The MANTIS Shrimp Club!
- Thread starter BEELZEBOB
- Start date
kathywithbirds
Well-Known Member
Victor, step away from the tank. Sit down. Have a burger. No eating of the fish or inverts. OK?
Craig Manoukian
Well-Known Member
Saw some Peacocks at Exotic Reff Imports, will post pics when I meet AQTKJAK there when we meet again this coming weekend.
BEELZEBOB
Well-Known Member
SOOOOOOOOOOO
in reply to like 10 mantis shrimp pm's on another forum i wrote this. (dont hate me)
but it can do some good here to.
this is like my first attempt at an informative post. maybe so,e day i will be like Melev!
Stomatopods. Gods most effective killing machines.
Y’all know these guys as mantis shrimp.
You know, the weird lil inverts that look like the result of praying mantis taking advantage of an inebriated rock lobster?
Now, when it comes to mantis shrimp, they are most commonly known as the last possible thing that you would ever want in a reef tank. Its every reefers nightmare to have a hitch-hiker in their LR that will slowly eradicate every living creature in the tank. :bouncebox
:bouncebox
Common belief, but not necessarily true. Very understandable, especially being that some fish and inverts can cost the hobbyist hundreds of dollars.
This is actually how I first got wind of the whole “mantis tank idea.”
I first learned of these little critters existence from the discovery channel. It was a special on marine predators chock full of mantis shrimp footage from the wild and, the labs of the infamous, genius, studly stud known as Dr. Roy Cauldwell (formal introduction later.)
I was intrigued to say the least. But like most animals that id ever consider keeping, it seemed out of reach, cruel, and not possible.
Now lets flash forward like 18 months. I had a 75 gal brackish tank and questions. Low and behold I discover AC, RS, RC, RF, SWF, DARC, RMRC, and many other online forums. (all of which I have shoed myself in as like, a resident.)
Any-who, I’m messing around one day and I see somebody’s rant about their triumph over this evil 4 inches of critter that they tortured alive before putting in bleach.
Now, said individual lost a great deal of livestock to a spearer mantis. Like $500.00 plus. He added 35 lbs LR to his existing set up. Needless to say, it came with a HH mantis.
So immediately after the hippie in me lashed out at this guy and I was “removed” :wit: from that specific forum, all I had were questions.
Like whoa, you can find these things? Where? Can they be kept? What do I need? Where do I get one? Ohh man I was excited.
So this is like July 06. From that point forward it was all research baby!!!! :read:
And by Nov. I had a tank w/ water, 28lbs LR and sand. And now a year and a half from the initial inspiration, I have a full blown mantis reef tank.:whstlr:
BUT, on almost a daily basis, I am seeing many people confused, or simply misinformed about these lil critters. SOOOOOOOOOOOO here is BOBs most commonly asked questions about mantis shrimp.
1.Can my mantis shrimp break glass?
That Depends.
There are two types of mantis shrimp. Spearers and smashers. The raptorial appendage on speares looks like the arm of a praying mantis on steroids. This flashes out faster than you can blink and does a substantial amount of damage.
On smasheres, the rapitorial appendage is like a club that smashes the exoskeleton or shell of their pray. (this is also the fastest movement of any living organism.
Check this out.
YouTube - Sheila Patek: Measuring the fastest animal on earth
But back to the original question Out of the hundreds of species of mantis, there are only a few species that get large enough to do so. These are ; Odontodactylus scyllarus, Gonodactylaceus ternatensis, Gonodactylaceus graphurus, Gonodactylaceus chiragra and Hemisquilla californiensis.
2.Can I keep fish and other creatures in the same tank?
Again, that’s like adult diapers, it depends. :invisible
See you have to take into account that spearer mantis shrimp eat fish and mobile inverts like shrimp and crabs. Smashers Focus on consuming snails, hermits, clams and other small crustations and gastropods. But this is not to say a spearer wont kill a snail, and a smasher wont kill a fish.
Mantis’ are very personable.
Each individual mantis has its own specific and unique lil personality. Some are wusses, strait up. Wont eat or kill nuthin that isn’t fed to them, hide in their rock or borough all day and tolerate every living creature in their tank.
Others will simply be mean and aggressive. They will kill anything that moves, even if just for sport. Then there is everything in between. So really, there is no way to say for sure you can keep this with these mantis’ and these with those.
So my suggestion would be to not get the mantis fish shrimp and other critters all at the same time. Rather get the mantis in his nice new fully cycled home, and add things slowly to see what it does.
