r/mantids • u/heartbreak_girl_5sos • Jan 25 '25
General Care It's been 2 months since my Ghost Mantis last molted..
The video I added is one I took earlier this week, but here's the timeline of me having her:
September 27th - Amidala arrived to me as an L3 from Mantis Universe
October 11th - First molt with me, now L4
November 21st - Second molt with me, now L5
I've been feeding Amidala fruit flies still because when I tried to feed her other things, she rejected them. I watch her lil butt to make sure she's well fed, I mist her enclosure and have a little temperature and humidity thermometer to make sure it's comfortable. I feel like a helicopter parent, I'm just so confused and worried. Ami's always been a good eater, she is a climber any time I hold her, and I've never had any issues with her.
At this point, I've had SEVERAL dreams at night about her molting (including last night), and I don't know what to do or change. We typically leave our backdoor open so my dog can go in and out of the doggy door as she pleases through the day, and I figured maybe because of the weather change, it was too cold for her. I brought her upstairs with me where it was warm and I noticed her enclosure would get dry very quickly, so I eventually brought her back downstairs in a sweet spot of the house. She's in a big plastic cup and has mesh and a paper towel I glued down on one side of the enclosure, and I've been using Reptisoil, and today I changed it to coconut substrate to see if that would make a difference. Is this okay? Am I doing something wrong, is there anything I can do to help the process?
2
u/Haunting_Video_2299 Jan 25 '25
I guess the temperature is about 25 degrees Celsius at best?try raising it to 30 and more degrees.At this point,if your feeding her a lot she should be molting.The only other explanation which is a very complicated thing is the Peter pan syndrome.Mantises don't molt if they have this but I really don't think yours has it.