No such thing as a free lunch?

[Gamera]

My G. mutatus has more or less taken over the entire footprint of the tank. As far as I can tell there are tunnels and small caves everywhere. Most of the secondary hiding holes are plugged with bits of macro, which I find entertaining. When it needs to hop in, it removes the plug, steps in, turns about, and plugs it up again.

I will be heading out for a vacation (two weeks) and I'm curious as to what I can do to keep the mantis fed the entire time. I've been told to toss in small snails or hermits for it to hunt down and eat at his leisure. I don't think anyone will be around to take care of the tank while I'm gone, so I was at the very least planning on beefing up his diet the few days before I leave and rig up a drip system to keep the tank full...

Currently there's a damsel in there, three small camel shrimp (which I have yet to see him go after), and a few hermits lefts. I think there may be one or two snails left in the tank. My hair algae's starting to become a problem again...

Any recommendations?

[Gonodactylus]

The easy answer is "Don't worry about it!". G. mutatus can easily go two weeks in a tank with live rock without being fed. If you are worried, add a couple of very small snails or hermits. However, the biggest risk to your animal is having it kill a large prey item, not be able to consume it all (they will usually only eat fresh kills), and die as the meat starts to decompose.

Stomatopods do not have to eat every day and when they molt or reproduce, they often go for a couple of weeks without food. For example, right now I have a small Gonodactylellus viridis in the lab that just hatched her eggs. She entered her cavity four weeks ago, sealed it, and remained with the eggs for three weeks until they hatched and then with the larvae another week when they left the cavity. Then, and only then, did she start eating.

Roy

[Gamera]

Thanks for the advice.

I'll most likely just feed up until I have to go and then leave it alone to do whatever it does when it's alone...

[Angel*Fish]

Just to help you feel even more secure about leaving him --- After my first mantis killed all the fish, the aquarium sat fishless for at least 3 years - no water changes and the only feeding was once a week at most to the only other "large" inhabitant, the green brittle star -- I'm pretty sure since he was hand fed that he left no crumbs.

When brittle died we completely stopped feeding for ~6 mo. before deciding to "revive " the tank . Thank goodness we didn't count on LFS to be right about their declaration that the mantis had to be long dead. We luckily saw him before adding any "fish food " !!! He went to a good home BTW...

He was a small little guy -- just under 2 inches - I'm sure he was feeding on pods all that time and/or worms (?)
Enjoy your trip!!:)