WalkerNom's Collection

Since I will be receiving two Ghost nymphs (L3/L4) in a few days I thought I'd create a place for me to share them with everyone.  

In the meantime, I've been getting everything ready for them to come home including setting up their cups (plus an extra one just in case):



Only thing left to do is put coco fiber in the bottom and then they're ready!  The cups are 32oz for size reference.  The black shelf liner is just to give them a little ladder of sorts in case they cant climb the plastic.  The flowers are glued to the top to avoid the mantis choosing a bad place to molt.  Let me know if you have any tips or suggestions.

@WalkerNom I would suggest feeding holes above the substrate level closed with foam. I know it made a huge difference for me feeding my mantids - and prevents escapes or trapped tarsi/feet in the lids and such.

I have to ask though, about the most important thing habitat wise, what did you use/do on the lids for ventilation? I can't tell, and you didn't say.

@CosbyArt - Thanks for the suggestion! 

And silly me, I did forget to mention ventilation completely...I made lots of holes in the lids and hot glued some tulle (two layers, positioned so the holes are actually half the size now).  I will get a pic later!

WalkerNom said:

@CosbyArt - Thanks for the suggestion! 

And silly me, I did forget to mention ventilation completely...I made lots of holes in the lids and hot glued some tulle (two layers, positioned so the holes are actually half the size now).  I will get a pic later!

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Your welcome. Glad to hear it, I just wanted to see what kind of setup you had for ventilation, but it is obviously done right. Your new nymphs will enjoy their homes.

@CosbyArt - Thanks, and I hope so!  Here's that picture anyway:

@WalkerNom Looks good, and nearly evenly spaced holes too nice. I bet you have done some electronic related work before after seeing that. I know trying to make speaker holes in project boxes (all the holes) always comes out awful for me.

@CosbyArt - Haha, actually no.  I'm just a perfectionist and a bunch of random holes would drive me insane....So I marked them out first.  It's still not perfect, but it works lol.  Btw, I added feeding holes above the substrate as well.

In other news my nymphs have shipped!!  I'm so excited to finally meet them!

My Ghost nymphs arrived today!  I can't stop looking at them, they are so beautiful and cute and just, Ah!  

Thanks @Sarah K for making sure they got to me safe and sound and for the wonderful packaging!





It was very hot today so the cold pack was obviously not cold anymore but the mantises still arrived just fine.  Plus the fruit fly culture is producing nicely (it's full of larvae!).

And, sorry for the crappy pics ahead...I didn't want to bother them too much and my phone barely focuses on them lol.  But here's the female in her cup:



And the male:



Both were thirsty when they arrived (as you can see in the male's pic) but now they are just hanging out.  I haven't messed with them too much but the couple times I've picked up the cups I've noticed the female will walk around the cup if I turn it (as if to follow me) and the male pretty much doesn't care lol.  Both of them can walk on the plastic sides so that's great!

Also neither of them have names yet so if you have any suggestions, please feel free to throw them out there!

I am so glad to hear everyone arrived okay, and you are enjoying them! I look forward to continuing to hear more about their progress as they continue to grow! 

Glad they arrived safely and are in their new homes already.

Glad to announce that these two finally have names!  I've settled on Danai for the female and Orion for the male!

Last night Orion molted to L5!  I didn't take any pictures of him since I want to wait a full 24hrs before messing with him but here's some of Danai:

Very nice, Danai looks right at home too.

Quick update: Danai molted to L5 sometime last night!  I discovered her this morning.  Looks like everything went well c: I'm so glad I'm doing good with my babies.

In other news I don't really need fruit flies anymore...and I am absolutely swamped with them haha.  The starter culture @Sarah K gave me produced so many flies...and it's still going!  I want to keep a culture going though so I've begun three new cultures.  Maybe that's a bit overkill, but they're kind of experimental.

Great babies!

WalkerNom said:

Quick update: Danai molted to L5 sometime last night!  I discovered her this morning.  Looks like everything went well c: I'm so glad I'm doing good with my babies.

In other news I don't really need fruit flies anymore...and I am absolutely swamped with them haha.  The starter culture @Sarah K gave me produced so many flies...and it's still going!  I want to keep a culture going though so I've begun three new cultures.  Maybe that's a bit overkill, but they're kind of experimental.

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Great to hear, and congrats.

Nah 3 cultures isn't overkill. I tend to keep at least 6 (in sets of 2 cultures a week apart) at all times for my various jumping spiders. When I have mantid ooths or arachnid egg sacs hatching I have had over nearly 30 cultures to keep up with them. The most I've seen in person was at a dart frog keepers home. He had literately hundreds of 32 oz cultures of many various fruit fly species, not counting the other feeders too (isopods, springtails, etc).