Is just krill ok?

[Shoreliner11]

My mantis (either N. wennerae or N. curacaoensis) doesn't seem to go after any live food. I've had him for a little over a month now and I have plenty of snails (astreas), hermits, and I've even put some stomatella snails from my refugium in there and he ignores them. I feed him a krill every other day and he seems to be liking that. Is it a bad thing for him to not eat live food? Any other live foods I can try? Although he does constantly fight with a bullseye pistol shrimp who is a little larger than him which the mantis has unsuccessfully killed yet. Thanks.

 

[Ms. K]

Astrae might be a bit large. My G. ternatensis (Mike Tyson) only attacks the astraea and turbos in his tank if he's really hungry. I'll bet if you're feeding him every other day, he's just not hungry enough to put forth the effort. I feed mine very tiny black conical snails from the pet store (.25 a piece), ghost shrimp, guppies, scallops (his second fave), and fortified frozen shrimp cubes (his favorite). He never bothers my hermits, and I've read the same from other people. Too much work for too little food (how I used to feel about ribs). HTH!

 

[Uriel]

My little G. viridis is about 2", so his situation is most likely similar to yours.

He eats the smaller margarita snails that I buy at 6 for 5 bucks, but has only gone after and eaten one astrea. I have 7 or 8 now in there that are too large, I guess. likewise, he has only killed 2 hermits (again, there are 6 in there...now I am target feeding his 'food').
He has also only whacked the mithrax that I added 2 or 3 times, as a territorial thing, not in anatttempt to crack-n-eat him.
At least I have no algae, although I now stick feed nori to the crabs and even the snails, since they have eaten all of the algae.

I feed him small amounts of frozen shrimp and/or cod that is in my freezer, though I make sure that he is hungry enough to eat the smaller snails. In short, it is very important that you make him strike prey, so that his dactyls stay healthy. When mine is being lazy, I pysh a small snail into his burrow, where a loud smacking usually commences within seconds.

 

[opihi]

In short, it is very important that you make him strike prey, so that his dactyls stay healthy.

just wanted to expand a little bit on this point: if they do not use their dactlys, they can drop their dactyls off in a molt.

 

[Shoreliner11]

Thanks for the replies. I feed him every other day because for almost 2 weeks I never saw him eat a thing. No snails or hermits were missing either. He does however get into snapping disputes with my pistol shrimp in there with him. He also is still whacking away at the rock he's burrowing into. I'll try pushing a larger stomatella snail into his burrow and see if he goes after them. I would really like to get him onto some kind of live food...at least occasionally. Maybe I'll add a small mithrax or get some feeder shrimp to coax him onto some live.

 

[Gonodactylus]

While several larger species of stomatopod seem to have trouble molting if they don't use their raptorial appendages, this does not seem to be as serious a problem with N. wennerae.

Roy

 

[apophis924]

Remember these animals are "cold blooded" so they do not have the high energy requirements of us "warm blooded" creatures. they do not need to burn calories to maintian a constant body temp. a few days without eating will not hurt them. and trust me a few days without eating and you will begin to here that all so familar POP POP POP of him working for his dinner.