Breeding the Peacock

[BlackwaterFL]

Roy, I was sent over here from Monsterfishkeepers by a memember. He said your the guy to talk to. So far I am extremely impressed with this forum. It is hard to get good info on our little buddies.
I house a 5" Peacock not sure of sex for about 8 months now. It has a neighbor also. A 2" beautiful emerald green little smasher with white stripe on each "arm". I haven't had the time to try and identify him. They both get along great in their little 30 gallon. A carpet anenome with 2 Pecular clowns whom seem to be safe as long as they stay in their home. The damesels put in to cycle have all been eaten. Anyway a long story short, it will be time to move them into a 50 Gallon soon and I would like to sex the one I have now (which I will try to do this week), purchase another one and see what I can do about getting some babies.
So I am happy to be here. I will be happy to share my limited knowledge I have, and hope to educate myslelf further as time goes on.

 

[justinl]

im surprised the little green guy is still alive in that 30g. fwiw general rule of thumb is one mantis per tank. they have a strong tendency to kill each other. so as for pairing two peacocks, that is almost guaranteed to not work. when O. scyllarus mate they basically do the deed and leave right after. In the lab, i believe Dr. roy waits until the female is ready to mate before introducing a male and removes the male shortly after mating. O. scyllarus larvae are among the hardest to raise and Im not sure if even Dr. Roy has done it. It most certainly isn't possible (yet) in home aquaria.

post some pics of your lil ones. we'll do our best to ID them.

 

[BlackwaterFL]

Justin I appreciate your response. General rule of thumb? Well, it's been about 8 months and they get along just fine. It has been my experience (15 years or so) that they rarely kill each other, however they will scrap (they just hold back).... Different species.......well I thought that might be a problem, but after 8 months I guess things are working out ok. as the other one grows we will see what happens. The green was given to me. The guy was going to kill it for wiping out most of his reef tank, called me and said take it or it dies. I had to take it. I didn't have another tank for him (I have 8 now and that is more than enough for me ) so I thought what the hell. I could feed my peacock and/or see what happens. As I said before they are fine.
Anyway, I have bred many many things in the past...Actually so far I have bred anything and everything I ever wanted to. My true interest in these guys only started a couple years ago. I plan on using a 75 gallon. I was actually thinking of trying a 33 long but I am not sure if that will be a big enough space for them.
I came to this forum to further my education beyond what I already know. I am here to learn and possibly to teach if I can make things happen. (it could be a total failure but I will never know if I don't try). You don't have to be a marine biologist to breed marine life. You need to have some knowledge of what your trying to breed, duplicate the favorable environment, and have some good luck.
If anyone else has any input please feel free I am open to any/all info
Thx

 

[BlackwaterFL]

BTW, if I came across a little course I didn't mean to.

 

[BlackwaterFL]

Wennerae is what I believe my little green guy is although he seems a little big to me to fit the profile. Maybe he is a bit smaller than what i said. I will have to try and get a better measurement lol, but the colors match up!!!

 

[justinl]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12795978#post12795978 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BlackwaterFL
BTW, if I came across a little course I didn't mean to.

no worries. I understand that there are exceptions to every rule of thumb. Im just saying that two peacocks are very very unlikely to live together long term.

What have you bred so far? do you have a dedicated setup for mantis larvae? Before you start this you should know that mantids have a long planktonic stage and O. scyllarus has one of the longer periods among Stomatopoda (on the order of months I believe). That's the hard bit. You have to keep them up in the water column (I would think a series of small modified kreisels would suffice) and figure out how to pump them chock full of food throughout the day while keeping up water quality. But here's the kicker. they're cannibals. You cannot keep them together in a single tank or else they'll kill each other. I do not know how fast they will hunt each other down.

Don't get me wrong, Im not trying to put you off of it. I just want to be sure that if you attempt this, that you go about it in the proper manner and armed with the right knowledge. I also don't want the broodstock to suffer for it either... it just seems senseless to let such a gorgeous creature as an O.s to die for such a stupid reason as "I didn't know, nobody told me thaaaat".

btw, at 5" an O.s shouldn't be toooo difficult to sex. males have two long gonopods (sticks that serve to do just what you think they might *wink*) that hang from between the last (third) pair of pereopods (walking legs). By this size they are usually darker (ex. emerald green ones are usually dudes) than females, but that isn't a surefire ID aspect. If you can get a good look under the mantis' belly between that last pair of legs, if you see gonopods, it's a male obviously. Females have a pair of gonopores which just look like two little holes.

 

[ck1]

"I haven't had the time to try and identify him."

If you have not had time to identify the type/sex of the 2nd mantis- how would you have time to raise a difficult/expert level marine species?

I am not saying that you should not attempt to- but if you now DO have the time after posting your last message- a good way to start would be read this forum extensively- breeding questions have been asked and talked about before. THEN ask any new questions you might have.

 

[BlackwaterFL]

CK ......LOL thx for your concern. I am not too much into talking about my personal life on the net, but just so ya know. I work a lot. A LOT!!!! So much it almsot kills me time for nothing....BUT!!! then I take a lot of time off to do what I want.. When the time comes to breed I will have time, such as I have made time in the past.
Justin, thx man, I actually didn't know they would cannibalize at such a young "age". I will have to research that a little more. As for their youngs eating habits I have a pretty decent idea how I will take care of it. I will post some info up and pics of whatever contaption I can come up with. It will take me a few months before I start. Like anything else I have done in the past I like to taqke a few months to research in depth. So now is the time. If anyone else has any "pointers" please let me know. iwll search more in this forum to see what I can find out.
I did try to sex the Peacock I have now and yes it seems difficult. I haven't been able to verify anything yet. I will look for the double the "pleasure" if you will ... Thx again for the input.

 

[BlackwaterFL]

Small update. I got my new tank for the peacocks. 8ftx24x24 acrylic. If everything goes ok I will pick the tank up this wend. and have it up and running by the end of the week. I think this should be adequate.

 

[BlackwaterFL]

Oh btw.... I searched the forum and I don't see really anything else on breeding... Am I missing something. I only have 5 pages to look through. Anyone have a link to an ealier thread.
Sorry to keep bumping this thread....

 

[BlackwaterFL]

Just a quick update. I did pick up the tank 4 days ago. It is 8X2X2 which sounds like 240 Gal. to me. I am assuming this should be large enough to help keep aggression down, and just let them set up their territories. I need probably another week or so to hand polish this thing (of course it has a few scuffs and stuff on it, but nothing deep). I got it for $200 so to me it is a steal. 2 over flows and a center spout also.

 

[Wildinside]

you lucky dog you! I hear about smokin deals like this all the time but have yet to run into one myself. Good get.

 

[BlackwaterFL]

Yeah, I am the same way man. I finally got lucky. I also found a aqua clear 300 w/ a 2 month old 1800 gph which is what I run on my 220.
The bad news............I think I might scrath this breeding attempt for awhile. I got a chance ot pick up a couple Armatus (a pretty rare sabertooth tetra) that I have been looking for for a couple years. This tank would be better suited for them at this financial point in my life lol. I will keep looking around and if I come across another good deal such as his one I will def. give it a shot.
For sure I will be back to this forum though. A lot of good first hand knowlede here.
GL to all you stomadopod (spelling?) owners!!!!!
THX for the help!!!!