Baby Mantis! How do I raise it?

[thesus13]

Hello!

I picked up a baby mantis shrimp from rags111875 (Thanks so much!!). Itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s neon green, and is only about 1/3 to Ã"šÃ‚½ of an inch long! It came on rags' live rock from florida. I think it is probably N. Wennerae, but am not sure. The mantis is currently in the bottom of a gallon sized plastic milk jug. There is also a little brown/white striped crab about the same size in the jug with him. In fact, the moment I turned on my web cam to film the mantis it struck at the crab! It was quite exciting to see that even as a baby this thing is mighty fiesty. It looks like a little green neon stripe attacking a brown circle in the video, but I'd be happy to put it up here if there is interest.

Anyways, I've got this baby mantis. I had set up a 5 gallon tank (I ended up with a mini bow5) that has crushed coral on the bottom and a 4 pound piece of Fuiji live rock in the center. There's a hermit crab in there that originally I had thought the shrimp would try to eat right away... but now I think it's more likely the shrimp would get attacked by the hermit! haha. The shrimp is small enough to hide under the pieces of crushed coral, as it is currently doing in the milk jug.

What do I do? Should I throw it in the 5 gallon? Is it to small? Will there be enough food in the tank, or will I have to try to find it and feed it?

I put a piece of krill in the jug, right next to the shrimp, and he hid under it! lol. It's about as big as he is. Eventually the shrimp hid under the tiny rocks in the jug, and when I kept putting the krill near it's hiding spot the mantis started to nibble (I think).

I appreciate your help!

(Thanks again Rags!)

 

[ReneX]

Hey Thesus!

That was the one I was going to pick up, but as it was so small, I was afraid of similar and just loosing it in my tank. You'll probably want to keep it in a small area until it grows a bit bigger and more able to fend for itself in the big scary tank As for food, the one I got from rags likes flake as long as the current moves it about. The baby will probably like flake as well, which has the advantage of being something you can easily crumble into small sizes.

A sponge filter in a tank less than a gallon would probably help keep the water clean...Dr. Roy keeps his lab mantis under spartan and simple conditions. If your room doesn't have much temp swing, you can probably do without a heater.

Not that I have any experience with baby mantis, but logic says they are like big mantis, only smaller. I'd have taken it but I may be moving soon and was afraid of stressing it. Good luck!

 

[traveller7]

I am sure the "tiny" will do fine on a few pieces of frozen brine. And it is readily available.

 

[thesus13]

Ideally I'd like to be able to toss this guy into the 5 gallon. He's actually pretty bold, and has moved out of his little hiding place to survey the rest of the jug. From other posts I get the impression that he wouldn't stress about too much about the size of the tank (also the moment I got him home he went out and fought with the crab). My main concern I guess is feeding him... I certianlly wouldn't be opposed to setting up a small tank though.

If I put him in the 5 gallon, is there anything that I could put in there live (that I could easily purchase/order from a fish store) for him to chow down on/hunt.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Juvenile N. wennerae can be raised if you feed it properly and can keep it from going into a pump. We rear ours in plastic .5 l cups until they are about 17 or 18 mm long, then they go into small tanks The cups have no sand an only a small, opaque plastic tube for the animal to live in. I buy the tubing, either square or round, at a hobby shop. The diameter 5-7 mm. We cut off a 3 or 4 cm length and the animals stay in them most of the time except when feeding. If algae builds up, we clean the tube with a pipecleaner. For food, we use live brine shrimp. To provide extra nutrition, the shrimp are sometimes placed in Selco or a similar additive for a few hours prior to adding 5 - 10 live adult Artemia to the cups. Any that are not eaten after severa hours are removed and the water changed. SInce the stomatopods stay in the tube, this is quite easy.

While I was in Australia this year where artificial sea salts were much more expensive, I started using a different technique to hold small stomatopod. We bought small plastic food containers, usually in the 200 - 300 ml range and drilled dozens of holes in the top, sides and bottom. A Dremel Tool worked well for this. The hole size was selected to be smaller than the diameter of the stomatopod. We then put into the container three or four large, non-pourous pieces of gravel or coral rubble so the container would sink and remain on the bottom of the tank. A tube was added for the animal to live in. At feeding time, I removed the container, added the brine or tiny piece of frozen shrimp, and placed it back into the aquarium. Several hours later any uneaten food was removed. This worked very well and saved water. In fact, I started buying fishing lure boxes with 12 or 18 compartments and setting up condos so we could rear dozens of animals.

A few cautionary warnings. Do not buy refrigerator containers that have been treated with antibacterial agents. They kill stomatopods. Also, do not over feed. As a rule of thumb give a stomatopod a piece of food no larger in diameter than its thorax. For a 15 mm gonodaclyid, as large adult brineshrimp or two is fine, but a small cube of frozen shrimp should be no larger than a B-B. I usually fed my animals every other day, but I had hundreds and it took a few hours. Once a day if the animal is eating is fine.

Under these conditions the animal should molt ever 2-4 weeks and grow about 7% a molt. Once it gets to 20 mm or so (at most 2 or 3 months, it can probably go into a small aquarium, but use a thin sand bottom and only a small (golf ball to orange) piece of LR. ALso put sponge over the water in take. You can put it in a more complex tank, but you man not see it for weeks.

Roy

 

[thesus13]

Thanks for the quick big reply! That's really helpful stuff.

