mantis shrimp

[the marine apprentice]

i helped out a fellow canreefer tonight by trading my extra 90g tank for hers that had a leak 3 inchs from the top. so she brought it over along with a few extra large coffe from timmies, and it still had a bit of water and some rubble and such in the bottom. while my girlfriend and i were cleaning it out we found a little crab in the water and also a shrimp about half an inch long. so i put both of them in a glass cup with some tank water from my tank and they both can right to life bouncin around the glass. so i set the cup down on my pool table and continued cleaning the tank. every few minutes i would hear this loud ding liek someone hitting a cup with the point of a knife. i thought it was just my gfs bearded dragon hittin stuff. then i went to check on the crab and the lil shrimp and i wated the shrimp smash its claw on the cup and it made that noise. i have never seen a mantis before but this is friggin cool.

main question is... what do i do with it??

[karazy]

if it's only half inch, i say throw it in a 5.5 gallon and grow it up. mantises make really cool pets.

[Navigator]

I heard that clicking noise and I never thought it would be a mantis - I thought it was my thermometer!

UNBELIVEABLE. I apologize, but I'm glad it never got in either of our tanks... Must have hid out in that rock - I thought I had the hermit crab out though! Must have grabbed his wrong shell. Congrats - you're now the proud owner of my free red legged hermit from the place downtown!

[burrows14]

I think they are super cool! but i just got rid of one in my reef i think...lol he ate 4 gobies about 20-30 hermits and a few peppermint shrimp I had to pull out all of my rock to try to find him and i think his home is in my sump now lol

cheers
Ray

[the marine apprentice]

will they hurt anything to be down in my sump?
or will it wreck my sump

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by the marine apprentice

will they hurt anything to be down in my sump?
or will it wreck my sump

I have a small 2-3 inch g. smithi mantis that lives in a rock in my sump. He rarely comes out of his rock but when he does he will grab mysis, krill and silversides from aqua tongs. I've had him for 2 and a half years and he's never caused any problems.

[viperfish]

Mantis shrimp are quite the conversation pieces. If you read enough online you would swear it was going to smash through you tank, hunt you down and eat you...lol. You will notice that most of the stories are stories that people have heard and not experienced first hand, you have to take that with a grain of salt. Mine is a Peacock about 4" long and lives in a 14 Gal Biocube. I did reinforce the bottom with acrylic and I'm glad I did because when it builds its maze of burrows, it smacks the bottom like there is no tomorrow! I have LR with zoos/shrooms growing in there and I stick my hand in to move rock or coral with no problem. It doesn't take long before they know who you are and get comfortable with you. Our mantis watches our every move, it is probably the most intuitive creature I have ever seen. It lives with a six line wrasse and they get along just fine. I would recommend you put lots of LR rubble in with it to keep it occupied. It will spend its day rearranging and stacking the pieces.

[the marine apprentice]

well that being said i have a bunch of rubble in my sump. mine is flourescent blue with some green and black on it. looks pretty sweet. and the crab that came with my shrimp is to small to really tell what he is. im gonna try to find a small biocube or something of the sort for my shrimp and a few crabs.

[viperfish]

Originally Posted by the marine apprentice

well that being said i have a bunch of rubble in my sump. mine is flourescent blue with some green and black on it. looks pretty sweet. and the crab that came with my shrimp is to small to really tell what he is. im gonna try to find a small biocube or something of the sort for my shrimp and a few crabs.

I wouldn't do the crab thing, if your Mantis is a smasher it will make short work of those crabs or any other inverts you put in there. I put a piece of LR in the mantis tank and I didn't notice there was a snail on it, poor thing didn't stand a chance. The mantis played a game of soccer with it for about and hour and then made a snack out of him.

[the marine apprentice]

ok fair enough. kybosh on the crabs lol. now just to find a little nano tank. . . . . . . . . . . .