Ooth hatching - fruit flies aren't ready! What to do?

[PaxALotl]

Hi all -

It's exciting seeing my chinese ooth hatching, but I don't have anything to feed these little guys! I have a fruit fly culture starting, and the 32oz cup is covered in an impressive amount of tiny coccoons. So, I  expect a bunch of flies to hatch soon. But, it's only been about 5 days that the cocoons have been there and I think it'll be a few more days before they hatch. Meanwhile, those nymphs look hungry already.

What to do? Any tips? 

thanks

 

[Darth Mantis]

You could try to catch some wild things to feed them. some types of plants attract lots of little bugs or you could check out petsmarts to see if any of them have those little vials of fruit flies they sometimes carry. If you use either of these ways you most likely wont get enough to feed them all but you will at least be able to feed some. Does your culture not have any adult flies in it at all? Usually the adult flies dont die off before the new flies start to hatch unless you got the culture through the mail in which case the adults may have died during transit. Ive also heard some people have tried to feed the maggots to them but idk how well that works and im sure its not easy to do. I would try to catch small bugs but in my yard there are lots of bushes that have lots of little bugs that live in them idk if you have anything like that in near you. But if you really really needed to you could try and order a culture that is already producing flies so it would have adults in it when you get it.

 

[PaxALotl]

Ok, I might have panicked a bit - the flies are just starting to hatch! The top half of the 32oz cup is just covered in the little fly cocoons so I expect that there will be plenty of flies. With just a few hatching in the last couple of hours, I guess the problem is solved now. 

But, a couple more novice questions if I may: I

1) have seen on YouTube how people put the flies into the fridge for 10 minutes to calm the flies so that they can take some out. Since the culture is mostly cocoons, will there be any issue chilling the culture? I am guessing it won't hurt the cocoons to get cold for a 10 minutes, but wanted to be sure. 

2) Now I have a 32oz cup just teeming with nymphs. I want to take, say, 10 of them and put them into another container asap. I might split things up a bit more, i.e. give some to the neighbors and release some. But, how to do this without them getting all around?  There are so many clinging to the lid, I'm nervous to open it up - I might squash some putting the lid back on or have them all over my office!

 

[Synapze]

Ok, I might have panicked a bit - the flies are just starting to hatch! The top half of the 32oz cup is just covered in the little fly cocoons so I expect that there will be plenty of fl have seen on YouTube how people put the flies into the fridge for 10 minutes to calm the flies so that they can take some out. Since the culture is mostly cocoons, will there be any issue chilling the culture? I am guessing it won't hurt the cocoons to get cold for a 10 minutes, but wanted to be sure. 

2) Now I have a 32oz cup just teeming with nymphs. I want to take, say, 10 of them and put them into another container asap. I might split things up a bit more, i.e. give some to the neighbors and release some. But, how to do this without them getting all around?  There are so many clinging to the lid, I'm nervous to open it up - I might squash some putting the lid back on or have them all over my office!

Putting fruitflies in the fridge will definitely slow them down for a couple of minutes. 10 minutes sounds a little too long to me... I don't know. I put mine in the freezer and have found about 20 secs works fine.

Separating a large number of nymphs can be tricky. I would put the unopened 32oz container into a large container or net cube, open the lid and leave the deli cup, lid and all in so the nymphs can crawl out on their own. It's easier to capture individual nymphs and not get overwhelmed when they are spread out. The large container should also have a vented lid. The nymphs will be less likely to cannibalize each other, especially if well fed. A few twigs will also help.

As far as occasionally squashing a nymph or two, it's often unavoidable since they can move so fast. I've only done it twice and it is really a bummer. ?

 

[PaxALotl]

Well, so far so good!

The fruit flies population exploded so no problem there. I was able to divide the nymphs into 4 deli cups without too much trouble, and only a couple of losses. I think there are a few slowpokes still wiggling out of the ooth but the majority of them emerged last night. 

It's been about 24 hours since most of them hatched so I decided to have a go at feeding and watering them. Watering was no problem, I did a very minor spray of water, just enough to have a bunch of droplets on the side of the cup. My first time dealing with fruit flies was a little sloppy, though

I had a lot of escapees! I'm sure at least 50 flies got loose in my office. But, by the fourth cup I get a little feel for it - you have to move fast and decisively, I guess. I didn't see any of the mantises eating flies, but hopefully that will happen soon. 

I am really enjoying watching the nymphs so far, as are my kids!

 

[Ocelotbren]

Glad to hear it went (mostly) well! I usually handle my fruit flies outside so that escapees aren't a problem. For example, I transfer the amount needed from the culture to a deli cup with a lid, and then dump the contents of the deli cup into the enclosure inside the house. I do multiple deli cups if I have multiple enclosures to dump into, so I can go ahead and dump the entire contents at once instead of trying to ration it out. This makes it easier to be quick about it and not give them time to climb out while you're messing with lids and things.

 

[PaxALotl]

To my surprise, it appears not many of the fruit files were eaten overnight! I haven't seen a single mantis eating a fly, although I didn't have much time to watch. Do the little nymphs take a little while to get hungry, or would they ordinarily eat right away? They are definitely noticing the flies, so maybe they're just getting warmed up!

