baby mantis or what?

[macchicks]

My tank has just finished cycling. I watch the micro life daily to see whats new. I have been noticing pods on one rock attaching each time the come near each other. Its the same ones they hold thier ground. However today I noticed when they fight they rear back and what looks like spears on a praying mantis come out.
They battle just a second or two and one walks away from the spot. Regular pods dont do this do they? They are on the back of the rock that is why I did not notice the spears before. I moved to the side to get a better view today.

They are less than 1/4 inch I dont have clicking but that small how much noise could they produce.

Could they have hitchhiked on rock from july 5.

They seem to attach smaller pods that dont do this.

What do I do?
How quickly will they grow to a size that I can tell them apart from pods?
Does this have to mean there is a bigger one in there?

I dont want them.... I want fish.... I want to get my snails and crab this weekend.. Can I or are they in danger?

 

[macchicks]

Here is the best shot I could get with my kodak

 

[Recty]

Unless you were getting EXTREMELY small snails/crabs, they wont be in danger from baby mantis shrimp.

This isnt to say that if one of the shrimp live to adulthood they wont start taking out your inverts, but at the present, a "pod sized" mantis wont be able to harm a 10x bigger snail/crab.

Highly doubtful its a baby mantis population anyway but if it is, they will quickly decimate their own population until there is just one left which you'll be able to catch pretty easily in a 10g tank.

 

[macchicks]

Thank you. That is the best picture I could get there are two of them. Arms a blazing. The arms dont really show in the picture good. But it is a nice boxing match to watch them. I have not seen one kill another yet. As one always runs off after a bit

So be patient see what happens.

 

[gholland]

Looks like a gammaridean amphipod, not a mantis. Nothing to worry about. Your fish will love eating them.

 

[BuddhaKiss]

agreed. I think it may be an amphipod, hard to tell by the pic. Reminds me when I first got into SW. I saw a few in my sump and didnt know what it was. All I knew was that mantis shrimps were bad so I was very paranoid bout it, and they resembled what I thought a baby mantis would look like. I was glad when they turned out to be amphipods. Who woulda thought that I'm actually looking to get a Mantis now. LOL

 

[macchicks]

Thank you all. I will trust your opinions. I however will also still keep watching as its kinda cool watching them unfurl the long arms to fight when they come across each other.