Catching live crabs for mantis?

[Shoreliner11]

I live in the Puget Sound region of Washington. There are plenty of tide pool crabs that I know my mantis would love to eat. Is this a really bad idea? I Know most people say not to catch stuff for fear of introducing something foreign that will infect your tank but poeple I know around here do it quite frequently. The crabs although from a much colder water will still survive for some time I would think (they can withstand high water temps. in tide pools), at least a week or so for my mantis to eat a couple small ones. Ok idea or bad idea? Thanks.

 

[Ken2001]

When I lived up in New England, I went to the tidepools weekly to collect hermits, other crabs, snails, and the occasional mussel. I also collected sea water for all my tanks. I never saw any problems from this, and did it for several years. The key is to collect from a place that is not near any industries, storm drains, marinas, or in harbors or coves were pollutants can collect.

BTW, some others do advise against doing this, so YMMV, depending on where you collect.

Oh yeah, the fear of introducing pests: I believe the water in the Puget Sound is a fair bit cooler then what we keep our tanks at - most likely no fear of introducing a pest that can survive long term in our warmer tanks, particularly since any potential pest probably hasn't evolved to live off what's in our tanks - I know guys who've collected NSW for more than two decades who say they haven't introduced pests.

Ken

 

[Gonodactylus]

The key is to collect prey from non-polluted waters. I used to use crabs, snails and mussels from San Francisco Bay, but our larger, longer lived animals never did as well as I thought they should. Eventually we had some tests run and heavy metals and other pollutants were quite high. We switched to prey from cleaner habitats and have had much better luck. I know that people keeping octopus at the Seattle Aquarium have had a similar experience.

Roy

 

[Shoreliner11]

Well thats good to hear. I know some private beaches that aren't frequented by people and are a little farther away from most people to hopefully ensure low pollutant levels. They're also pretty far away from the two recent oil spills here in the Puget Sound. I'm sure my mantis will love me for this. Thanks

 

[DreXor]

you may want to stick a few top side fish into the tank so that through the process you can watch them for signs of disease, with an open environment such as nature, vs your closed environment of a tank, you take the chance of pulling in any given number of pullutants, germies, and parasites.

having a few non-essential fish lurking around the top of the tank can give you some good bearig on the health of the tank because they'll be the easiest to spot issues with, and if they're non essential, doesn't matter if the mantis takes a whack at one.

otherwise, it's a money saving idea, go for it, just anything dramatically expensive i wouldn't keep in there.

another option, which people with a little extra room will do, get 2 big rubbermaid tubs, whatever, make it a 2 stage isolation setup, bin 1 is fresh from the sea, bin 2 is aclimated and through initial phase of isolation, this way you have plenty on hand, and only need to go hunting so often. and if you have some goofy outbreak happen in one of the tubs, it's alot better than your pride and joy tanks.