The art of mantis keeping

[K-Dubbs]

I had orginally posted this in a different forum, then someone told me there was a specific mantis forum, so here it goes:

Bear with me this will be a semi-long post,

I'm looking for info on keeping mantis shrimp.
I will be moving to live in a college dorm in a month.
I would love to keep a small nano reef tank but seeing as I will be coming home most weekends to take care of my current reef tank I think it would get difficult. I would need to find someone to feed because my room mate won't be staying weekends as well, plus not being there to top off water each day would be bad, along with the really hot temperature all year round, plus I would not be staying for most breaks and would have to find someone to take care of it then as well.
Then the other day I watched 2 mantis shrimp in there tank and was captivated and started wondering to myself if it would be possible to keep one or two of them in a smaller sized tank. How hardy are the little buggers? Any info on them would be great, personal experiences etc...
I need to know how often they would need to be fed and what i should feed them
I need to know if it would be possible to keep mostly clear tubing so that I could see them most of the time.
I also might have to purchase a chiller to keep the temp down. And If they are a bit hardier hopefully topoff wouldn't be as much of a problem.
What do you guys think?

Thanks,
K-Dubbs

 

[Gonodactylus]

We keep dozens of gonodactylids in 2-4 gal tanks using only canister filters and lots of gravel and small pieces of rubble. We do no use lighting. The lab is a constant 25 C, but if your room will stay in the range of 23-27, you should be fine. We feed our animals two or three times a week. Weekends are not a problem. The key is not over feeding and removing any uneaten food within hours after feeding, a partial water change every couple of weeks, and maintaining salinity by topping off ever time you feed.

To remain healthy, the animal needs a dark burrow or cavity and I would recommend keeping only one, medium sized (3 inch) gonodacyloid. Good species would be N. wennerae, N. oerstedii, G. smithii, G. chiragra, H. stoliura.

Roy