Firebrats (Thermobius domestica)

Christian made us aware of a feeder insect, known as firebrats (Thermobius domestica), that has made it possible for the the European mantid breeding community to raise and breed species of mantids that had proved difficult or impossible in the past. This information was in a a topic that was severely pruned and information was lost. Thermobius domestica are closely related to silverfish (Lepisma saccharina)

I am starting this topic in hopes that much of that information will be reposted. Information on the following would be great:

1. Why T. domestica makes a great feeder insect.

2. What species of mantids T. domestica is especially well suited.

3. How to start and maintain a culture of T. domestica.

4. Where to buy T. domestica in Europe and the USA.

5. Anything those knowledgeable think would be useful.

Here is a link with information on how start and maintain a culture of T. domestica:

http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=54317

Here is a place to buy T. domestica in the USA:

http://www.doubleds.org/HotFinds.html

If you have information about firebrats, please post it here.

Thanks,

Scott

i only recently started up a culture so can't really answer 3 or 5 as most of my information is gleaned from stuff i found on the web, so i would just be parroting. as for number 2, i have not tried it firsthand but in hindsight i think thermobia would have been a great feeder food for eremiaphila. i tried to raise eremiaphila on fruit flies and 80% died within 1 or 2 moults. only one survived to graduate from fruit flies. after this i fed musca domestica. this must have been a particularly lucky or sturdy specimen to survive fruit flies, but most of the eremiaphila did not. i assume they arent right nutritionally. also in temrs of practicality, i would have to throw a fruit fly near to the mantis as the ff would die within seconds of being thrown in the container, from the high heat that eremiaphila needs.

looking back i think thermobia would have been well suited to eremiaphila as they both support very high temperatures, let alone on a nutritional lvel (i cant really comment on that). i cant really remember which other mantids christian said benifitted from a firebrat diet (as opposed to fruit flies) but i think liturgusa, some tarachodids, eremiaphila, metallyticus (sp?),. i think he also said that theopompa do well on fruit flies but even better on firebrats. none of that is from ym personal experience, im just trying to remember what christian wrote.

from what i gather the main drawback is that they dont have a quick turnover like for example fruit flies, and take a few months to get to an egg-laying age. also it is not recommended to feed from the culture until at least 6 months, to give it time to establish and become stable/sustainable. once set up, they dont seem to require much in the way of care either, which is useful. the main requirement seems to be heat. i keep mine in a tupperware box with cotton wads, crumpled kitchen towel, bits of egg carton and loo roll, i basically just chucked in anything remotely dry and stiff and cardboard-y/paper- i could find! for food i use ground dry dog biscuits, but i have seen fish flakes reccommended. i also had some corrugated cardboard lying about and threw that in thinking they might appreciate the hiding places, but i dont really know what works and what doesnt just yet, like i said i only started a couple of weeks ago so mostly so far its just guesswork and stuff i have read.

as for where to get them, the only place off the top of my head is dartfrog.co.uk, though they (the website) can be pretty expensive.

sidewinder said:

I am starting this topic in hopes that much of that information will be reposted. Information on the following would be great:1. Why T. domestica makes a great feeder insect.

2. What species of mantids T. domestica is especially well suited.

3. How to start and maintain a culture of T. domestica.

4. Where to buy T. domestica in Europe and the USA.

5. Anything those knowledgeable think would be useful.

If you have information about firebrats, please post it here.

Thanks,

Scott

Click to expand...

Back in early 2007, i started a culture of firebrats because i have few oothecae of the dessert mantis (Eremiaphila sp), so i will share a little bit of what i experience with this feeder.

If you plan to use them in large scale, try to buy lot of them, to get the culture establish takes a long time (3-4 months during hot Summer and longer if cooler/dryer). Summer is a good time for this feeder to multiple since it is warm and humid. Come to winter time you have to provide similar condition for the establish culture to expand or you can use up the feeder. I keep my culture in a large plastic container with towel paper, feed them fish flakes and also a shallow plate of water and sponge mainly for humidity purpose and a light bulb to keep the culture hot and humid. I get the culture from Germany, I was told this feeder can be available during Hamm too. i couldn't find anyone in the US selling firebrats back then. In my humble opinion, firebrats is very suitable for tropical bark species (Theopompa, Liturgusa, Gonatista, etc) which also feeding in a hot and humid environment. As for Eremiaphilla, silver fish which required dryer condition is a better food.