WendigoBlue
Member
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2018
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 2
I'm going to try to update everything about the mantids I keep in this log!
______
Current mantids:
Hierodula membranacea 3.3.0
Mantis religiosa 0.0.301
______
April 2nd, 2018
One of two Mantis religiosa ooths hatched this morning! Before the ooth hatched, I noticed the ooth darkening about a week before. Took about 9 hours for all the babies to hatch out, but I'm going to leave the ooth where it is for now and remove it completely when I separate out the babies in a couple days. Babies were hatched out in a 32oz deli cup and moved into a 14x25" net cube. From there, they'll be moved to their own 7oz plastic cups (I bought a 300 pack for $14 on amazon, which look like mansions for them) with a pantyhose top (6 pack for $6 at Walmart), held on with rubber bands (350 pack for $4 on amazon) and I'll be adding some climbing areas for em to hang onto. They're 1/4th inch in size and are all brown. I flooded the net cage with D. melanogaster for when they start to get hungry, so hopefully I won't have too much cannibalism within the group. My cultures were ALL only larvae/pupas (I was hoping they wouldn't hatch for another couple days), so I did have to buy another fruit fly culture to feed off. I'm going to try to keep about 6-10 cultures going, since the four I have now are apparently all on the same cycle.
I saw this AWESOME idea on youtube, so you'll need: the culture, 6" pantyhose (open on both sides), 2x rubber bands and a small funnel. 1) You'll have to cool the culture, so the flies don't start hopping out all over the counter/table. 2) Take the panty hose (either open side) and attach it to the top of the culture with a rubber band (with the lid off). Make sure to twist the pantyhose closed (just twirl it around a few times), so the flies don't get out. 3) Attach the funnel to the other end and there ya go! I hope you guys can understand my directions, but its super simple to do and to get the flies out, all you have to do is untwist the pantyhose and put the funnel end into your mantis enclosure. If the flies aren't going outta the funnel, just blow them through, I got TONS of flies out into the net cage with only a few puffs of air and 0 escapes. I dunno what it is with fruit flies, I just can never get them to go where I want them to go. I usually get a bunch of escapes whenever I feed (using the cool down and tap into method), but now none ever get out and I don't need to worry about cooling them down!
______
Current mantids:
Hierodula membranacea 3.3.0
Mantis religiosa 0.0.301
______
April 2nd, 2018
One of two Mantis religiosa ooths hatched this morning! Before the ooth hatched, I noticed the ooth darkening about a week before. Took about 9 hours for all the babies to hatch out, but I'm going to leave the ooth where it is for now and remove it completely when I separate out the babies in a couple days. Babies were hatched out in a 32oz deli cup and moved into a 14x25" net cube. From there, they'll be moved to their own 7oz plastic cups (I bought a 300 pack for $14 on amazon, which look like mansions for them) with a pantyhose top (6 pack for $6 at Walmart), held on with rubber bands (350 pack for $4 on amazon) and I'll be adding some climbing areas for em to hang onto. They're 1/4th inch in size and are all brown. I flooded the net cage with D. melanogaster for when they start to get hungry, so hopefully I won't have too much cannibalism within the group. My cultures were ALL only larvae/pupas (I was hoping they wouldn't hatch for another couple days), so I did have to buy another fruit fly culture to feed off. I'm going to try to keep about 6-10 cultures going, since the four I have now are apparently all on the same cycle.
I saw this AWESOME idea on youtube, so you'll need: the culture, 6" pantyhose (open on both sides), 2x rubber bands and a small funnel. 1) You'll have to cool the culture, so the flies don't start hopping out all over the counter/table. 2) Take the panty hose (either open side) and attach it to the top of the culture with a rubber band (with the lid off). Make sure to twist the pantyhose closed (just twirl it around a few times), so the flies don't get out. 3) Attach the funnel to the other end and there ya go! I hope you guys can understand my directions, but its super simple to do and to get the flies out, all you have to do is untwist the pantyhose and put the funnel end into your mantis enclosure. If the flies aren't going outta the funnel, just blow them through, I got TONS of flies out into the net cage with only a few puffs of air and 0 escapes. I dunno what it is with fruit flies, I just can never get them to go where I want them to go. I usually get a bunch of escapes whenever I feed (using the cool down and tap into method), but now none ever get out and I don't need to worry about cooling them down!
Last edited by a moderator:
