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- Thread starter mikey3165
- Start date
Pea-brain
In Memoriam
easy. Depending on species. Good beginner mantis is Neogonodactylus wennrae. You can get it from Tampabaysaltwater.com for 50$ including shipping. Gets about 3" highly variable personality, but mostly outgoing. Equipment: 5-10 gallon tank. visitherm stealth heater. Glass heaters are bad because the mantis tries to kill the little light and breaks it releasing heavy metals. A powerhead or other water movement device. 5-10 pounds of rock with at least one big piece it can burrow in, and sand. Some like crushed gravel, I prefer Oolitic aragonite. If you want a quick mantis tank take a few cupfulls of sand from an established tank and some live rock from established tank and you can put the mantis in same day. i did that for my chiragra. I wouldn't advise it for sensitive species, but n. wennerae will take it fine.
Diet Plain
New member
Also, with smashers like the N.wen. Don't put any crustaceans you would find valuable in the tank with him. I also like putting in macro algae's like caulerpa for landscape and to keep the water clean.
Pea-brain
In Memoriam
yes, I agree. Macros are a very good idea if you have the light to keep them. I have some chaeto over the filter intake of my HOB filter and my p. ciliata loves to climb up there and steal some to put in front of its hole. It is kinda scary when you look in the tank an see nothing. A rustly in the chaeto bush then suddenly....a yellow object pops out. You jump back. Then you realize that it is just your mantis shrimp...hanging upside down in a ball of chaeto......and then it give YOU a look like YOUR the one hanging upside down in a ball of algae....