I was thinking of putting it in one of those little fish breeder containers that sits on the inside of the tank and hangs off of the ledge.

I'd say that the little dude is currently about 10mm.

I'm at work, but I'll update the status later.

 

[DensityMan]

Tim spent the first couple weeks I had him in a breeder-box hanging from the top of my reef also. It can get slimy fast and I'd recommend an airstone or manual circulation (pouring) as often as you can. HTH

 

[thesus13]

Thanks DensityMan... I'll definitely do that. I was just leaving for the pet store when I read your post.

Since the Mantis wont be in the tank for a while, it might be cool to have a fish in the main tank. Once the mantis is at least 20mm I'd put him into the main tank too. Is there any fish that the mantis is likely to leave alone? More importantly, would this fish try to eat the still young mantis?

Thanks!

 

[thesus13]

STATUS:

THE MANTIS HAS ESCAPED!

LOL!

Last night I couldn't find him in the little floaty breeder tank I put him in only hours earlier. I figured that he was hiding under some gravel, and the lights were off, so no big deal. But this morning I couldn't find him either! Okay, so I've been told they hide reaaaaallly well. But still, after having a coral reef set-up for 5 years I got pretty good and noticing details - and in particular, finding things that did not want to be found.

I called in my appartmentmate, who said that he thought the thing had figured out a way to escape.

After less than a minute of scanning my tank I found the little bugger chilling in my live rock!

Wow.

Now what do I do?

 

[DensityMan]

LOL
Forgot to mention the lid, didn't I? Hehehe

Is this the tank he was going into anyway?

If not it should be a simple enough deal to nab the rock he's hiding in since you've already found it... no?

 

[thesus13]

It even had a lid, I made sure of that. When I checked on it this morning I saw there were two very small areas in the top corners of the breeding tank that he could have used to escape into the main tank. I think that the combined effects of the boyancy of salt-water and the filter circulating the surface water (It's only a whisper junior though!) might have loosened it.

At any rate, he is in the main tank that was set-up just for him. I'm not sure how feasible it is to try and get him out of the rock. It's one piece, 4lbs of branch, which is a really big area for the little guy to hide in. If I was told that I definitely needed to get him off of the rock I could undergo that project, but it could definitely be a lot of work.

My main concern at this point is feeding, and as Dr. Roy said, it sounds like I should get a cover for my filter.

Is there anything live I could throw in there for him? Should I try to find his main lair and use the renouned chop-stick/all-mighty feeding straw techniques?

 

[DensityMan]

Small members of any of these species groups could work:
Stomatella snails
(tiny) Trochus sp.
Nassarius sp.
(tiny) Cerith snails

Live food has the added benefit of keeping the tank cleaner before they are eaten.

 

[thesus13]

While I really like the concept behind feeding Bo (short for bojangles, a tentative name for the mantis) live food, and I totally get a kick out of your stories, the theory behind this tank (this is of course secondary to the awesomeness of keeping a mantis) is that I wouldn't have to invest a whole lot of cash into it. I realize now, after I had expressed the interest in feeding him live stuff, just how expensive that would get. I could easily see myself spending $1 every 2-3 days for food (price of a snail), which over the course of a year would add up to over $100, the cost of the tank itself! Now once I'm out of college and have a full time job, that's a different story

Until then, I'll definitely throw a snail or two in every once in a while. Since Bojangles is already exhibiting behaviors similar to Tim (flaring out when I get near the tank, laughing triumphantly about how he escaped, and taunting me about how he'd seen brine shrimp set-up breeder tanks more effectively), I imagine I'll have a few stories of my own to post as well : ) Please correct me if this will not adequately nurish Bo, but I plan on putting small pieces of krill near the entrance(s) to his new habitat every 2-3 days.

Currently Bo is re-arranging little crushed coral pieces underneath his gi-normous real estate (4lbs of live rock for a little 1cm guy is quite big I think). Ocasionally Bo tests out the new knocker on his front door... which I must say, for a mantis his size he makes an incredible amount of noise. Don't get me wrong, it's not thaaat loud... it's just that in proportion to his size, it's unbelieveable.

Some fish down at the local store are considering the real estate just oustide of Bo's rock. They mentioned something about checking with a real estate agent before making the purchase. Do you think it would be okay for a 3/4" damsel or two to move into the neighborhood? How about a tang? Would the fish eat little Bo, and would Bo leave the fishies be?

Dr. Roy, I recognize that this set-up is definitely different than what you specified above. Please don't hesitate to step in and let me know if this current setup spells disaster for Bo (Similarly, Bo just set up his computer and internet connection, so maybe you can try convince him of the best course of action as well).

DensityMan: My GF totally opened up to the idea of my owning a "killing machine with .22 calibur bullet potential" after I showed her your thread *caugh* I mean... Tim's thread : )

 

[DensityMan]

Tim was kept on a diet of shrimp-pellets for a while. One every couple of days. He still takes them grudgingly in place of new snails when I get lazy.

Regarding the neighbors... Tim's asked me (early on, later he started making demands) to remove his roommates; most times by going into hiding and pouting. Still don't have enough evidence to convict the six-line wrasse for his missing eye, but between him and the blue-leg... I don't know, seems a little fishy. He did get along just fine with the hi-fin blenny (Atlantic, tiny variety) for some time, but even then after the hi-fin was removed Tim was more social...

I'll pass along the bit about your girlfriend to Tim... he's sulking extra heavy this week for some reason.