Also keep in mind that manually feeding a mantis will reduce their motivation to go kill stuff. They’re kinda like people. If you train it to get fat and eat dead food for free, it wont leave its “couch.”
Or if you want it to be aggressive, don’t feed much, and provide ample amounts of live food.
3.Can I keep corals with a mantis shrimp?
Well for the most part, Darn tootin!!!!
Especially if its an intertidal species, they can handle all the light you need for corals. Some deepwater species of mantis will be an exception, because too much light can lead to shell disease and other complications.
It is best to “glue you colonies down to avoid them slipping falling, or being moved by the mantis. But in my personal experience, my turbo snail does more damage to my aquascaping then my mantis.
4.Can I keep more than one in the same tank?
99% no.
The one exception is a mated pair of Lysiosquillina maculate (which is rare and require a specialized tank…), or some uber rare exception. For the most part though 2 mantises in one is gonna be a battledome.
5.What do I feed this thing?
Meat.
well as far as frozens go; For all mantis shrimp, krill, mysis, silversides, brine, deli shrimp, and squid.
Live food for a spearer wood be like damsels, ghost shrimp (SW only), other shrimp, and maybe a small crab.
Smashers will like the shrimps, hermits, mythrax crabs, snails, and even fish.
5b Can I feed a mantis FW feeders?
Absolutely positively not.
6.Who was that Dr, Roy Guy?
Glad you asked.
Member Research Profile
Dr. Roy L. Caldwell is a Stomatopodiatrist, and has been researching these lil critters for like more than 30 years. He heads the Mantis shrimp forum on RC. Reef Central Online Community - Mantis Shrimp
Its very nice to get personal attention from someone with the amount of knowledge this guy has.
7.How do I tell what type of mantis I want/ already have?
Roy's List of Stomatopods for the Aquarium
8* Great. How do I get the POS out of my super expensive reef tank with thousands of dollars of fish?
Well, pest traps work very well, like the ones you can buy, or convince Doni from RS to loan you. Also a simple L-shaped piece of PVC with an endcap and food in one end works well, if you have the patience to watch it.
9 .I don’t have one, but want one, where do I get it.
Distributor of Mantis Shrimp, Corals, and other Invertebrates Also, when searching for a specific species, call all LFS in a 3 state radius, craigslist, and marine forums. You never know when youll want another reefers trash!!
ALSO!!!!!!! I cant think of everything y’all wonder/need to know. So like just ask. If I don’t know the answer off hand, I can show you where to find it.!
in reply to like 10 mantis shrimp pm's on another forum i wrote this. (dont hate me)
but it can do some good here to.
this is like my first attempt at an informative post. maybe so,e day i will be like Melev!
Stomatopods. Gods most effective killing machines.
Y’all know these guys as mantis shrimp.
You know, the weird lil inverts that look like the result of praying mantis taking advantage of an inebriated rock lobster?
Now, when it comes to mantis shrimp, they are most commonly known as the last possible thing that you would ever want in a reef tank. Its every reefers nightmare to have a hitch-hiker in their LR that will slowly eradicate every living creature in the tank. :bouncebox
:bouncebox Common belief, but not necessarily true. Very understandable, especially being that some fish and inverts can cost the hobbyist hundreds of dollars.
This is actually how I first got wind of the whole “mantis tank idea.”
I first learned of these little critters existence from the discovery channel. It was a special on marine predators chock full of mantis shrimp footage from the wild and, the labs of the infamous, genius, studly stud known as Dr. Roy Cauldwell (formal introduction later.)
I was intrigued to say the least. But like most animals that id ever consider keeping, it seemed out of reach, cruel, and not possible.
Now lets flash forward like 18 months. I had a 75 gal brackish tank and questions. Low and behold I discover AC, RS, RC, RF, SWF, DARC, RMRC, and many other online forums. (all of which I have shoed myself in as like, a resident.
)Any-who, I’m messing around one day and I see somebody’s rant about their triumph over this evil 4 inches of critter that they tortured alive before putting in bleach.
Now, said individual lost a great deal of livestock to a spearer mantis. Like $500.00 plus. He added 35 lbs LR to his existing set up. Needless to say, it came with a HH mantis.
So immediately after the hippie in me lashed out at this guy and I was “removed” :wit: from that specific forum, all I had were questions.
Like whoa, you can find these things? Where? Can they be kept? What do I need? Where do I get one? Ohh man I was excited.
