Feeding L1 ghost

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poke

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Brand new to keeping mantis and getting my first ones this coming monday from a local member here. Was wondering how many ff cultures will i need to make before they can take bbs? Also how many fruit flys do I feed at a time?

Thanks

Dale

 
One good mel ought to do it, feed them about 6 to 10 a day, mist twice a day, really warm water, and if they eat all their dinners, at night u can give a few more!

 
Easy enough, how long will it take usually for them to switch to bigger foods like flys?

 
about the 4th molt for this species, they tend to stay little longer, but u can always try at 3rd instar, I give mine both, but I hatch 3000 house flies a day, so I freely give!

 
Ok so ff till L3 then crickets or bbs

What if i have roaches. I have a rather large colony of dubia roaches and was wondering if i can feed them roach nymphs at L3 or L4?

 
I have a dozen L1-L2 chinese nymphs and one decent ff culture is plenty for mine right now. Not sure how many you're getting, but just to put it in perspective. :) Have fun with the ghost, totally jealous! I love ghost mantids.

 
It doesn't hurt to try to give them roaches, use your judgment on the size of the predator vs prey. My mantids will take roaches as long as they are not able to hide. Sometimes it is fun to watch a mantis take down a large roach. it is like the Rodeo. :lol: But use YOUR judgemen't. Some people prefer to only feed smaller things to their mantids, that is safe and works. You would be surprised at the size of prey some mantids can manage.

 
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i just got 6 ghost today from joeho and wow i cant believe how cool these guys look. Ok cool 1 ff culture it is. Im used to darts where i had to make 1 culture every 3 days or so. This is so much easier.

Ill wait till they get to L3 or L4 then try a roach and see how well they do.

 
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by L3 I feed a mix of hydei and houseflys. by L4 they are fully on houseflys.

roaches tend to stay near the bottom of the containers, while the ghosts are near the top. flys are much better.

Harry

 
haha yah...

Mind if I ask what part of So.Cal you're in? I really need a female, and don't really want to mess with shipping -

 
Im in orange county, huntington beach area. But if you look around the forum there is alot of socal people on here that can help you out with getting a female ghost.

 
You really don't need to feed them flies. I've only fed mine flies once, and one of them didn't even want to eat it. They stalk and chase down crickets. Roaches should be fine as long as your Ghosts can see them walking around.

 
Deby said:
You really don't need to feed them flies. I've only fed mine flies once, and one of them didn't even want to eat it. They stalk and chase down crickets. Roaches should be fine as long as your Ghosts can see them walking around.
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Mine don't seem to want to "hunt"--they will grab the ff if they walk near them, but they don't stalk the prey. I'm going to try some alternate items to see if it is just that the ff are too small. They molted 2 days ago, so should be hardened up I think.

Wyethia

 
That's how it usually goes with fruit flies. They don't have to chase them down (even though mine did sometimes). You just have to let them get used to the food walking around the bottom. Once they figure out that that's where the food is, they'll readily climb down for dinner. It's been the same way with my other mantids once they switch from fruit flies to crickets.

 

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