Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a number of wide-mouthed gallon pickle jars setting around my house. The jars measure 22.5 cm high, 40 cm in diameter, with a mouth width of about 24 cm. I was considering using the jars to house small Creoboter and Pseudocreobotra species. My plan is to place flyscreen over the opening of the jars and use a rubber band to hold the screen in place.

The mouth diameter, rather than the width, of the jars is 24 cm. Sorry about that.

Pretty much any container will work as long as the mantis has room to molt and move around. I prefer clear containers as well since the mantids seem to thrive better.

The main reason I wanted to use the jars is because they seem large enough to provide a small mantis with enough room to molt and move around...plus, I get them for free (most of the time) from a local restaurant. Even if you buy them for the pickles, they are still cheaper and more suitable for mantids than the fancy gallon jars sold at department stores. Seems to me like an economical way to raise a fair number of mantids.

I agree with the previous comment about clear containers: most mantids like bright lighting.

Another container I've considered: a ten gallon tank divided in three with plexiglass and aquarium sealant. Only trouble is the mantids may see one another through the plexiglass and get stressed. Any thoughts on this?

I use 2 1/2 gallon tanks divided into three sections for small nymphs. They do just fine. I was putting them in small cups and the ones in the tanks grew so much faster even when they were from the same ooth. The tanks get expensive at first but I have several now. For large mantids I cut plexiglass and divide a 10 gal tank in two.

Interesting. How do you set up the tanks and heat them?

You could put a paper towel on the divider to keep them from seeing each other. You can also mist it to keep up humidity.

Thanks
Andrew
www.freewebs.com/taumantis

Sounds like good advice. Considering that my room temps stay in the low seventies, I think I will have to use a glass container of some kind, since a screen cage won't allow for proper heat and humidity levels.

I don't heat them. I just keep it at room temperature. It gets a little cool at night but doesn't affect them. This room also contains my herps which have heat lamps and my computer which provides some heat as well. I use moist spagnum moss for humidity in the enclosures. Here is a pic. At the left where you can't see is an aquarium with my aquatic turts, at right is my box turtle set up and you can see the three mini tanks at the top with my small mantids. You can also see my cricket tub at the bottom right. I just got permission from my other half to have the entire room to myself so I am going to be expanding. Right now I have four H Grandis', two Africans, five chinese, and one carolina mantid.

Nice set-ups. I like the fish bowl enclosure as well as the tanks. I think I'm going to go with a couple of ten gallon tanks divided in half, plus gallon jars and soda bottles. I was looking through the old forum and found a couple of images featuring a 2 liter soda bottle with the bottom cut off setting on a small flower pot to make a mini-terrarium for small mantids...will try that as well.

By the way: you said room temperature. I assume that's 70-75 degrees, although with all the other devices you have running in the room, it may be higher (78-80?).

It is usually between 72-76. Just about perfect.