Hello Everybody!

[BringontheBugs]

Hi everybody!  

My name is Joshua and I am 13 years old. I began keeping insects in early 2013, starting with two sub-sub adult female ghost mantids. I have kept two female ghost mantids, six male ghost mantids, one Deroplatys dessicata, a couple wild Chinese mantids, one female Rhombodera valida, and two female Popa spurca. I currently have one gromphadorhina portentosa, one adult male gromphadorhina oblongonota, three wild caught grapevine beetles which I raised from larvae, two glorious scarab larvae, four blue death feigning beetles, one Eleodes armatus female, two asbolus laevis, two black death feigning beetles, four unidentified darklings, some wild springtails, and some mealworm beetle larvae.

I used to keep exclusively mantids, but after being very discouraged from keeping mantids due to a couple mismolts, a ton of bacterial infections, and odd deaths, in September of 2015 I decided to stop keeping mantids for the time being and purchased a couple darkling beetles. I have grown very fond of beetles, and ended up getting a couple hissers and ended up realizing that I really loved roaches. I plan on keeping mainly roaches and beetles now, although I also like spiders and may purchase some in the future. Although these bugs are great, truly no other insects can compare to the little personalities that mantids have. I love mantids, and am very thankful for this forum. I plan on learning all I can from this forum, in hopes of eventually keeping mantids again in the future.

I included a picture of one of the two ghost females that I started out with, my female popa spurca which was the last mantid I kept, one of my blue death feigning beetles, and my adult male wide horn hisser.

Glad to join the forum!

 

[Tonypace2009]

Welcome  sound like you have a great collection.

 

[Rick]

Welcome

 

[BringontheBugs]

Welcome  sound like you have a great collection.

Thanks! It's pretty good but I'm looking to get some larger beetles and more species of roaches, I actually have 10 Eurycotis lixa nymphs coming on Wednesday so I'm pretty excited for their arrival!

Welcome

Thanks!

 

[CosbyArt]

Hello Joshua and welcome to the forum

You actual have pictures, very nice! Most people don't post photos any when they start.

Sounds like plenty of sweet pets, I really like the death feigning beetles myself and plan to get some eventually. I myself keep isopods, mantids, millipedes, springtails, crickets, fruit flies Melanogaster and Hydei, wax worm/moths, and whatever else I can find to add.

Mantids or not you shouldn't have any trouble finding things to talk about on the forum, as many of us keep many insects and various things besides mantids. If nothing else you could try a few mantids again sometime, as we all have bad luck from time to time too.

 

[BringontheBugs]

Hello Joshua and welcome to the forum

You actual have pictures, very nice! Most people don't post photos any when they start.

Sounds like plenty of sweet pets, I really like the death feigning beetles myself and plan to get some eventually. I myself keep isopods, mantids, millipedes, springtails, crickets, fruit flies Melanogaster and Hydei, wax worm/moths, and whatever else I can find to add.

Mantids or not you shouldn't have any trouble finding things to talk about on the forum, as many of us keep many insects and various things besides mantids. If nothing else you could try a few mantids again sometime, as we all have bad luck from time to time too.

Thanks! Yea, the blue death's are great, they look really nice when they have their bright blue color, and it's funny when you touch them and they turn dark blue and play dead. They're also really easy to take care of, they only need some sand and they like to eat apple, carrot, banana, and chichlid fish food pellets or dog food. I also have some springtails, but I just ended up getting some by getting some dirt  from my yard and they ended up being in it. 

I'm sure I'll try keeping some mantids again, maybe this year even! They just seem hard to keep since they can get bacterial infections and stuff so easy. Is it a bacterial infection when they throw up, won't accept food, and look like they have a lumpy abdomen? That's hove a couple of mine died.

 

[CosbyArt]

Thanks! Yea, the blue death's are great, they look really nice when they have their bright blue color, and it's funny when you touch them and they turn dark blue and play dead. They're also really easy to take care of, they only need some sand and they like to eat apple, carrot, banana, and chichlid fish food pellets or dog food. I also have some springtails, but I just ended up getting some by getting some dirt  from my yard and they ended up being in it. 

