Live Peeler crab

[CZ08]

Ellos,

I wonder if someone can help me by letting me know
if I can feed a mantish peeler crabs like these?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/peeler-crab-l...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Thanks you

 

[justinl]

Are those like softshelled crabs that have just molted (and are soft)? If so there's really no point. The point of feeding smashers live foods is so they excercise their rapts on a hard shell/carapace. Also, I have heard that live bait feed for fishing often accumulates some nasty chemicals that can harm an aquarium inhabitant. If you go for it, I would quarantine them for at least three weeks and feed them well in that time to flush out their systems.

 

[CZ08]

Ellos Justin friend

Thanks you for your wisdom.

I can buy these hmm... turbo snails in bulk and bulk red leggy hermits and snith snails .... are these ok for the mantish too practise their smask em up on ? I have around 5 of each in tank atm but still looking for a peacock ........................

 

[justinl]

those would serve perfectly. I would not put too many at once again if I were you. my peacock has gone on killing sprees without eating more than a third of a snail per kill, when too many are made available at a time. I usually only throw three big turbos in at a time. I did ten at one time when i introduced a fish, but i ended up having to remove a few rotting carcasses. Probably won't try that again

 

[CZ08]

ahhhhhh once again Thanksyou Justin friend

I was looking for a long term clean up crew or single
IS there anything in this world that the mantis wont go smashy on
as I would like too keep some too be like little hoovering machines vroom vroom

 

[justinl]

no problem. at one point in time i would have recommended a conch if the tank wasn't too small to house one, but I am not sure any more. My peacock has killed two fairly large conchs and only ate a third of each... made a right stinky mess since I didn't know one of them had died for a while.

You could try an urchin; they have a better chance than a snail, but still low imo (my peacock ate a diadema too). A good bet might be a brittle star. I would avoid cucumbers because if they die, they decompose faster than anything else I've seen and a lot of them are toxic too. you might also try small snails like nassarius. theory here being that they're too much trouble for such a little bite sized meal; my peacock disagreed and showed me why, but maybe it could work for others?