Raising Ghost Ooth - the Plan

[cloud jaguar]

Ok so my wife, with my help, will raise a Ghost ooth. We both have experience keeping humidity and temp for exotic snakes and land hermit crabs. We live in California and have 2 Stagmomantis under our care. We have read much of late but otherwise new to Mantids since about 2.5 weeks. This is the plan.

OOTH SUPPLIES

-12"X12" butterfly cube

-4 large plastic jars c. 12"x6", mesh lids, variety of climbing twigs, tons of fake foliage/flowers, coco substrate

-32 oz Melanogaster culture

-Excelsior

-3 Fruit Fly botles

PLAN

1. Put ooth in 12" butterlfy cube with fake foliage/excelsior (which?). Two days after ooth hatches she put 32 oz ff culture in net to feed nymphs. This could pose some humidity issues - the cube has 1 clear plastic side and may hold some moisture however- dont know. Is this a good plan?

OR

2. Put ooth in large plastic jar with fine mesh lid and fine Excelsior/foliage (again, which is best?). Somehow magically get Melanogaster ffs into there after 2 days (*scratches head - how DO we do this part actually?) . This option would be easier to keep at correct humidity/temp but would pose crushing threat to nymphs, dont know how to get fruit flies in there.

WHICH OF THESE PLANS IS BEST?

Please let me know ASAP since ooth on its way Thanks

 

[Rick]

Go with the cube. String the ooth up on the ceiling and put in the fake plants. No need to use the excelsior. Get your fruit fly cultures going yesterday. Mist the insides of the cube every other day. Once ooth hatches you hopefully will have plenty of flies going. I prefer to use 32 oz plastic deli cups to raise fruit flies in. I get my medium from carolina.com and put a half inch or so in the deli cup with a pinch of yeast. I cut a small square hole in the side of the deli cup and block it with a foam plug. I then can dump flies out through that hole into the mantis enclosure. Sometimes a funnel is used depending on what the mantids are in. Any other questions send me a PM.

 

[hibiscusmile]

I would use some excelsior, only because it makes use of the floor room. If you use the cube, the best way to get flies in there is to use a funnel, take and open the zipper enough to put (hey, wait a :blink: minute) with ghost if u put the zipper side down, when u go to feed them, turn it so the zipper side is facing you, and unzip it and put your arms inside and just crack the lid and let a few fruit flies out. They are not terribly hard at getting loose and if they do are easy with the bamboo sticks to round up. I have a lid also on the site that has a hole in it to fit a foam plug and it fits on top of the fruit fly cultures. You could also use that. But don't put the whole culture into the cube. When the ghost go to molt you do not want hundreds of flies bothering them.

 

[cloud jaguar]

Thanks much Rick and Hibiscussmile for your help. I will go with the net setup then and selectively release some of the flies in there for the nymphs after a couple of days.

 

[hibiscusmile]

Good, you should do good with the Ghost, they are very easy and very friendly mantis.