wondering how many people have had hitch hiking mantis shrimps?

cwickham · #1 05-11-2008, 08:49 PM

Just curious to see how many people have found mantis shrimps in their tank, and what they did with them.

thanks
craig

Chowder · #2 05-11-2008, 08:54 PM

Had about 4 so far. 2 smashers and one spear in my 65 and 1 smasher out of a tank I had set up last year.

justinl · #3 05-11-2008, 09:04 PM

hey chris do you have pics of them? specifically the spearer. I dont mean to hijack, but im really curious because I have never heard of any spearers hitching in. it's certainly possible with some species, but ive never seen it.

untamed · #4 05-11-2008, 09:37 PM

When I setup my SW tank (FOWLR) in the early 90's, I had a mantis in the tank for about 1 year before I saw it. I immediately blamed it for killing a fish and killed it. (I was a newbie and ill-informed)

I converted my FOWLR to a reef in late 2003. In that shipment of LR, I also got a mantis. This time, I removed him to a separate 2 gallon tank where he lived alone for about 4 years. He was/is an entertaining pet.

When I completed construction of my LAST aquarium, I received about 6-7 mantis in my LR shipments. This time, I elected to just leave them in the tank. When I shut down the old system, I also transferred in my previous pet mantis.

It has probably been 6 months now since I've seen a mantis in the system. I suspect they may have all died, or...they've just become very secretive. I would like to think that they are still in there. I certainly continue to hear loud "snaps", but these could also be pistol shrimp as I received many, many of those in the same shipment.

So...my advice is to just leave them be. The common hitching smashers aren't fish killers, and hermit crabs are dime-a-dozen. I also witnessed my mantis hunting/killing pest crabs, so some might consider them a beneficial hitchiker in that respect.

marie · #5 05-11-2008, 09:46 PM

I've had one that I know about and I just left him alone, never saw him do any damage and after a few years I even forgot to look around for him...that was seven years ago, I'm not even sure he's still alive

Atomikk · #6 05-11-2008, 09:48 PM

Read my Sunday blog regarding the manits.. we found one in a cyphastrea..

Chowder · #7 05-11-2008, 10:13 PM

No I didn't take a picture of it. I found it only because my larger Mantis I had spent most of the time in that rock. I removed it one day and thought I had him still in the rock. I ended up smashing the rock. Did not find the big one but found a really tiny spear mantis. Only one I have ever seen except for on the internet.