[untamed]

Originally Posted by justinl

I is confused. I want to say G. smithii because of the meral spot (white ring with dark purple centre) but G smithii don't live in Florida. Anyways, a full grown G. smithii is rated for 5 gal minimum. At 2 inches, 2 gal is fine temporarily.

Just keep in mind that you may lose him once he enters the battlegrounds we know as "400". i also wanted to point out that at the rate you're getting mantids in the tank and the amount of LR you'll have, you're obviously not going to be able to target feed all the mantids. This is going to cause fierce competition i think. This will lower the survival rate of your mantids in the 400 but i don't know what you could possibly do about it.

for future reference, the general set up for mantids is not BB. they usually need a sand bed, LR and rubble (small rocks and/or shells). wennerae chill in holes in the LR. not sure what G smithii do normally.

poor crabby. some mantids just like to play with their food. hehehe, yeah i wouldn't hand feed any mantis either.

Not his best photo. I'm sure he is green wennerae. He hasn't gotten any bigger in quite some time.

You're right, I won't be able to target feed. I'm hoping that they will choose to hunt hermit crabs. It is no problem to dump a few hundred hermits in there from time to time. Combined with the existing crab population, that's my feeding plan. To my knowledge, I don't know anyone else who has tried this.

The 400 will be mostly sandy bottom.