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If I had 10 enclosures and 2 shelves I would do one or two heat cables myself. It will help keep the startup cost low. Still control it with a thermostat and keep the thermostat in your most sensitive mantis' enclosure.

We are hopeful

@The Mantis Menagerie Out of curiosity, was your enclosure a normal opaque rubbermaid style roach enclosure? Or was it transparent? My hope is that keeping them in a transparent enclosure in a room with lighting will encourage them to seek dark shelter under the bark etc that we provide rather...

Thanks guys. I like to keep good records, so I have recorded all of out mantids major life events like molts, long periods without food, unusual behavior, changing enclosures, etc, so with this guy it was strange having so many unknowns. At least now we have a good baseline to move forward.

Nevermind. He molted last night. His one missing leg grew back about 50%. I figure that is about a 32 day molt cycle for this one.

That looks awesome. It looks like you went all out with expanding foam backdrop etc. like the frog guys do. Is that in a 20 gallon? Some of our biggest challenges have been trying to get the needs of a bioactive setup in a more typical-size mantis enclosure. Are you using isopods? Do you have...

They are about $15 each on amazon with Prime shipping: http://a.co/d/bc0af3Z The potential problem with that pad is that they specifically say not to use it with plastic or acrylic. We have used it with acrylic without problem, but you could end up with warping. The smaller "mini" unit is rated...

I've only owned idolo, ghost, peacock, and giant rainforest. Out of those, I agree with your favorite being the giant rainforest. His personality is much more outgoing than the others. The ghosts are a close second though. 

Thanks, I swear he gets more beautiful every molt. The green is brighter and since he is larger each feature is more pronounced. I am hoping his red coloration starts to brighten up some too.

A little update, the cycling is going great. The springtails have been breeding like crazy and took care of all of the mold. Since Carl just molted last night, we are planning to put him in soon! I have been doing more research and it sounds like this mold cycle is beneficial and sometimes you...

The major considerations I have used in finding adequate heating are: cheap startup cost cheap operating cost/electricity safe for long term use Number 3 is a particular concern to me. While some 56k house fires per year in the US are from space heaters and similar devices, they can be...

I have seen guides for some species for length between molts. We are concerned we are messing up something with our peacock mantis' care causing a delayed molt. It is a male L5, was shipped October 1, arrived October 4. It has not molted in shipping or in our care, meaning at least 30 days since...

Good insight, thank you. We plan to use the grease trick to keep them away from the lid. I understand they can fly, but most videos I have seen, they don't fly out of the enclosure. If they do, we will get a taller enclosure. I will document our experience here to see how it works out.

We have worked up good enclosures for our mantids, but have found that the feeder insects become more of a chore than anything else. We are trying to simplify how we keep our feeder cultures, our spare isopod cultures, and our plant cuttings. Here is my thought: Create a display enclosure that...

I have been happy with my adhesive heat padfrom zoo med. I think it is an 8x6. It raises the temperature to 80 without much problem, but you need one per enclosure. I have htem on a thermostat to turn off and on.

Of course. They are the smallest of the Nicrew lights on amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0191EWII2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 They are low heat, pretty bright, seem to be doing well with the plants, and are a neutral white color. Also they are cheap at only...

After seeing how much more active above the surface the powder orange isopods are compared to the dwarf whites, I am somewhat concerned that they will become expensive dinner for the mantids. The peacock is a picky and doesnt actively hunt much, but our giant rainforest mantis, Carl, is a very...

We got the plants and isopods in the mail today. The plants all look great, but the isopods delivered were powder orange and not giant canyon. We put down a new layer of gravel deeper than the first time. Then mesh. Then the substrate. We then put five or ten dwarf white isopods in each...

He is a slow eater. Took him about 45 minutes to eat the mealworm, but he ate all of it.

We were getting pretty worried so we tried the trick of cutting a meal worm and putting it to his mouth. He took it and is happily eating. I hope he is not picky like this all the time. We figured that giving him plenty of time to hunt and even be hand fed would work, but I guess he needed to...