Using fungus gnats mantid food

[Butterflyhornet]

I'm having a huge problem with these flys around my house plants. I'm wondering if theres a way of putting them to use by containing them and making a breeding culture? I'd like to have this set up before I get any mantids. I thought that these may be a good rought to go because (a they seem to be highly available (flying around my room and the basement), and B) they are close to a good size for young mantids.

Just wondering if anyone has tried these in lieu of fruit flies? How would I keep them so that the environment is clean and they don't get killed by mold or other dieseases?

For those curious to see pictures I googled up a picture:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/14507

 

[Rick]

You would have a hard time culturing or catching enough to feed little mantids. Fruit flies are so easy that is your best bet. I bought one culture of fruit flies and I keep culturing them over and over. I have never had to buy flies again. I do have to buy the medium though every six months or so.

 

[Butterflyhornet]

Alright. I'll have to see other ways of controling the pest problem.

I heard of flightless fruit flies. I don't know where to get them, but it sounds like a good buy. My guess is that they are flies with vestigal wings, rather than totally fightless.

I've seen naturally occuring flightless blow flies in our garden, but those are sort of rare. I keep a mulch/composite pile that draws flies, not necessisarly flightless though. I guess when there's so many flies breeding, chances of mutations go up. Maybe if I'm bored it would be an interesting project to find those blow flies and breed them to have both flightless blow flies along with flightless fruit flies.

 

[Rick]

You can get them from many places. I get all my fruitflly stuff from www.carolina.com They have the flightless ones. They do have wings but they hop instead of fly.

 

[infinity]

I do think the fungus gnats (sciarids) are a great food source! - the only problem I can think of is that they're flying. An easy way of culturing them is to take a few (catch a few) squash a cricket and put them in the same container. This will produce maybe 10-20 and will be enough for a young mantis for the first instar. Like I said, the only problem is putting the mantis in there without them all escaping.

However, if anyone has a problem with the fungus gnats, I have some mites which will destroy them completely (which die out after they've done the job)