molted smashers not coming back ?
- Thread starter slothy
- Start date
mantisshrimp
Member
It takes about a year to regrow.Just keep those calcium levels up.
Gonodactylus
Premium Member
About all you can do is provide lots of food such as frozen shrimp and krill. The animal should molt in another month or two. THe new raptorial appendages will be very small - about a quarter normal size, not very colorful, and thin. The next molt will come in another couple of months and the appendages will be about half normal size, look more like minature raptorial appendages, and move -althought they will not really be able to strike. The thrid molt in another 2 or 3 months will produce small but functional raptorial appendages.
As for why the raptorial appendages are lost during the molt, I am becoming convinced that this is a combination of diet and excercise. The animals need to frequently have something hard to break up. If you can't get snails or hermits, you can perhaps do what I sometimes do in experiments. We take empty snail shells and push a piece of shrimp meet deep into the shell. The animals treat this just like a live snail and break it apart to get the meat.
Roy
As for why the raptorial appendages are lost during the molt, I am becoming convinced that this is a combination of diet and excercise. The animals need to frequently have something hard to break up. If you can't get snails or hermits, you can perhaps do what I sometimes do in experiments. We take empty snail shells and push a piece of shrimp meet deep into the shell. The animals treat this just like a live snail and break it apart to get the meat.
Roy