 

[Predatorhousepet]

A trick for controlling fruit flies I learned from a YouTube video showing how to prepare a fruit fly culture for frogs. They added a small amount of calcium powder to an empty deli cup, added a bunch of fruit flies then shook the cup to coat the flies in the powder and they were too weighed down by the powder to escape. The flies stay at the bottom of the cup all by themselves and you don't even need a lid, it makes them so much easier to deal with.

However, since mantids don't need calcium powder to maintain their bones the way reptiles and amphibians do the problem is finding a suitable replacement powder to serve the same purpose of weighing down the flies while still being nutritionally beneficial for a mantis. We have been discussing possible substitutes on the 2nd page of the thread below but I've been using a 50/50 mix of honey powder and bee pollen that I ran through a coffee grinder several times to make the powder fine enough to stick to the flies. It works amazingly well. 

 

[PaxALotl]

A trick for controlling fruit flies I learned from a YouTube video showing how to prepare a fruit fly culture for frogs. They added a small amount of calcium powder to an empty deli cup, added a bunch of fruit flies then shook the cup to coat the flies in the powder and they were too weighed down by the powder to escape. The flies stay at the bottom of the cup all by themselves and you don't even need a lid, it makes them so much easier to deal with.

However, since mantids don't need calcium powder to maintain their bones the way reptiles and amphibians do the problem is finding a suitable replacement powder to serve the same purpose of weighing down the flies while still being nutritionally beneficial for a mantis. We have been discussing possible substitutes on the 2nd page of the thread below but I've been using a 50/50 mix of honey powder and bee pollen that I ran through a coffee grinder several times to make the powder fine enough to stick to the flies. It works amazingly well. 

Sounds like a great trick! I may give this a try next week. In the meantime,, I thew together a big funnel made of printer paper, with a sort of lopsided opening. That way, I can very quickly open the fly cup while holding it sideways,  and anything that spills or jumps around will fall into the funnel. It worked pretty well on the first try! Not a single spill.

Pic attached.

I've still only seen a couple of flies eaten, but I'm sure they are being eaten because there appear to be fewer and fewer flies in the cups. 

I've managed to get the mantises divided 4 32oz deli cups, each with about a 1/2 inch of coco fiber, a little twig for them to climb on, and 10 or 12 mantises. There are probably 50 left in total from the original hatching.

Several have escaped because of my sloppy handling, and few were squished during transfer, but the ones that remain seem pretty heathy! They are moving around a lot. Now I have maybe 10 melogonasters in each cup, and the flies are just sort of walking around all the time. The mantises seem to notice them but I am surprised how few have been eaten. I assume that will change as they grow and mature.

I am going to have to leave these little guys on Saturday morning, for about 72 hours. So,, I was hoping to have them eat as much as possible so that I don't leave too many live flies in their cups. it seems like a bad idea to have too many around, and I can't imagine they live long without food. I'll give them a nice misting right before i go! 

I think I can see their growth a little bit, just in the fist few days!

 

[PaxALotl]

Well, I've gotten pretty good at handling the fruit flies. It just took a bit of practice! I put them in the fridge for a few minutes, then shake a whole bunch of them out of the culture into a cup with nothing in it. Then it''s pretty easy to dispense a few at a time into the other cups. I've been slowly dividing the mantises as I go, and now I'm up to around 8 cups, each with 1 to 4 mantises inside. 

So far all is well, but I'm having another food crisis! My melogonaster culture is still going, but it's all cocoons and no flies again. I got a few, but couldn't get any today.  Meanwhile, I bought a working culture of hydei and it came this morning. I was able to shake out a few adults, but it looks like all those guys are in cocoons, too! Argh. Tricky to time this.

I will try to find some little insects outside for the mantises to eat tonight. Hopefully it won't be more than a day or two before a big wave of flies hatches.  

My latest noob questions:

1) that first culture is getting a little stinky, at least when I open the culture I can smell it and it's not good. Is this normal? it's a mess in there but it seems like it's going ok.

2) I have access to pinhead crickets, would these be too much for 9 day old mantises? I am worried they might get hurt, but I thought maybe i can break of the jumping legs and make it easier for them to catch the crickets. But, I will only do this if they don't eat for a couple of days.

3) There are tons of tiny ants in my backyard - are these safe for the mantis? They are small, but I know ants are vicious!

 

[River Dane]

1). It’s hard to answer this question without being able to smell the culture. It could be a sign of mold or rot, but in my experience, all fruit fly cultures are quite smelly. It is made out of fruit, after all, not to mention all that FF feces. 

2). I don’t have much experience with pinhead crickets, so I can’t answer for certain, but I don’t think it would be safe for them, honestly. It’s up to you, though. Maybe someone else could offer better advice on this.

3). I’m sure some people have success with ants. I tried feeding a Chinese mantis nymph a teeny ant, and he did go after it. After grabbing it, however, it dropped the ant immediately and ran away. I can only assume the ant bit, stung, or sprayed him to make him go running like that. He didn’t die, but the species you have could be more or less dangerous. I’d recommend aphids, small moths or lacewings (most likely to be found by lights at night, of course) or even trapping wild fruit flies instead.

good luck finding bugs for your nymphs!