Hi everyone! from California

Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Mantidforum

Help Support Mantidforum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
prayingMantodea323

prayingMantodea323

New member
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
So, to start off, I'm a complete newbie to the hobby. I've always loved animals, mostly vertebrates, and like most other adolescent girls, I was squeamish of most inverts. But even despite the squeamishness, I was captivated. It wasn't until the dreaded bug project of last year that I really started to become fascinated by the different insects of the world. One of them was the mantis. So when my friend bought a mantis ooth off amazon, I started searching up on mantids, planning to get a bugger or two. Today she gave me three second instar Chinese mantids and a culture of fruit flies(D. Melanogaster). I'm excited for what's to come.

I have put all three into a juice bottle cut in half with pantyhose covering the top. I don't see any signs of aggression, but plan to separate them tomorrow. The fruit flies seem to be okay, though there is no excelsior. I'm going to get some, probably from the dollar tree if thats okay? I'm also planning to make another fruit fly culture, since the one I have is cramped. Problem is, I don't know what sort of container I can use for them, particularly the "insect covers". I can't buy any from online or anywhere else for that matter, because of well, no one would do that for me, LOL. I guess that hints towards my age a bit.

Any sort of advice would be greatly appreciated to me as a beginner. Especially the questions on the fruit fly container, and also better alternatives to enclosures for the mantids would be nice. And more convenient ways to feed the mantids the fruit flies. Thanks everyone, from California.

I attached some files of the enclosure(mantids).

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 10.15.00 PM.png

Screen Shot 2014-04-23 at 10.15.16 PM.png

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Love the paper ladder! welcome, ck out some of the post, you will find we use insect lids on most of our deli containers. What u did was fine. Mist them once in the am and again before bed lightly. Check out the Bugatorium post for a fruit fly culture recipe. I will look for it and post for you.

page 21

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Welcome from Los Angeles County. You are off to a good start. There are many helpful hints for beginners in the archives of this site. Just search for your answers. I am sure they are all there.

Rich Sekerman

Carson, CA

 
WELCOME! and Yes, to add to what everybody else said, the search feature was an amazing tool and almost all my questions were easily answered by using that feature. If you ever have a question and you feel the answer would be straight forward, you can go into the chatroom. I am quite the newbie myself, but Falconerguy, Aryia, and Vlodek are all really good resources for information if you have questions. They are usually there in the evening.

As for the fruit fly culture, I will be using a 32oz deli container, with lots of holes punched into it about a penny in size, and hot gluing a very very fine mesh (I'm using recycle sheer curtains lol) its fine enough that theres no way a fruit fly can get out. Make sure you keep an eye out for mites and watch some youtube videos on when to make new cultures etc, because if you let them sit too long, the mites will get at them.

In my experience, everybody so far on this site is very helpful and willing to answer questions, but it can get tiresome to answer the same questions over and over, so if you find you have made a thread and nobody is answering, it's most likely because there is already a thread (or many) answering your question.

Once again, WELCOME!!

 

Latest posts

Top