Mantis shrimp feeding/diet

[nmotz]

I have some fairly large turbo snails in my tank that my mantis leaves completely alone. They are slightly larger than a quarter in circumference and have pretty thick shells, but my mantis is a 4" G. Chiragra, shouldn't he be able to handle them? He hasn't been fed in a week and still refuses to attack them. Also tried to feed him a piece of frozen shrimp last night that he wouldn't take. Is it common for mantids to go for longer than a week without eating?

I see most people saying they feed about 2-3 times/wk. I also know that mantis shrimp can be picky, it's just weird because I've seen him eat a smaller turbo snail and he's always taken frozen shrimp too. I'll probably just go buy some ghost shrimp today, he goes bonkers when he sees them.

He also seems to binge eat, consuming extremely large portions at times. For instance, I de-shelled a large hermit crab (2+ inches) and he ferociously attacked it. There were pieces of substrate and crab flying everywhere! Man he was thumping that crab! Pretty awesome spectacle. So he ate that a week ago, then took a small piece of shrimp that I had laid out for the hermit crabs the same day. The next day, I saw him come out of his burrow and puke! No joke. ***?

Other thoughts?

 

[nmotz]

Ok, so apparently you can't type W-T-F on this forum, ha.

 

[Kharn]

These animals are experts in energy conservation

If there is another easier source of food that it can capture it will go for it, they will even resort to a more energy efficient way of predation this can be 'cat n mouse' where the mantis waits and waits to catch the 'prey' off guard and go for an easy meal.

Or they do what we all know them for...bull rush the target in a flurry of punches.

As for the aggression towards the crab this may also be what I mentioned above, stomatopods aren't stupid they are experts at not just Energy Conservation but also Opportunism, the stomatopod likely saw that the hermit was vulnerable without its shell (understanding that it needs a shell) and hence went for an easy meal, the lack of shell on the hermit only increased the confidence in the stomatopods own assault upon it.

My largest (small) smasher species Maximus doesn't go for large turbos / strombs mostly because he knows full well he will be "fed" something that doesn't require much energy usage.

When I put a huge fist sized hermit in with The Juggernaut (my largest 180mm peacock) he didn't target the shell at ALL I found this very interesting at first as I expected the large peacock to just demolish this hermits shell to get at the crab inside, he never went for the shell once....he would play cat and mouse, hit the hermit (the actual crab) then as the crab jerked back inside its shell, The Juggernaut would either swim back into his burrow or hide behind the hermits shell and wait for it to come back out until the hermit basically gave in and stopped retreating into its shell inevitably being pulled free from it.

The shell is still in The Juggernauts tank as a trophy of victory big enough to make a cup/mug out of it.

 

[TundraGuy]

The mantis may be reading for a molt. Mine would sometimes stop eating for 8 to 12 days prior to a molt. So for the mantis to stop eating for a few days dose not strike me as out of the ordinary. What I would do is if the mantis has not blocked itself inside a cave yet, do a big WC and any tank services that you have been putting off. Do this before it locks itself up in the cave. Done before a molt is fine during a molt can be hazardous to the mantis.

 

[MantisManiac]

New Peacock Mantis

New Peacock Mantis

Mantis Maniacs,

As everyone on here very well knows there are two sides of viewing the manits, rutheless menace and pest or fascinating evil genius. I recently fell in love with a 3 inch peacock mantis at the local store. Having owned varieties of fishtanks for the past 15 years I was eager to a new species. After everything I've read about the mantis I have come to realize several different thing about the mantis that hopefully can shed light to other owners. They list as follow.

1. The mantis eye sight:
Personally I believe this quality should be completely disregarded when assessing your shrimps best qualities. Foremost let's begin with the 16 different light receptors in its eyes, fancy as fuq like looking at the eyes of a fly but constantly examining your movements. That being said from what I've noticed the mantis relys much more on its sense of smell and touch, "feelers", rather than eye sight. The color receptors appear to be more in communication between itself and it's potential prey.

2. Diet
Alot of mantis owners stress feeding your shrimp dead food via tongs to fluctuate their diet and maybe less expensive route of feeding. Truth be told, the mantis is a predator as well as scavenger. I've found the pure adrenaline rush the shrimp experiences when it sees new prey is enough to shy away from the dead food. I've fed it hermit crabs, snails, shrimp, and it's favorite the emerald crab. These ctabs have very durable shells and large claws but don't let that fool you. The mantis is the boss, El Patron, of its domain and not just a mindless hunter. I personally feel the mantis' comprehension abilities is a stronger weapon that the clubs wealds.

3. Intelligence
I mentioned the shrimps comprehension abilities, allow me to explain. I've fed my shrimp 5 different size emerald crabs at different times. The first experience was all excitement on the shrimps part, bashing the crab then running and continuing this process until the crab could take it any longer. It was pinched once and freaked out in a sense of ****! This thing hits back. 20 min later mantis has half a shrimp hanging in his mouth as he pranced his kill around his tank to show off for me, felt like it at least. Every time since, Ali, like Muhammed Ali, learned that by knocking off the crabs claws first, he was rendered defenselss. Ever since then I've watched Ali analyze his preys move in order to remove the claws first. After ward he would approach the crab and touch it with a sense of, 'what are you going to do now' then attack his prey from all angles. Long story short, I believe live food to be a much better challenge and mind game for the shrimp.
This fact alone has brought my attention that maybe there is something more t the mantis than thought before. My goal is to design some sort of.problem solving toy for my shrimp to figure out to catch his prey. Like the octopus, wi th the jar trick and mazes, I personally believe the comprehension level of the mantis can be exposed the same way. My goal is to learn much more about the intelligence level of these incredible killers.

There is pages of info I could pour onto this site about the research I gain by studying my own mantis. If anything I've learned this shrimp shouldn't be kept as your primary feature of your tank and allow it to determine what else you can house. Currently I have a 20 gallon with my 3 inch knocker and a anemone with a baby nemo. They are fired a for now with no sight of struggle for space.

There's is alot to be learned from theseaside creatures, it's become a new hobby and passion for alot and has she'd light onto many new areas of study towards behavior of this bug. Watch your shrimp and let it learn from you as well.

 

[Calappidae]

Welcome to the forum MantisManiac!

You might have been better off starting a new thread regarding your topic rather than posting in somebody else's. The points you address are very well made aware by Dr. Roy Caldwell himself in the various stickies you can find at the top of the subforum.

The intelligence part isn't actually that misunderstood.. there has been a test done awhile back regarding using different lights in response to recieving food. The project I think consisted of using a couple lights with a slightly different hue, and then providing food for choosing the right color and approaching it.

This was done on the same specimen quite a few times, and it failed every single one, implying either 1: their memories suck, or 2: they aren't all that smart like we think. They do have general personallities that contribute with their familiarity over time with their owners and their environment, however this has little to do with how smart they are, but rather the "feel" of their everyday routine. (Say coming home from work, are you smart because you found your way home? or did you find your way home because you used the same path and routine that you take every day? Same case here.)

Although I don't think they're braindead stupid, they do show a lot of dog similar traits in behavior and personalities, however the several studies shown reject the idea of them being even comparably smart to octopi (originally a lot of people believed they were on par with them through experience, but again, science.)

 

[EI Gringo]

Kira my chiragra female tends to eat ruthlessly every day for long periods taking anything I offer from frozen Lance to live snails (but never touches live fish, I housed a firefish and a pj cardinal with her for an age) and then refuses to even go near food for a seemingly long period, a week approximately