I have quite a large pistol shrimp in my tank... Maybe he got them or somethingif they were weak and near the bottom of the tank. Still, I know the mantis was eating my corals, and that's a good enough reason for me to get him out of there. :squarewi:

They eat a lot of things, but they DO NOT eat corals.

my 1" green mantis quite regulary took down damsels that were bigger than him self.

Steve

I saw him dart out of the hole and grab at one of my yellow polyps. Maybe he wasn't eating it then! I'm not sure but it did really look like he was trying to eat it. Something in the tank WAS eating my corals. Not all of them..only the yellow polyps for some reason. So maybe he wasn't the culprit but there was no way I was gonna keep a mantis shrimp in my tank.

Keeping a mantis in a mixed reef isn't recommended, I just wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't eating coral. IF it went near the yellow polyps, it's likely you have some type of snail or something that the mantis considered food.
Setting up a separate tank for the mantis might be something to consider, as they are pretty neat little animals.

Also, for anyone interested in these creatures, this is a great site...

http://www.blueboard.com/mantis/

Yeah he's in a separate tank right now. It's a 2 gallon eclipse and he has a few pieces of live rock. I don't really know what else to put in with him, but I'm assuming not too much else. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep him at first, but I think I'm going to keep him after all. I'm not sure how big this little guy is going to grow, so I might have to put him in a larger tank as he grows. A friend of mine said that this might be a type of mantis that grows only to about 1 - 2 inches, so he may be full grown. I don't know much about mantis so I'm not sure. He looks kinda navy blue/dark grey with a light limey-green coloured tail.

Wonderful site...very interesting and informative. Thanks! :biggrin: