# Can they escape?



## Katie

Howdy, all. Right now I'm trying to hatch two Chinese ooths, and this will be my first time to own mantids again in... er, a decade. Right now they're in a 10 gallon aquarium, but can the nymphs escape when they hatch? The little guys can't climb glass, can they? The screen on the top has holes they could squeeze through, you see. If there is a chance of them getting up there, what material could I use to make a top with smaller holes?

Finally, do they look okay? They felt a bit dry when I was setting them up.







Thanks in advance for any help. I'm excited about this and don't want to end up killing the lot of them.


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## Jackson

They can climb glass, if not straight away then definatly withing a few days.

If you go to a garden centre you can get some fine netting or maybe pick up some of the material that would be used for a screen door.


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## PlasticMonkey

Yeah, I've had some problems with escapees. ^_^ I'm still finding little nymhs in my room. Thankfully, they haven't seem to have found the door yet.

I use some tulle material over the top of my cage. I hot-glued it to the top fo the lid. The only problem with this is that they can still climb out of the lid made for the cage, and get stuck between that and the tulle netting, but they can get back into the cate too.

Good luck!

BTW, the ooths are suppose to be somewhat dry feeling. I had one I thought was dead for sure, (so dry!) but it just hatched the other day, and I think it hatched more nymphs than my other ones. ^_^


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## Katie

I think I finally have the enclosure situation figured out. The folks at WalMart were very curious about my assortment of purchases. :lol: Thanks for the help. The only thing I'm worried over now is the food situation. Are pinhead crickets too large to feed? None of the pet stores have fruit flies. This Monday I'll order some if it isn't possible to feed pinheads. I just don't like the idea of raising flies, but if it's necessary I'll try it.

Good to hear, about the ooths. I've never ordered anything live by mail before... well, besides mealworms.


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## Jackson

Pinheads are....ok to feed. But fruit flys are so much better! Crickets will stay at the bottom of the enclosure 90% of the time. Whereas Nypths will almost always be at the top. By using fruit flys theres more of a chance that the nymths will eat the prey rather than eachother.


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## Rick

Pinheads are ok however they stay on the bottom most of the time while the mantids will be at the top. Your egg cases look fine however it appears you have them upside down or maybe it's just the picture. Fruit flies are the best way to go for nymphs. They are easy too raise in my opinion.


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## Katie

Fruit flies it is, then. If my ooths hatch before the order arrives at least I know pinheads have a chance of holding them over until it does.

Oops... do I? I could have sworn that the bulgier end is supposed to face up. Is it the narrower end instead?


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## Rick

This is how they go:


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## Katie

Thanks, Rick. It's always a good thing to know top from bottom. I ordered two 32 oz. fruit fly cultures, and they just arrived today. They're not like I thought they'd be... they're _neat_! One of the cultures is very far along and has hundreds of adults crawling around, while the other is nothing but larva and maybe thirty flies. I hope my ooths hatch soon or I'll have a lot of flies just sitting around. (If anyone happens to have nymphs up for sale...  )


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## Katie

This is amazing to watch. They're all crowding at the end of the aquarium where the light is, to get warmer. I put some fruit flies in there in case they get hungry later on today, since we're going out somewhere. Now I wish we were staying home...


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## Rick

Nice! They probably won't eat for a couple days. Make sure you lightly mist them once a day. They will be thirsty. Misting is very important if you don't have anything in the enclosure to keep the humidity up. Those large fruit fly cultures won't last long though. They will produce many maggots that will quickly eat the medium. I use about 10 of the small vials to breed flies. Much easier to pour those as well.


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## Katie

They started eating day 2, and I've only had a couple losses, and that was transferring them to a different container. I've separated them into groups of 10-20 to leave room in the aquarium for the second ooth to hatch.

Rick, where can you get the vials? You're right, the 32 oz cultures are kind of hard to pour... either only a couple come out or way too many. When we get down to a couple hundred of flies I'll order more before we run out. Try to breed them, too.

Here's a photo of how they're doing:


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## Rick

Chinese nymphs are not too hardy until about L3. They tend to die easily at first. You can get the fly vials from www.carolina.com Thats the only place I know that sells the empty vials, foam plugs for the vials, lids, and the medium. You can order the fruit fly starter kit which is how I started. It comes with vials, lids, foam plugs, a book, and medium. I think it also comes with some flies. That is your best bet. Has everything you need in the kit.


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## Ian

Hi Katie,

Yeah, I had a lot of problems with chinese. I had a loads of chinese american subspcies, and a load of taiwan sub species oothecae. And, a lot of them hatched before I mamaged to sell them. So, I reared the nymphs, and put them into net cages. However, ever single american nymph died, and refused to eat, but, the majority of the taiwan species remained healthy. I am not sure if it was a weak strain or something, but there was a defiante difference between the both sub species.

cheers,

Ian


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## Rick

They are challenging however I always manage to keep at least a few alive until adulthood. Keep saying I am going to stop keeping this species however it seems I always have some around.


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## Joe

Same here, my chinese ooths hatched and i had a few escape but found them all hopefully. They are growing fast. Some r already a shade of green on the L2 molt  

Joe


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## gotmantids

You're really lucky that you got to see the ooths hatch and got to take pictures of it. All three of the oothecas that I had hatched before I got home from work.  It's a little shocking to see nymphs crawling all around the cage after you get used to just a little egg case.

It still amazes me that so many nymphs can come out!


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## Katie

Thanks, Rick. That kit looks like a good thing to get started from. Good price, too.

I've had some more losses. Not sure why, but I came home and five or so were on their backs, dead. I guess that's something of a good thing, since if all of them survived I'd have more than I'd know what to do with. So far I haven't had any problems with escapees; the ones that do get out just stay on top of the aquarium near the light.

Here's a couple more photos I took this afternoon:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/Lai...hineseL1eat.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/Lai...ineseL1look.jpg

I'm surprised I got to see it hatch. I came in just as the big mass of them had begun to come out, and 20 or so were already running around. Very neat to watch them wriggle free. My second ooth still hasn't hatched yet... waiting patiently.


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## Rick

A lot of them will die for no reason.


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