Peacock food?

[Phishguy]

I've had a peacock mantis for quite a while now and he's always eaten snails and hermits and dry krill. We are at the beach now and decided to search for some meals for him. We found a couple of crabs, a bunch of snails and some mussels. I was thinking about throwing the mussels into my fuge. Any reason why I shouldn't feed the crabs and snail to my mantis? I've seen video of a mantis smashing a crab so I think it'd be fine but I figure I better get some other opinions.

[Fartin'Gary]

I guess it depends on what beach you go them from. The beach at Tybee Island in Ga. often post warnings if the bacteria level in the water is too high for swimming. I wouldn't put any critters I found there in my tank. It's just a risk you take possibly introducing unwanted things into the tank and possible parasites too.

[TundraGuy]

Your feeding live food (the only thing I feed). It is cool that you’re going to be feeding him fresh caught stuff. My only worry would be the same as has been stated. Is the source clean? If your even a little worried about it place the live pray in a separate tank and observe them for a few days do some WC and gut load them. If you see no signs of bad stuff then through them in to the arena. Mine eats live food and I try to keep it as varied as possible. This way you’re not forcing your mantis to miss out on other possible nutrients from other types of live stock.