AHA!! It's a mantis!
 

After (violently) losing most of my clean up crew and hearing repetitive clicking, I finally saw him for the first time today. 2" and fierce!

Anyone know how to get him out? Anyone want him?

there's a few ways to get him out. you could make a trap out of a pop bottle like you would for fish and just put a table shrimp in it to make it less resistible.

or you could try shooting some RO water into his hidy hole and then catch him when he gets out.

or you could try taking the whole rock he's in out and dipping it in RO water until he comes out, then just throw him in your sump, and if you dont have one i guess you could take a ziploc container, poke some holes in it, put the mantis in and then just leave it in your tank.

okay, I'll try those methods. Thanks

no problem.

i'd say try them in the order i said them, because they kinda go from least to most stressful for the specimen.
you might want to try to ID the little guy so people know what they are getting if they take it
i suggest Roys list for identification

PM'ed

Mantis is taken (once captured)

i have a crab trap you can borrow if need be. just let me know i am in bowness.

Thanks for the offer ElGuappo. I'll be in touch if the bottle trap doesn't work. I've just put in some raw shrimp and now we wait.

let me know what you figure out, i ended up with a 3 gallon pico reef for this exact same reason except i got one of those rare breeds of clicking rocks. still havent seen him, tryed freshwater dip tryed air tryed the trap, however i am happy that the rock i transferred is still clicking and the main tank has stopped

haha that's awesome...the only reason I saw him was probably because he was starving and his meal was running toward the front of my tank.

UPDATE
I caught the mantis tonight, actually he got himself stuck in one of the overflows!!! The traps were hopeless, he doesn't like anything except live crab and snails. I hope he develops a taste for raw shrimp.

pics??

+1 :lol:

Oh right! Tonight I'll post some glam shots. He's just a common Gonodactylus, mottled dark green/brown with no fancy coloring. I think he's a smithii because of the dark meral spot with the white ring.

He looks exactly like this one: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthrop..._chiragra3.jpg

Here's the best picture I could get of him. He looks a lot darker in person.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...&pictureid=221

Here's a picture for scale, 1.5" elbow

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/pic...&pictureid=222

I miss mine. I wonder why they didn't make it.

Funny how those work. When you actually want one, you can never find one. When you don't want one, they are hiding in your tank. I am looking for one for my future refugium. I wish I had one in my overflow...

Cool. So what are you doing with him? Putting him in ur sump downstairs??

He's been claimed! 'The Codfather' is coming down from Edmonton to pick him up. They are very interesting creatures. I was surprised how well he could swim, although he was stuck in my 22" deep overflow, he still managed to swim up about 16" and grab hold of the silicone. He would get tired and drop down again tho.

I'm no expert but from Roy'd identification list, his dark meral spot with white ring indicates he might be a Smithii. Any other thoughts?

Dont worry I'll give a good home.