Mantis Shrimp Help?

Crazy how price differs on these guys. Mine was particularly large though.

 

As far as feed costs for me:

bag of frozen unprocessed clams from the oriental mart: $5 last about 3 months
ebay fiddler crabs (seasonal late spring to late fall) lot of 40: $40-50 w/shipping
hermit & snail CuC from reef cleaners: $50 last about month & a half
bag of frozen uncooked shrimp from wal-mart: $8 (?) lasts for months

I feed mine i dunno every 3-4 days. I add the CuC and she kinda snacks at will for the most part though. There might be a cheaper way to do it, but this is what I found works & keeps her happy. Plus with a smasher mantis you wan to feed some form of shelled food. If they dont use thier smashers to smash stuff you run into the potential where they dont grow back correctly after a molt. Important note there I forgot earlier. The odds of getting a mantis that wont smack rocks and other things when burrowing is probably pretty rare, but you also want to keep a little bit of the natural instinct to smack something around to get thier food. Smacking something around for food only applies to mantis though, dont try it at home...... I tried to smack the wife & ask for a cheese burger, not only did I not get a cheeseburger, there was something else I didnt get either. Blaming the mantis when you try doesnt help much as well.

Lemme throw a quick plug in for ibluewater since you already seen a couple of us went to him. Yes Bob does charge a little more, but I personally don't think you will get a better deal. He quarentines all his mantis for like 6-8 weeks, makes sure they are eating, no signs of shell rot, everything. Get in contact with him and he will even send pics & videos of a mantis or any other livestock you want to purchase for that matter. When I ordered mine I wanted a blue reef chromis, he had a couple but wasnt happy with how they looked, so he wouldnt ship them. Since its not a expensive fish I even asked if I could buy it on a 'at my own risk'. He declined and said he dont work like that. A livestock vendor that wont take your money? That says something. His shipping & packing are all top notch as well. So it might have cost more over all but the quality of livestock I got from him I dont feel can be beat.

 

Can you buy me one and ship it to Pennsylvania? lol