I'm sure I'll try keeping some mantids again, maybe this year even! They just seem hard to keep since they can get bacterial infections and stuff so easy. Is it a bacterial infection when they throw up, won't accept food, and look like they have a lumpy abdomen? That's hove a couple of mine died.

Yeah I saw a youtube video of them and thought it would be great to get a small colony of them. Nice way to score springtails, especially as they populate like crazy with a bit of rotted food/fungus and plenty of moisture (here is my setup with a simple timelapse shot to show the springtails).

Well good, it's always worth giving everything another shot. If you are having bacterial infections it is usually due to excess moisture and/or heat. A easy way to help is to put a cleanup crew in your mantid habitats - springtails and isopods. The springtails and isopods will eat the mantid frass (feces), fungus, decaying matter, plant matter, feeder leftovers (cricket legs or whatever) and such, which will help keep the problem from usually happening.

It might have been a bacterial infection, but with the lumpy abdomen it sounds like it could have been something else like a bowel blockage, but the bacterial could have caused that secondary issue. The vomit is usually a sign that they ate too much, they ate something they shouldn't have, or were unable to digest it. With the lumpy abdomen and vomit, you may be interested in reading this thread as it sounds like it was the likely cause.

 

[BringontheBugs]

That sounds similar, although mine's abdomen didn't pop. Just had a question, when you feed your mantids flies do you put the pupae in a separate container with fly food and stuff so that when they hatch they eat and then you can feed them off, or do you just leave pupae in the mantid's container, so that when they hatch they can catch them?

 

[CosbyArt]

That sounds similar, although mine's abdomen didn't pop. Just had a question, when you feed your mantids flies do you put the pupae in a separate container with fly food and stuff so that when they hatch they eat and then you can feed them off, or do you just leave pupae in the mantid's container, so that when they hatch they can catch them?

I thought it sounded very close to your description, of course minus the abdomen popping. That could have been caused by a fall, a sharp stick, or simply the bowel ruptured causing the visible abdomen damage. Not sure if anyone said what can prevent or help a mantid in that condition posted, but might be worth noting in case of a future issue.

Many keepers will simply put a few pupae in a small plastic 1-2oz souffle cup in the corner of their mantids habitat, every few days, so they will hatch out over time. It saves them the trouble of having to transfer the flies manually.

Me personally I prefer to hatch them out in their own bottles, then using my version of dmina's bottle I can put as many hatched flies into the mantid habitats as needed. No worries of the souffle cup, cleaning out empty pupae shells, and I can be sure how many the mantid gets (as I am not worried about how many did or did not hatch). Also it does allow feeding them sugar water if I incubated too many, that way they will eat and I can feed them to my mantids another day.

Although usually I use wild caught flies most of the year from my traps - which saves a lot of money in shipping.

 

[Brunneria]

Just realized you are also on this forum! Glad to see you on here

I'm Cariblatta lutea from roachforum by the way 

 

[BringontheBugs]

Just realized you are also on this forum! Glad to see you on here

I'm Cariblatta lutea from roachforum by the way 

Hi Alan!  Thanks, I'm glad to join the forum!

 

[Sarah K]

Welcome Josh! Sounds like you will fit right in here! 

 

[BringontheBugs]

Welcome Josh! Sounds like you will fit right in here! 

Thank you!

 

[hibiscusmile]

Welcome

 

[BringontheBugs]

Welcome

Thank you! You're actually who I got my first mantids from!

 

[CosbyArt]

Thank you! You're actually who I got my first mantids from!

Yeah Rebecca is the one many of us got our first mantid from, or at least the first mantid we purchased.

 

[BringontheBugs]

Yeah Rebecca is the one many of us got our first mantid from, or at least the first mantid we purchased.

Yep, before that I found a couple Tenodera nymphs in my yard and an adult male, so not really my first experience with them but my first purchase of a mantis as you said.

 

[MantisGalore]

Welcome to our group!

 

[BringontheBugs]

Welcome to our group!

Thanks!