Outtafocus's 2gal pico-now with more Mantis - Page 3

fakename · #21 01-23-2006, 04:37 AM

Are you going to keep feeding him live hermits or trick him with the meat in the snail shell trick?? I would like to get one of these guys, but the constant need for live food would be a pain........although I guess I could go get hermits from the beach now that I think about it....

Skimmer Juice · #22 01-24-2006, 07:38 PM

outtafocus where in calgary did you find that mantis.I have a peacock he is about 6-7 inches andvery smart.

aquariumgirl · #23 01-24-2006, 07:51 PM

oh, that's a very beautiful mantis!! Your pico looks awesome.

OCDP · #24 01-26-2006, 06:55 PM

Cool Mantis, Cool Damsel.. very nice looking. Poor bugger.... he's doomed. Such a nice looking fish too...

Cool little tank overall though.

Xtasia · #25 01-26-2006, 08:08 PM

Why would you have to feed it snails etc.. you can keep a mantis on mysis. they are lower maintenance than they have to be...

Skimmer Juice · #26 01-26-2006, 08:16 PM

feeding him snails and crabs gives him something for him to do for fun.

Fish · #27 01-26-2006, 08:59 PM

Feeding a smasher shelled foods is more than for fun. Some owners report that mantis will lose their raptorial apendages if they don't use them. Also, seeing as snails and hermits are their natural diet, it is probably a healthy way to feed. To balance Ike's diet, I feed snails and hermits once or twice a month. To keep the cost down (but his dactyls strong), I came up with the technique of stuffing krill inside of a $0.25 snail shell... kinda like gift wrapping.
The damsel will probably get eaten eventually - my first damsel got eaten after two weeks... that's how long it took for it to drop its gaurd. A damsel is inexpensive and it's probably good to have fresh fish once in a while...
I really like your tank so far, it's awesome to see the mantis revolution continue!

- Chad

outtafocus · #28 01-26-2006, 10:24 PM

Thanks for the kind remarks.
Of the four hermits and two snails I placed in the tank on sunday, only one snail and one hermit remains.

The damsel is still alive, but I do worry for him. When the damsel is scared (by me walking by) he will dive into a little cave area under the rock. But with a mantis watching over his shoulder I dont believe its the safest hide out. To quote JRR Tolkiens' The Hobbit, " Out of the frying pan , into the fire"

Chad, does your mantis ever drag the shell fragments back into his lair? Mine will do her smashing, eject all the fragments, so they are strewn all over, then the next time I look at the tank, I see all the shells stacked in her alternate entrance.

Skimmer Juice · #29 01-26-2006, 11:51 PM

my mantis shrimp smashes all of his snails and crabs in his house and then puts the broken shells in the roof of his cave kinda likegrout or something. Just out of curiosity how do you tell if it is a male or female?

Fish · #30 01-27-2006, 12:14 AM

outtafocus,
Oh ya, Ike has never given me back a single shell... he's got a serious stash in there. They really like to fortify their bunkers - infact I caught Ike breaking off chunks of my sps to use as building materials. After I saw that, I moved some LR rubble to block his cave entrance better so that he doesn't feel the need to continue harvesting material for the 'sps beaver dam' he was working on...

- Chad