I miss the city but Connecticut isn't that bad!

Happy New Years! Enjoy


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## hibiscusmile (Dec 27, 2014)

welcome


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## mantiseater (Dec 31, 2014)

JonRich said:


> Cool. Are you familiar with the mantis vendors at the WhitePlains show?
> 
> Thanks


I know there was one last time I went( about a year ago.) is there any more?


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## Vespertino (Jan 7, 2015)

Wlecome!

That's a lot of cool pets! With lease restrictions and condo/coop rules it's difficult to keep any kind of pets NYC these days. Normaly they make exceptions for goldfish, so there is hope  I moved to TX a couple years ago, but was born and raised in NYC.


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## PrayingMantisPets (Jan 7, 2015)

Welcome! and WOW! what a collection!


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## JonRich (Jan 12, 2015)

dmina said:


>


thanks for the warm welcome.



Ralphys_Mantids said:


> Welcome to our community!
> 
> I was actually born in the Bronx. I miss the city but Connecticut isn't that bad!
> 
> Happy New Years! Enjoy


Nice, i'm looking into purchasing a house and CT and NJ were options.



hibiscusmile said:


> welcome


thank you



mantiseater said:


> I know there was one last time I went( about a year ago.) is there any more?


i went to the December expo and there were 2 vendors selling mantids.



Vespertino said:


> Wlecome!
> 
> That's a lot of cool pets! With lease restrictions and condo/coop rules it's difficult to keep any kind of pets NYC these days. Normaly they make exceptions for goldfish, so there is hope  I moved to TX a couple years ago, but was born and raised in NYC.


Well i don't advertise the pets i keep. lol. I'm sure there would be an issue. I had an improperly packed 1000 count of crickets come in one time and i got a prompt call from the lobby. Since then i'm more careful with my feeder purchases. lol.


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## JonRich (Jan 12, 2015)

PrayingMantisPets said:


> Welcome! and WOW! what a collection!


Thanks. I'll be downsizing my collection soon. I'm not happy with the mix of enclosures sizes i have now. It's hard to accurately replicate a boi-type in a small tank. I'll be doing away with the smaller tanks and building 2-3 large display enclosures (100-150g). I'll only be able to keep a few of my current livestock , but maybe some will allow me to keep smaller species of mantis in them to help clean up loose feeders.


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## MantisMan223 (Jan 18, 2015)

Welcome


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## JonRich (Jan 26, 2015)

Thanks . And today I have my first Ghost Ooth .


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## CosbyArt (Jan 26, 2015)

JonRich said:


> Thanks . And today I have my first Ghost Ooth .


Congrats  It took your Ghost about a month after mating, you should have many more


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## dmina (Jan 27, 2015)

Congrats on the ooth... Keep us updated!


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