How do you hatch your bottle fly pupa?

[Mystymantis]

Hey I was wondering you guys hatch your bottle fly pupa? Do you put them in a net cage? or a 32 oz cup? With substrate or nothing? Or is there another way you keep them so they pupate?
I keep having low bottle fly hatching rates and am wondering if my method is just not working anymore. It used to work fine. So any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated thanks!

 

[spike]

i have a 1/8" hole punch that i use to put an air hole into 1oz cups then put 10 pupae in each i do this in bulk to all my pupae right after they pupate.
i put about 10 of those cups into a bowl at room temp to hatch. the remaining cups get put into a bin in the fridge. every other day or so i grab a small handful of cups from the fridge to top up the bowl.

they don't last too long once they hatch (2-3 days at most)
on average i get about 1-9 hatching out of eat cup at first (not all at the same time)
but the longer they are in the fridge the lower the hatch rate becomes.
ussually around the 3rd week i've got a new batch heading into the fridge to restart the cycle.

Recently however i've had some pretty miserable hatch rates. I think i got maybe 25 total flies out of 1000 pupae.
Not sure what happened as the refrigerated and room temp both failed to hatch properly.

 

[Mystymantis]

I do something similar for my pupa, I put them in an 8 oz wide container with a plastic top with small holes and set them in room temperature. I have had similar low hatching rates to you. So trying to determine if it's the container, or the fridge or something else.
Thanks!

 

[hibiscusmile]

I leave mine in the insulated cups I use to pupae the spikes in until they pupae about 4 days total. Then I put in fridge. I take out what I need each day, maybe 500 or so and let them hatch in same cup.
After hatching, I either put in fridge until needed or I use a funnel and put in a quart pop bottle with holes pinhole in top of bottle for air. I swipe them while cold into the bottle and put a plug in it. I can then put the bottle top into a hole in containers and feed off that way. To gut load them, I use the cup o fly container and let them feed for a few hours and put back in fridge until needed.

 

[Mystymantis]

I leave mine in the insulated cups I use to pupae the spikes in until they pupae about 4 days total. Then I put in fridge. I take out what I need each day, maybe 500 or so and let them hatch in same cup.
After hatching, I either put in fridge until needed or I use a funnel and put in a quart pop bottle with holes pinhole in top of bottle for air. I swipe them while cold into the bottle and put a plug in it. I can then put the bottle top into a hole in containers and feed off that way. To gut load them, I use the cup o fly container and let them feed for a few hours and put back in fridge until needed.

Ok great thanks for explaining all that! I will see if I can change anything and get better hatchings.