vitamins?

[intrancewetrust]

i have heard of people soaking their mantis food in vitamin solutions... is this really needed? what do they eat in nature that we cant provide them in a tank? i am feeding mine the meaty bits of prawns, scallops and crabs. he eats better food than i do... lol

 

[stepho]

Its probably not needed, but that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea. I want my guy to live longer and healthier than he would in the wild.

 

[Gonodactylus]

It depends on the species, but in wild many species have a much more varied diet than is typically supplied in an aquarium. Also, the prey they eat is usually alive and they eat all of it - gut contents, neural tissue, cuticle, etc. A piece of shrimp or scallop muscle does not contain the diversity of nutrients that eating the entire animal does. Plus processed food such as dried krill loses some of its nutrient value.

We don't routinely use supplements. It would take too much time to treat the food for several hundred stomatopods, but we do use live food as much as possible. I do use supplements if I'm trying to get an animal to breed or if I'm trying to prevent or treat shell disease or maintain color. In general, I would say that Odontodactylids benefit from nutrients.

Roy

 

[intrancewetrust]

have you had any success gettign them to eat large pellets intended for fish? seems like this would give them some extra nutrition theyre not getting from the muscle tissue?

 

[re_sjo]

Bizarrely, my P. Ciliata eats these:

http://theaquariumwiki.com/TetraPrima

Roy- If you read this, would you mind checking this food above and commenting on any suitability for my stomatopod? I add it to the tank for the the crabs to eat on every now and again but my stomatopod seems to love it too.

I've found this to be a bit of a 'wonder food' for many awkward species of bottom dwellers, eg chalk gobies.

 

[Gonodactylus]

I have no idea what the long-term consequences are for a stomatopod eating this preparation. It certainly does not match the diet that an animal would get in the wild - but then neither does ours.

Roy

 

[re_sjo]

Ok, thanks Roy

 

[Thurge]

I don't know if there are different types of that pellet, but the link looks like a freshwater food. If it doesn't come in a marine flavor, I would recommend looking for a marine pellet.

I used pellets for one of my mantis when he was so small I couldn't find any live foods small enough (Bumble Bee snails worked but were $$$) and prepairing frozen food in small enough porportions was difficult.

 

[re_sjo]

It is a freshwater food, but i've used it with marine fish in the past with no evident problems and in some cases better than expected results. I'm not really sure what differs between a freshwater and marine food, other than the obvious assumption that the dried animals in the food come from the relevant environment.