how do i bait a mantis

[justinl]

The best way to catch a mantis is the bottle trap. Just take a water bottle (not soda and nothing that has ever been soaped or cleaned with any organic chemicals) and cut off the top third. Invert the top part and put it into the bottom two thirds. You should have a rough cylinder with a funnel at one end. Glue the pieces together using silicone or something aquarium safe. Tie a string around the entire trap so you can extract it from the display easily. Now just weight it and bait it. for bait you can use a variety of frozens. in a rough kind of order: uncooked shrimp, squid, silverside, scallop, crab (not the imitation kind), clam. You can probably get all of these from the grocery except the silversides.

The key to the bottle trap is patience. Don't expect instant results. It may take a while. If you have somewhere to put them, I would remove the shrimp, hermits and snails that you can easily find.

If you do know where its lair is and that it is in fact a mantis there is another method. Take out the rock in which the mantis is laired. Take a bucket filled with saltwater (same parameters as the display tank) and repeatedly dip the mantis' rock in it. Mantis should freak and swim out. I suggest trying the bottle trap first though.