Great article!

[miztic]

Hi,
Excellent article on these scary critters, I was wondering what a Mantis shrimp would do with these guys, sounds like a potential natural predator?
I'm not sure if the mantis would get them all (or any at all) and you couldn't have any snails or hermits in the tank while the mantis is in there.
If you have any of these bugs left for evil experiments I'd love to see what would happen if a Mantis shrimp were introduced to the tank.

keep up the great work!
Thanks,
miztic

 

[BrianPlankis]

Re: Great article!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6683029#post6683029 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by miztic
Hi,
Excellent article on these scary critters, I was wondering what a Mantis shrimp would do with these guys, sounds like a potential natural predator?
I'm not sure if the mantis would get them all (or any at all) and you couldn't have any snails or hermits in the tank while the mantis is in there.
If you have any of these bugs left for evil experiments I'd love to see what would happen if a Mantis shrimp were introduced to the tank.

keep up the great work!
Thanks,
miztic

Thanks for the comment. At the beginning of my troubles with Cirolanids I had 5 hitchhiking mantis in my tank and they did not appear to do anything to the Cirolanid population. During the height of the population explosion I still had 4 mantis in the tank. Its not to say they weren't eating them, but I didn't see it happen. Unfortunately (fortunately? ) all my Cirolanids are gone and I did not have the opportunity to put a mantis and Cirolanid together in a controlled situation.

Of course my mantis are probably Neogonodactylus wennerae and are only one species of mantis. It is possible there is another type of mantis that would eat Cirolanids, I just haven't heard about it happening.

Brian