Ghost Ooth Misting

[Aryia]

Been hauling my stuff to Oregon over the past couple weeks, and misting the breeding containers has unfortunately slipped my mind. So, how long can ghost ooths go without misting? The ooths feel a lot harder to me than regular ooths (tenodera, rhombodera, deroplatys), is that normal? Sort of like creobroter ooths.

I can't remember when I last misted them, but it probably was once or twice a week. Just curious if anyone had an ooth hatch which they didn't mist very frequently?

Also, how many days do you give the ooth to "harden" after its being laid? I delayed misting for a while fearing that they might turn to mush if I misted (yes I know I'm ridiculous like that), but the females just kept popping out ooths every 2-3 days. It's like they sense me coming with a misting bottle and PLOP there's another ooth.

*It might help to know that my indoor humidity is usually around a crazy 50%

 

[hibiscusmile]

I am in Ohio and winter here is low humidity due to heat being on. The ghost ooths need lots of water, they will hatch, but be stuck in ooth. try soaking them for 5 minutes in warm water then mist every day without fail and hope that helps, ghost ooth hatch very early in the am, so be careful spraying before 9 am as u will wet them coming out. been there, done that!

 

[Aryia]

Soak them in actual warm water? LIke physically place the ooths in warm water? Sorry just wanted to verify since I never heard about trying that before! Thanks

 

[hibiscusmile]

Yes, it helps them accept water when so dry, like the earth that is so dry rain water runs off, this is what happens with really dry ooth, it won't hurt it.

 

[papilio_]

Glad I found your advice here hibiscusmile! Unfortunately a bit late in my case, out of three Ghost ooths I only got three nymphs ... my supplier had said simply to lightly mist the ooths directly with distilled water every other day, evidently that wasn't enough (assuming in the first place that dehydration was the problem, I'm too new to keeping mantids to know). Only three Creos from their ooth as well.

I also came across Peter's post where he advises ambient humidity only, might I ask your views on this? Thanks!

- Michael

 

[Aryia]

Just an update. The ooths that I almost never misted hatched out fine, I never went through with the soaking either. Papilio if you only got three nymphs out of your ooth you should wait a little longer to see if more come out. If not, break the ooth and see if the eggs were unfertile or if they were dead. Some of my later ooths (starting around the 5-6th or so) started declining in hatch sizes, so it's possible you may have just gotten a pretty late ooth.

 

[papilio_]

Thanks a lot for the reply Aryia!

After about a month I opened up the ooths and couldn't make out anything which even looked like an egg, dead or alive. No idea if they were late ooths as you suggest, I purchased them from one of the major online dealers so I would like to assume that they were capable of producing healthy batches of nymphs.

I'll try to keep an eye one the classifieds here and see if I have better luck. But as new as I am to keeping mantids even the few nymphs which I got were pretty exciting, just would've been fun to have seen masses of them emerging from the ooths.

I got four Idolo L2s from her as well, they're already enormous and impress all who see them! I've been keeping lots of Ts for a number of years but the enjoyment of my mantids far exceeds the satisfaction I've gotten from them, they're astonishing!