Mantis Food

[raman781]

Anybody out there freeze snails?

[Turtall]

Well, just about everybody freezes clams : -}

[raman781]

I can get the cold saltwater snails for $1.99 a LB.
I usally feed them live to my mantis but I was thinking of freezing them.
Less trips to the store.

[Koshmar]

This thread talks about something similar to what I want to attempt soon when I get more $. Snail propagation. Raman, you hit a critical topic that I would like to expand upon, that idea is basically to limit the amount of time and/or money which you want to spend on mantis food. I've found my G. chiragra goes through about one astrea snail a night. At $2.00 a pop, those little guys can bankrupt you unless you have a lfs that gives you special buys like mine. You could always just use frozen foods like silver sides, krill, squid tentacles, ect... Unfortunately your mantis will lose its raptorial appendages if little to no snails are fed to it. I put about 5 astrea snails in my 20 long. After all have been consummed, I go out and buy five more. This is getting expensive. You could freeze the snails, yes, but in the end you will end up having to go back to your lfs or wherever. This is why I propose to create a snail propagation tank to "make" your own mantis food. In this way you can control what the snails eat, you know where they come from, and know that you risk little in disease spreading (if snails can carry disease that affects your tank, not sure on that). The point is your food expenditure for your mantis will drop sharply while giving your mantis the best food possible. If someone has done this, please share your setup and results. I would love for this to become a topic of discussion.

[raman781]

In my mantis tank I have about 100 tiny snails on the walls.
They are too small for my mantis to even notice.
It seems that the snails grow very slow.
I buy Black Turban Snails at the Seafood market , I got about 40 of them for $1.00. 1/2 a pound.
They are from the California coast so they won't last long in warm water.
I think a snail can live for 30years.

[Koshmar]

I never really thought about a seafood market. I'll have to check one out. I was thinking about a separate tank for snail breading so that they are isolated from anything that could kill them in my tank (hermits, emerald crab, stars). I have to research different methods of snail breeding, which is not that easy to do even on the web, before I decide on the setup. I'll post pics if I ever get one going, I just want to have a good, cheap, constant supply of live snails.

[J2FcM]

Why will your Mantis's rapts fall off if its not eating snails? I rarely feed my mantis live food and she's doing fine.

[raman781]

J2FcM

If your mantis doesn't use their raptors, the next molt they might not be there.
Its a good idea to feed them something with a shell so they can excerzise them.
If they don't use them they will lose them.

Koshmar

Seafood markets are great. Hopefully they have live snails in your area.

[J2FcM]

My mantis is always hitting things though, from hammering rocks, to attacking the tongs I feed her with, to hitting the glass when I put my cut out of a peacock Mantis in front of her. smack smack smack all day long.

[Turtall]

While in the market look for those small fish eggs. They are Smelt Roe. They are tiny, bright orange eggs and our fish, crabs, shrimp love them. And now they are the first thing that our mantis goes for. Shoot, even our dragonet (RIP) ate them.
If you don't find them try Asian/Oriental markets. They carry just about everything from the sea.

[block head]

check out sushi section for the eggs, mine are sold as flying fish eggs

[justinl]

turtall, Ive always thought about using roe, just never got around to actually doing it. good to hear it works