growth rate and how much to feed?

[Chondro]

I bought 4 pounds of rock yesterday, and can you believe I got up this morning, looked in the tank and had two eyes staring back at me. Luckily the rock is in a quarantine tank.

Anyways, he is so small I can't tell what kind of mantis it is.
It is about 1/2" long and 1/8" wide, kind of has pink bands on a clear body.
I have been feeding it pieces of shrimp held by tongs. It just rips pieces off.

I did hear it beating on the rock right outside his hole he lives in.
Amazingly it was pretty loud.
Can I assume it is a smasher?
I tried looking at it while feeding and it sort of looks like he has "clubs" instead of spears, but he is so small it is very hard to tell.

How much should I feed it daily, and how many times. It seems like he could just eat forever.
Today over the course of the entire day, he ate a whole shrimp about the same size as him.

I am debating about what to do with him. I was wondering what their growth rate is.

 

[Gonodactylus]

A gonodactylid this size (30 mm) will grow to about 40 mm in 1 - 2years - perhaps a bit faster if well fed. While in the field stomatopods eat daily, they can go for weeks without eating and most people find that feeding them every other day is adequate. At any one feeding, give the animal something about the size of its stomach (located in the thorax). For a 30 mm animals, a piece of frozen shrimp about 5mm diameter is about right.

Roy

 

[brekurboy1]

Look here

http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/care.htm

Where did you buy the rock from?

Most likely it is a smasher. Mostly only smashers live in rocks.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Actually, there are quite a few spearers that can be found living in coral rubble and coralline alage. Genera include at least a couple squillids (Meiosquilla and Parvisquilla), several lysiosquillids including Coronida and Neocoronida, and several spearing gonodactyloids including Raoulserenea. Even the common spearer, Pseudosquilla ciliata often recruits into rock and only starts burrowing after a few months.

 

[Chondro]

I got the rock from a LFS, it was in one of their porcelain crab tank, along with a few other pieces. It looked so much better than what was in their live rock tubs and was the perfect shape I needed, so they sold it to me. I am pretty sure it is florida cultured rock. I am pretty sure he is a smasher too. When I placed the tongs with a small piece of shrimp in the tank today, he wacked the tongs a couple of times.

Thanks for the link brekurboy1.

Thanks for the info Gonodactylus.

So it should roughly take 5 years for this guy to grow to 3" (75mm), since he is only 12.5mm right now. Or am I incorrect?

Thats a long time......LOL

 

[Gonodactylus]

I can give you a rough approximation of growth in the field for N. bredini, a species very closely related to N. wennerae.

settlement 9 mm

1 month 12 mm

6 months 18 mm

1 year 27 mm

2 years 36 mm

3 years 43 mm

4 years 48 mm

5 years 53 mm

6 years 56 mm


Roy