Darwinian Nymph Care

[Headspace]

I bought some Chinese ooths from a biological supply company which had a 3 minimum order requirement. So I have three; two hatched, the other will "pop" soon.

Generally my method has been to use most of them for garden pest control (I'm still dubious on whether that works or not), but it's still somewhat cold here. I know someone else (maybe Rick) has posted about just letting them eat each other until the strongest are alive. I'm feeding them flies, but there are too many. Does this method actually work? I don't want to accidentally kill all of them.

 

[hibiscusmile]

You won't! They really only start to eat each other at 3rd instar or if really hungry. They don't do to good for most people, usually out of an ooth u will end up with about 12 or so alive at the end of two to three weeks.It probably has nothing to do with the keeper, it just is the way it is.

 

[Rick]

With Chinese most of them will die regardless of what you do. Then if they are kept together they stronger will eat the weaker until you end up with a number you can actually manage. Once you get to that number you can seperate them. Said it before but three ooths of these is just way too many. I know what you said about the order minimum.

 

[Griever]

Yeah, i revceived 3 ooths in the mail and ended up throwing 2 in the fridge, seemed like one to many ooths to me :mellow:

 

[Headspace]

This ended up working fairly decently with very few remaining--almost all of which are hanging out and looking uncannily fat. Even first instar eats its own when it's hungry. That's my fault for not having enough fly colonies.

It's now down to a suitable number. The third ooth hasn't hatched.

 

[Rick]

This ended up working fairly decently with very few remaining--almost all of which are hanging out and looking uncannily fat. Even first instar eats its own when it's hungry. That's my fault for not having enough fly colonies.It's now down to a suitable number. The third ooth hasn't hatched.

They will still eat each other no matter how much you feed them. I always waited until I had about 10 left then I put those ten into their own 32 oz deli cups.

 

[Griever]

This ended up working fairly decently with very few remaining--almost all of which are hanging out and looking uncannily fat. Even first instar eats its own when it's hungry. That's my fault for not having enough fly colonies.It's now down to a suitable number. The third ooth hasn't hatched.

How many did you eventually end up with?