couple oothca hatching questions

[hortus]

do chinse mantids need a long cooling period

when you go to incubate them do they need like a heat lamp pointed at them like an incandesent light

and how long you think is reasonable to wait till they are born before declaring it a infertile ooth

im about to order a vial of fruit flies and get a spray bottle to keep the ooth humid

also at what size would it be ok to move the nymphs to new homes. like i might have friends that want some and i dunno whens best to let them take them. im assuming whenever they can eat common pet store cricets woudl be cool

 

[Ian]

Well, I have found tenodera so dam easy to hatch. I bought a batch back in, must have been around September time last year. These were wild collected. I was planing on selling them, and was just keeping them at room temerature, until about october. I had sold a few, but wanted to hatch some, so I put the remainder, in a heated viviarum, about 30c. Of course, I did not realise it would be so rapid...after about a week, over the period of 2 days or so, I had 15 dam tenodera ooths hatch on me!

And I can tell you....that was not nice :x

When they nymphs hatched, I just put them in net cages, like with any ootheca I hatch. However, I had noticed a strange thing. The Taiwan sub species of tenodera, were doing fine, and I grew on to about L5. However, the American sub species died out completly, at about L3. I havent a clue why.

I did not spray the ooths at all, I just left em. I am not sure if this is the correct way, but I have reared tenodera ooths a few times, with no spraying at all.

They don't need a certain type of light to my knowledge, I think its the heat that does it. I have had success with heat bulbs, and heat mats.

Cheers,

Ian

 

[Rick]

They don't need a cooling period. No heat lamps either. Room temperature is fine.