101 dalmantis

englishreefer

New member
After a recent sucess removing a large mantis from lrock, only a few days celibration have past until i relised that on one of my rocks (i only have 3 as its only a 10g nano) i have at least 10 baby mantis's, at first i thought these were only pods i was seeing. However after close inspection they are seeming to be everywhere, They are tiny only about twice the size of my pods, my concern is will these pests grow to be a menice to my tank, how quickly do they grow, what can i possibly do as their is so many. my only thing i feel i can do to remedy the situation is just wait until these mutant freaks become large enougth to start a war on. how much trouble am i in and any ideas on termination of such small beings will be appreciated. On the plus side watching these things continually hunting my pods is great entertainment, theirs always at least a few on the war path.
 
It would be very unusual if these were stomatopods. I have never heard of stomatopods hatching and successfully recruiting in an aquarium. I suppose it is possible that they came in with the LR (how long have you had it?), but rarely do densities of juveniles get above three of four per rock. Without seeing them, my guess would be that you have a population of amphipods - perhaps caprellids that have raptorial appendages and can look like stomatpods.

Roy
 
ive only had the rock for around 2 months, but as i live in england i dont know how long ago the rock would of been collected, my lfs always seems to have the same rock in so i feel the rock was probably in the store a long time. I only have about 3lbs of rock as it is in a small nano. I would say their is at least 30 in the tank, this is at least, their are always loads visible. The reason i think they are mantis is because they are always attacking all my other life on the rocks, including each other and i can clearly make out their big choppy sword things.
 
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