So this is like July 06. From that point forward it was all research baby!!!! :read:
And by Nov. I had a tank w/ water, 28lbs LR and sand. And now a year and a half from the initial inspiration, I have a full blown mantis reef tank.:whstlr:
BUT, on almost a daily basis, I am seeing many people confused, or simply misinformed about these lil critters. SOOOOOOOOOOOO here is BOBs most commonly asked questions about mantis shrimp.
1.Can my mantis shrimp break glass?
That Depends.
There are two types of mantis shrimp. Spearers and smashers. The raptorial appendage on speares looks like the arm of a praying mantis on steroids. This flashes out faster than you can blink and does a substantial amount of damage.
On smasheres, the rapitorial appendage is like a club that smashes the exoskeleton or shell of their pray. (this is also the fastest movement of any living organism.
Check this out.
YouTube - Sheila Patek: Measuring the fastest animal on earth
But back to the original question Out of the hundreds of species of mantis, there are only a few species that get large enough to do so. These are ; Odontodactylus scyllarus, Gonodactylaceus ternatensis, Gonodactylaceus graphurus, Gonodactylaceus chiragra and Hemisquilla californiensis.
2.Can I keep fish and other creatures in the same tank?
Again, that’s like adult diapers, it depends. :invisible
See you have to take into account that spearer mantis shrimp eat fish and mobile inverts like shrimp and crabs. Smashers Focus on consuming snails, hermits, clams and other small crustations and gastropods. But this is not to say a spearer wont kill a snail, and a smasher wont kill a fish.
Mantis’ are very personable.
Each individual mantis has its own specific and unique lil personality. Some are wusses, strait up. Wont eat or kill nuthin that isn’t fed to them, hide in their rock or borough all day and tolerate every living creature in their tank.
Others will simply be mean and aggressive. They will kill anything that moves, even if just for sport. Then there is everything in between. So really, there is no way to say for sure you can keep this with these mantis’ and these with those.
So my suggestion would be to not get the mantis fish shrimp and other critters all at the same time. Rather get the mantis in his nice new fully cycled home, and add things slowly to see what it does.
Also keep in mind that manually feeding a mantis will reduce their motivation to go kill stuff. They’re kinda like people. If you train it to get fat and eat dead food for free, it wont leave its “couch.”
Or if you want it to be aggressive, don’t feed much, and provide ample amounts of live food.
3.Can I keep corals with a mantis shrimp?
Well for the most part, Darn tootin!!!!
Especially if its an intertidal species, they can handle all the light you need for corals. Some deepwater species of mantis will be an exception, because too much light can lead to shell disease and other complications.
It is best to “glue you colonies down to avoid them slipping falling, or being moved by the mantis. But in my personal experience, my turbo snail does more damage to my aquascaping then my mantis.
4.Can I keep more than one in the same tank?
99% no.
The one exception is a mated pair of Lysiosquillina maculate (which is rare and require a specialized tank…), or some uber rare exception. For the most part though 2 mantises in one is gonna be a battledome.
5.What do I feed this thing?
Meat.
well as far as frozens go; For all mantis shrimp, krill, mysis, silversides, brine, deli shrimp, and squid.
Live food for a spearer wood be like damsels, ghost shrimp (SW only), other shrimp, and maybe a small crab.
Smashers will like the shrimps, hermits, mythrax crabs, snails, and even fish.
5b Can I feed a mantis FW feeders?
Absolutely positively not.
6.Who was that Dr, Roy Guy?
Glad you asked.
Member Research Profile
Dr. Roy L. Caldwell is a Stomatopodiatrist, and has been researching these lil critters for like more than 30 years. He heads the Mantis shrimp forum on RC. Reef Central Online Community - Mantis Shrimp
Its very nice to get personal attention from someone with the amount of knowledge this guy has.
7.How do I tell what type of mantis I want/ already have?
Roy's List of Stomatopods for the Aquarium
8* Great. How do I get the POS out of my super expensive reef tank with thousands of dollars of fish?
Well, pest traps work very well, like the ones you can buy, or convince Doni from RS to loan you. Also a simple L-shaped piece of PVC with an endcap and food in one end works well, if you have the patience to watch it.
9 .I don’t have one, but want one, where do I get it.
Distributor of Mantis Shrimp, Corals, and other Invertebrates Also, when searching for a specific species, call all LFS in a 3 state radius, craigslist, and marine forums. You never know when youll want another reefers trash!!
ALSO!!!!!!! I cant think of everything y’all wonder/need to know. So like just ask. If I don’t know the answer off hand, I can show you where to find it.!
goldenmean
Well-Known Member
Great post Bob!!!
I do have two mantis in my 55g tank but they are both still young and small and they are on opposite ends of the tank.
