Refusing silversides..

[crysis]

I would like to get my peacock on a diet of non-live food as well as live, but hes refusing to eat silversides. He just holds on to them for 10 minutes then throws them. Is this normal?

[justinl]

from the point where he "holds" the silverside to the point where he throws it out, does any of the fish disappear? it may look like a mantis is just holding food, but their mouths are on their underside. if your mantis isn't accepting it, don't feed for a few days and try again. it has to be hungry enough to be adventurous enough to try a new food. are you feeding any other frozen foods?

[crysis]

Nope, hes gone through 4 (that I know of) cerith snails in the 5 days. It doesnt appear that he ate any of the fish. Ill wait, but later Im sure hes gonna go and eat another snail. Wonder why hes eating so much.

[justinl]

oh, well as long as there is live food that he is used to hunting, he probably won't feel like trying a new foreign food. wait until the snails are all hunted down.

[crysis]

Haha..then silversides, then Im gonna have to restock the cleanup crew!

[Koshmar]

I've had success with silversides but IME it is my mantis' least favorite food. Neither of my two get very excited when I give them a silverside. My chiragra usually will rip open the belly and go for the insides, probably the liver (I've read and watched documentaries that say the liver is the most sought after organ for predators). If you want to have more success with silversides I would suggest cutting open the belly to expose the organs. If you want to give them frozen food they will love I would suggest mysis. Every carnivore in my tank loves them. Both of my mantis' go crazy when they see them. Just some input from a new mantis keeper.

[aromantis]

I don't know about silversides, but I know my ciliata goes crazy for frozen krill. A few days after I started feeding it to her, she started to assume that anything pink was food. She'll attack the glass if she sees pink erasers, shirts, rags. So you should try that, if you want yours to eat frozen food. Good luck!

[CAMAKAZY]

+1 for frozen krill. My little guy loves it.

[DanInSD]

Frozen krill, scallop, shrimp, squid...

If your peacock likes live food, and is full of snails, you'll need to starve him for a few days in order to have a decent chance of getting him to eat non-live food.

Dan

[justinl]

imo, I don't think of any snail crab or hermit in my tank as "clean up crew" because they don't last long enough to be so and are too damn expensive to keep stocking to the point where they actually do clean stuff. i just call them the walking dead.

my peacock's frozen diet consists of choppped up prawns, silversides, littleneck clams, and the odd piece of cuttlefish. I usually feed a bit more prawn than anything else as it is his favorite by far, then the clam, then the silverside, then the cuttlefish (which he doesn't really like much at all). fine by me since Im sure an Arthropod (like a prawn) has a more suitable nutritional profile for a mantis (also an Arthropod).

I don't feed him mysis since it is small and he tends to make a big mess of it. I make sure to feed him before I target feed my LPS mysis.

[Jim Morrison]

I have a smithi that will spit the silversides too. it loves frozen shrimp though. i cut a small piece, thaw it, then use tweezer to feed it to it

[crysis]

Hmm...ok, like supermarket shrimp? Im gonna get some krill also, but maybe ill go and pick up some frozen shrimp too and see how he likes it.

[Jim Morrison]

ya i use raw frozen shrimp a small amount will last a along time

[crysis]

Ill give that a shot today, but i dont know if hes gonna go for it since hes still got a bunch of snails in there. I noticed he was beating on one cerith snail and let it go. Its walking around with a bashed up shell. Any reason for this? Im pretty sure after he did that, he went out and grabbed another one and ate that.