anyone ever feed freshwater crayfish to their mantis

[gpx1200]

in the spring the lake near my house is loaded with small crayfish under every rock right around the beach area and their easily colected in a minow trap so im thinking these might make a tasty snack for my mantissis. any one ever tried this?, how long do you think a crayfish will live in saltwater?

[young doz]

it will only live for a few minutes (the cray in saltwater) and if its any consilation i fed my stomatopods freshwater glass shrimp alot, they lived for months and always ate it

[gpx1200]

i do the same with the glass shrimp, my smithii must be lazy becouse their have been a few in his tank for about a month now
also i think the glass shrimp are eating my copapods

[FLMantis]

Yes, I have. Crayfish will die after few minutes in SW.

But only did it once.
Feed both O Scy:

one of them destroyed the crayfish in a few seconds.

The other one is not as brutal and almost lost an eye.

So never feed them crawfish again. Don't want to take the risk of that happening again.

[Kharn]

I once tried live freshwater feeder shrimp as an alternative.

By the time the shrimp hit the bottom of the tank it was dead, amusingly enough each mantis would come out and it looked as though they would take it but then once the shrimp hit the bottom dead, the mantis' would come out and hit it once in a curious manner rather then a predatory manner.

Almost as if the mantis' are saying "Yo you alrite ?"

none of them ate the freshwater feeder shrimp, they would lightly tap it once then wiggle there antenna about then turn around and go back home to there burrow, I removed the dead shrimp quickly to prevent water fouling.

[TundraGuy]

You guys crack me up with the statements about it died by the time it got to the bottom. Lol if you’re not sure about your mantis eating one of these then it’s a good idea to acclimate the critter to salt water before adding it to the tank. I set up a bucket with a small amount of fresh water in it and drip at the rate of about 3 to 4 drops per second using air line tubing to slowly bring up the salt content. Once you acclimate the crawfish to saltwater the little bugger will live for a couple weeks before becoming to dehydrated and die. If you do this the crawfish is more likely to swim and try to escape the mantis I find that is exactly what stimulates my Smithii into a angry hunting section. After typing that I realize I am one sick puppy………

Most inverts are sensitive to salinity changes to some degree. Taking one strait from fresh to salt water is going to shock it. So the longer the process of introduction to higher salt levels the less shock the critter will deal with. The reason I post that is I like to watch my mantis do its smashy smash thing and I have to buy critters for him to eat. With that being the case I would hate to add/buy something just to find out my mantis is not hungry and watch the animal die and rot without becoming food. Acclimate then add this will at the very least give your mantis a day or two to go into beast mode!

[cft916]

You guys crack me up with the statements about it died by the time it got to the bottom. Lol if you’re not sure about your mantis eating one of these then it’s a good idea to acclimate the critter to salt water before adding it to the tank. I set up a bucket with a small amount of fresh water in it and drip at the rate of about 3 to 4 drops per second using air line tubing to slowly bring up the salt content. Once you acclimate the crawfish to saltwater the little bugger will live for a couple weeks before becoming to dehydrated and die. If you do this the crawfish is more likely to swim and try to escape the mantis I find that is exactly what stimulates my Smithii into a angry hunting section. After typing that I realize I am one sick puppy………

Most inverts are sensitive to salinity changes to some degree. Taking one strait from fresh to salt water is going to shock it. So the longer the process of introduction to higher salt levels the less shock the critter will deal with. The reason I post that is I like to watch my mantis do its smashy smash thing and I have to buy critters for him to eat. With that being the case I would hate to add/buy something just to find out my mantis is not hungry and watch the animal die and rot without becoming food. Acclimate then add this will at the very least give your mantis a day or two to go into beast mode!

:thumbsup:

[TundraGuy]

did you try it? works good lol.