As they get older I may have Thunderdome. 2 mantis enter.One mantis leaves
We shall see.
I do have two mantis in my 55g tank but they are both still young and small and they are on opposite ends of the tank.
As they get older I may have Thunderdome. 2 mantis enter.One mantis leaves
We shall see.
in_a_days
Member
Hello Mantis keepers!
So I've got a 56 gallon corner tank. The tank houses a medium size Volitan, and the lone blue damsel that has thus far eluded him. About two months ago I bought a 65w PC to add to the stock 20w florescent so I could grow Coraline Algae. I've added a few pieces of live rock and it seems to be doing well so far...
But something caught my attention on a piece that I just added within the last week or two... It looked little a little inch worm or something, but after taking a closer look I'm about 99.9% sure it's a baby Mantis Shrimp. So now I have just a couple of questions...
First of all, considering that the Volitan is the only fish I intend to keep in this tank do I have anything to fear from a Mantis Shrimp?
Do they all develop the gnarley iridescent green and blue shades or could my Mantis Shrimp end up looking like a turd?
And actually for anybody still paying attention, since I'm only running one PC, what would be the best type of bulb for the live rock? Most people that use PCs seem to run 1 actinic blue and one 10K. If I can only have one, which is better? And I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place to post this question.
So I've got a 56 gallon corner tank. The tank houses a medium size Volitan, and the lone blue damsel that has thus far eluded him. About two months ago I bought a 65w PC to add to the stock 20w florescent so I could grow Coraline Algae. I've added a few pieces of live rock and it seems to be doing well so far...
But something caught my attention on a piece that I just added within the last week or two... It looked little a little inch worm or something, but after taking a closer look I'm about 99.9% sure it's a baby Mantis Shrimp. So now I have just a couple of questions...
First of all, considering that the Volitan is the only fish I intend to keep in this tank do I have anything to fear from a Mantis Shrimp?
Do they all develop the gnarley iridescent green and blue shades or could my Mantis Shrimp end up looking like a turd?
And actually for anybody still paying attention, since I'm only running one PC, what would be the best type of bulb for the live rock? Most people that use PCs seem to run 1 actinic blue and one 10K. If I can only have one, which is better? And I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place to post this question.
in_a_days
Member
Cool thank you. Do these guys like molt, or do their appearances change from nymph to adult?
goldenmean
Well-Known Member
Mantis #1 and #2 have been very active lately. I have even seen them in the same rock at the same time. The last couple of days I have seen #2 in #1's favorite spot under the GSP yet last night he was back in his spot on the other end of the tank. #2's body is currently more of a reddish color while #1's body is much darker.
The other morning before I left the house both mantis where in the same rock.
They were looking out of separate holes about 2 inches apart. I tried to get a pic but when I reached for the camera one ducked back inside the rock and I had to leave for work.
They seemed not to be bothered by the others presence.
I wonder if I have a male and female and is amor in the tank???
Could baby bone crushers be next??
Here are a couple of pics of #2.
She was out busting up barnacles looking for a snack.
The other morning before I left the house both mantis where in the same rock.
They were looking out of separate holes about 2 inches apart. I tried to get a pic but when I reached for the camera one ducked back inside the rock and I had to leave for work.
They seemed not to be bothered by the others presence.
I wonder if I have a male and female and is amor in the tank???
Could baby bone crushers be next??
Here are a couple of pics of #2.
She was out busting up barnacles looking for a snack.
Attachments
in_a_days
Member
I'm fairly confident it is a Mantis. It is right at about an inch long, and I can clearly see a pair of stalk-like eyes. Man can that little guy scurry!
I'm not going to make any efforts to get rid of him. I don't think he'll be messing with my Lion anytime soon, and he can tear up pretty much anything else in the tank without my concern.
But I do have a couple quick questions... First of all do I need to provide any special food for him while he's so pint sized? I've seen pics of people feeding them meat off a feeding stick, but I suspect this guy is a little small and timid for that kind of treatment.
My other question related to the coralline algae thing. Sorry, I know this probably isn't the right thread, but I can't seem to find a general live rock discussion. I've read that you can get by with as little as 1.5w per gallon to keep live rock. But I'm inclined to believe you rather than whatever source I got that number from. So I was at the LFS this afternoon as I was looking at a 78W T5. If I added this to my current 65w PC would that be enough light to keep coralline algae happy? (56 gallon corner, think it's like 20" deep)
Thanks in advance!
Craig Manoukian
Well-Known Member
Way cute Jeff!