Three days ago, some mantis nymphs hatched. They're all dying on me for some reason, even though they have plenty of small, flightless fruit flies and rainwater. I had a batch hatch last year as well and managed to rewild 60% of all 74 nymphs, did the exact things I'm doing with those now.They've had fruit flies since day two but they don't even look at them. What's going on? Did the ootheca have something wrong with it?
>>4777436did you clean the box with household cleaners? or any other chem exposure you can think of?
Nervegas
>>4777467No, I've washed it out with rainwater and the box itself has had nothing but seedlings in it last year. There was no mold, no other animals and I'm making sure there's good air movement. Indoor temperatures are 25 degree Celsius.
>>4777436How much ventilation does the tank have
>>4777436the retard left the thing in the sun and all the mantis overheated
>>4777493They're not exposed to the full sun, they only get indirect sunlight.>>4777495There are two ventilation holes at the top and I've opened both of them fully from day one. Tank sits somewhat away from a window so there's constantly slight air movement; like I said, I'm not doing anything differently from when I had 70 last year.
Animals that reproduce by shitting out 1000,0000,000 babies don't expect all of them to survive
>>4777436Just put them outside, they need space because they're cannibalistic.I'd set the box near a bush, grab a paper towel and put it near a different bush, and put the other paper towel at yet another bush.Then just leave them alone to disperse.
>>4777506This. The reason why you have 200 eggs by each female mantis, yet they arent as numerous as ants, is because theyre not all suppose to make it.
>>4777742What would prevent them from making it under ideal conditions?
>>4777506Yes but they're not supposed to die spontaneously.
>>4777882>>4778150A lot of them come out with severe deformities. When the fetus needs to grow that much it's a complete crapshoot as to whether everything grows in right.
>>4777471Rainwater might be the problem. Any chemical spills or releases in your area lately?
Update - they're all dead.However, here are some observations I've made that maybe someone can make sense of:>when they hatched, some of the nymphs died before their bodies segmented>there were no parasitic wasps, unlike in the last ootheca I had where I was able to raise the majority of nymphs>they specifically shied away from the flightless fruit flies, which were size S; previous batch ate them no problem>no cannibalism>rainwater was room temperature and there were no chemical issues, as far as I know; nymphs drank it just fineSucks that I failed them at some point but I'm doing my best to analyse what went wrong so it won't happen again. As for why I had the ootheca in the first place: I have a chimney and it was placed on one of the pieces of wood I almost threw in.
>>4780419Sounds like microbial life got them.
