Feeding Stomatopods

[Uploadead]

Is it possible to breed my own food cheaply for feeding a mantis shrimp? I don't want to feed it hermit crabs as they are wayyyyy too expensive and I also think that the practice is wrong. What do you feed your mantis shrimp, and how much would you spend per ___ feeding it?

Thanks,

Uploadead.

 

[turnabod]

i feed mine frozen shrimp,squid,clams. also i catch my own snails in the marsh.

 

[Thurge]

II feed mine Krill, silversides, mysis, scallop, snails and hermits.

 

[DanInSD]

A bag of Trader Joe's assorted frozen seafood (scallop, shrimp, squid) plus the occasional krill and silversides keeps my peacock so fat and happy that she hasn't bothered the cleanup crew recently. Was like $4 for a pound.

 

[justinl]

Various frozens will work just fine and are cheap too. I would soak them in a supplement like selcon once in a while though.

Is your mantis a smasher? If it is, it's good practice to make sure that you're pet gets the excercise it needs. When given live hard shelled foods like hermits or snails, the mantis has to work to get the food open. This keeps the mantis's dactyls in good shape. You don't necessarily HAVE to use lives though. Some people have been able to just buy snail/hermit shells and stuffed them with frozens food. Still, the most natural food possible is alive.

 

[Uploadead]

Wouldn't it be fairer to freeze the mussel into the shell instead of usuing a wee crabby ?

 

[Pea-brain]

If your talking about what justin said, you don't use the crab. Just get some shells and fill thm with food. There is no crab in the shell. The shells are sold so that the hermit crab has a shell to move to when it molts, but you can buy it and fill it with frozens. If your talking about something else I missed...well I just made myself look like an idiot.

 

[Uploadead]

LOL no, thats what I was on about. I have loads of shells in my garage (from the young days ) so that will be no problem. Wouldn't a mantis kill bristleworms if it were hungry?

 

[justinl]

Im not sure bout bristleworms... good question though, anyone out there know if mantises bother with bristle worms?

Oh and generally bivalves aren't good idea. If you just throw in a bivalve, there will be too much food for the mantis. It will probably just eat the good parts and leave the rest to fould up the tank. You could feed bits of mussel at a time but that would defeat the purpose of the shell wouldn't it. I think your besst bet is the stuffed shell method. Just make sure the food is far enough in the shell that mr. mantis can't just pull it out. He should be forced to smash the shell open.

 

[Uploadead]

ok thanks a bunch for input. Anyone know about the b/w's?

 

[jcerdena]

I found one of my mantis shrimp eating a huge bristleworm one morning. The worm was atleast as long as the mantis, but for some reason the mantis died a little while later (maybe like a week after eating it, at the most). I'm not sure if the worm would have caused it to die, but it was really trippy to see him eating it. If you think those things are ugly on the outside, just wait til you see their insides, yuck.