Ho can I efficiently feed Blue Bottle Flies to my mantis?

[TheSamuraiCop]

I'd really like to set up a system where I'm consistently adding more spikes to her enclosure, maybe staggering the days, so she has a consistent food supply hatching at different rates.

Right now I have about 10 in a little feeder cup (attached by suction) that I suppose should hatch in a day or two. However, now I'm hearing my misting might have been an issue.

Just wondering if you all had any success feeding in-tank like that, and how you typically go about it? Like, I now have 200 pupae. What would you do to maximize hatch rates, and get a mantis on a regular feeding schedule with them?

 

[Charoozz520]

I have never tried to let the pupae emerge in tank as it just doesn't seem as reliable. Imagine if all ten hatched at once and the mantis doesn't eat all of them. The extra flies will end up annoying the mantis and it will be hard for you to open up the container without flies escaping. I have my pupae setup in a 32oz container. I hot glue a 1oz cup in the middle and put a damp piece of paper towel or sponge that is soaked in honey/sugar water for the emerging flies to feed on. The pupae is then put around the 1 oz cup and I top it off with either pieces of coffee filter/paper towel so the flies have something to crawl onto.

Whenever I need to feed I just stick the container in the fridge to slow them down. Then they can be easily picked up with tweezers and toss into mantis container to be fed.

Depending on how fresh the pupaes are they can be stored in the fridge for up to 3-4 weeks but the hatchrate drops the longer they are stored. By the 3rd week I usually just leave the pupaes out to hatch and feed the rest of the flies or use them to breed new ones.

 

[TheSamuraiCop]

Ah alright. I suppose I should just hatch them all as my first experience with them. Just to be sure! I can easily replicate your setup I think.

 

[hysteresis]

@Charoozz520 do you mist? Mine dry out if I dont.

 

[hysteresis]

Ah alright. I suppose I should just hatch them all as my first experience with them. Just to be sure! I can easily replicate your setup I think.

You can keep pupae in the fridge. You can keep eclosed flies in the fridge too.

 

[Charoozz520]

@Charoozz520 do you mist? Mine dry out if I dont.

I honestly have never misted the pupae and they seemed to hatch out fine, the damp paper towel with sugar water seems enough for them to eclosed properly. The spikes I do keep slightly damp until they start to pupae then I stop misting. 

Ah alright. I suppose I should just hatch them all as my first experience with them. Just to be sure! I can easily replicate your setup I think.

Yes and as @hysteresis said once they turn into flies you can keep them in the fridge to make them last longer. Just take them out for a few hours once or twice a week so they can warm up and feed then stick them back into the fridge. 

 

[TheSamuraiCop]

Got it! So what I've done is take a pickle jar that I've modified with a burlap top. I have a small cup at the bottom with 2 paper towels soaked in honey/sugar water inside.... and then I have about 1/3 of my batch spread out on the bottom with some of the substrate mixed in. I'm currently just monitoring daily to see if they are hatching yet.

 

[Charoozz520]

Good luck ! You can tell which pupae are close to eclosing by the colors, the darker it is, the closer they are to eclosing. 

 

[Mantis Lady]

I have my pupae setup in a 32oz container. I hot glue a 1oz cup in the middle and put a damp piece of paper towel or sponge that is soaked in honey/sugar water for the emerging flies to feed on. The pupae is then put around the 1 oz cup and I top it off with either pieces of coffee filter/paper towel so the flies have something to crawl onto. 

can you show me a pic of that? maybe i will put my pupea there too to hatch.

 

[Charoozz520]

@Little Mantis here you go! Sorry the picture isn't too clear, I put too many pupae in this one and its mostly just flies now. I use a dollar store turkey baster to wet the sugar paper towel whenever it gets a bit dry (of course put the container in the fridge first so you don't get a swarm of flies in your face)

 

[Mantis Lady]

Ty ,I will let normally hatch some pupea in plastic box en when they are hatched i toss them in mantis home after calming them in fridge. Hubby complains when sometimes a fly still escapes

 

[hysteresis]

I have one or two flying around at home.

 

[FeistyMcGrudle]

I am going on vacation soon (viva Las Vegas baby!) so I was experimenting with dropping some pupae in my female ghosts enclosures just to see what happened if I were to load the enclosures with pupae before I went on vacation. I dropped seven pupae in each enclosure. Within two days they had all hatched, and within four days, what flies that weren't eaten were dead on the bottom of the tank. They may have eaten 3 flies each. Granted, my female ghost enclosure is a 29 gallon tank, split down the middle with a piece of plexiglass with one ghost per side, so it may have been too much area and too much leafy material for them to find the flies. But still, my experience led me to believe that loading tanks with food isn't really the best way to feed these fellas. I'm a noob, so as always, your mileage may vary. I stick to feeding enclosures or tweezers now.

 

[hysteresis]

Feed them well before leaving.

Ghosts wont die for lack of food for weeks. That's what ive read.

 

[hysteresis]

Now water....

 

[MantisGirl13]

Ghosts will be fine with no water for a few days.

- MantisGirl13