What do I feed a BIG mantis shrimp?

[finneganswake]

Woohoo! My LFS finally scored an awesome harlequin mantis shrimp! I've been asking him to get one for months, so I'm glad to get it, but it's a little bigger than I was expecting--it's around 5 inches. What should I feed this bugger? It's a smasher--will they eat fish? I'm hoping so because I hate yellow-tailed damsels (sorry, but they made me dismantle an entire tank just to catch two of them) and they're $2 a pop at the LFS. Also, any suggestions on how to get him out of the bag from the LFS and into the tank without losing a finger, because I'm figuring it'll destroy any net I use?

 

[EMG]

Any kind of inverts..... crabs, snails, shrimp..... mine loves ghost shrimp only.... you can also give them bits of grocery store, fish counter stuff.... even pieces of coctail shrimp....

Great find on your mantis.... How much did you end up paying ?and lets see a pic.......... :bum:

 

[finneganswake]

Any kind of inverts..... crabs, snails, shrimp..... mine loves ghost shrimp only.... you can also give them bits of grocery store, fish counter stuff.... even pieces of coctail shrimp....

Great find on your mantis.... How much did you end up paying ?and lets see a pic.......... :bum:

I'm not picking it up until Sunday, so no pics yet; I'm paying $25 minus my 10% "Frequent Flyer Discount" so I guess $22.50.

They've been feeding it mostly frozen krill, although I bought a damsel yesterday so that I could watch them feed it:eek1: It KO'd the damsel in about 1/2 a second.

 

[venwu225]

What is a "harlequin mantis shrimp"?

Know the specie's scientific name anyone?

Or do we mean Odontodactylus scyllarus...?

 

[pisces77]

O. scyllarus or peacock is AKA Harlequin, as far as I know

 

[biomekanic]

You know, the obvious answer is anything it wants..

Mine liked live steamer clams. drip acclimate them to the salinity/temperature, drop them in the sandbed, and wait.
Bun-bun would hunt them down and pop them open.

 

[Aqua_expert19]

mine perfers tbone stakes with a dab of A1 Just a dab for ever time he finds more he shall kill you

 

[CodeToad]

My 7" male peacock used to enjoy turbo snails the most, but it would cost a small fortune to keep a constant supply of them for him as he pounded them down quickly.

 

[rtcpenguin]

Smaller mantis shrimp