Cunning Plan - Will it Work?

M

MrsHaggis

New member
I have a HH, which I think is a Mantis Shrimp. I've seen it fleetingly and it looks a bit like one (I believe), my Xenia has been strimmed somewhat, my blenny is missing a top fin, my clown has also had chunks of fin removed.

I have emptied the tank to find this little bugger, I laid out traps, I've tried baiting with food - nothing....!!!

So today I plan to remove the rock where I believe the HH is hiding, and replace that rock with a rock that I have spare (in a tank so that it does not need to be cured - it has been in there for months). This way I will not unbalance my DT too much - I hope.

I will then run the other rock under tap water to see what comes out - hopefully the HH.
If nothing comes out I'm going to cook the rock anyway - just incase.

I'll then put the rock in my QT to cure and after 6 weeks switch over the two rocks.

Anybody see any major flaws???
Apart from what if the HH does not live in that rock.....I've thought about that and still thinking of Plan B for that scenario.

Thanks
Fiona
 
if it's a mantis shrimp, i'd be careful of sticking your hands near where you think it might be. They didn't get the nickname "Thumbsplitter" without a reason!
 
Well, the rock is out and washed under tap water and nothing came out of it!!!!

So either it was so far in there that it got stucked in a panic OR it wasn't on that rock.

I can't go through this for every rock we have, we would kill everything else with the stress.

My plan now is to put a shrimp tab (green food stuff) in the tank tonight and see if it disappears (I'll tie it so a shell so that I know it didn't just blow away with the waves). If it does then it's back to traps I guess!!!
 
HH= Hitchhiker

I have used the soda bottle bait trick and caught my uninvited crab that way. It was easy and no mess was made in the process.
 
Soda bottle bait trick? never heard of it.

Sounds like you have a problem... But from what I've heard. and seen mantis shrimp don't just take small bits out. They take the WHOLE THING.. hah
 
I have emptied the tank totally, took out all the rocks and shook them and poked sticks in them and everything and that didn't catch whatever it is. I tried the soda bottle trap and nothing......I tried buying crab traps and snail traps and shrimp traps and those didn't work!!!

I'm still not sure that it is/or was (hopefully) a mantis. I saw nothing when I washed the rock but I hoping that we took out the correct rock.
My bait tonight will hopefully tell me if we have or not. If not then I'm back to traps and lots of them.
 
Any chance it's just an anemone crab? They're filter feeders, and harmless.

Personally, I wouldn't freak out at this point. You don't know for certain what the HH is, you don't know for certain if it's doing any harm, and your increasingly invasive attempts at removal could be doing more harm than good.

Look at this way. If it is in fact eating things it shouldn't, then the evidence will mount and its body will grow bigger. That in turn will make it easier to catch. I'd just keep an eye out for now.
 
I agree with Whys. It's not worth stressing the aquarium (and yourself) with this. It will play out to be what it is. If the HH is a bad one then it will grow and become easier to catch. I know this because I had a rock crab ride on and took fins off most of my fish. He grew to big to hide in his lair and was actually easy(well, as much as can be) to catch and take to the LFS.
 
You are right; I don't know what the HH is.

But I do know that it is doing harm - my Blue Xenia is about quarter the size it was when I got it, and when I moved the rock I saw all of the tops that had been cut off lying there; cleanly sliced off I should note and not pulled off.

My clown and blenny both have fins that have been "bitten" and had chunks taken out of them.

My inverts are mysterioulsy dying (two hermit crabs and one sexy shrimp) and now my snails have started to disappear from their shells. I have already lost two of them.

So I can safely say that there is something in my tank that is eating the other habitants of the tank, I just know know what it is. And I would like to get the ruddy thing out of there before I lose my blue xenia completely, or one of my fish disappears.

My bait last night disappeared so whatever it was/is might still be in there......or the bait just decomposed overnight I'm not exactly sure.

My plan is to leave the tank alone for a while but I can assure you that that is not helping with my stress levels since there might be something in there that is just waiting to strike - Mantis, Anemone Crab, Black Crab, ......
 
And I don't think it's a crab.

My husband saw it and said it looked like our blenny but with eyes on stalks.....he is not really reef compatible and that is the best description I could get out of him, even after shining a light in his eyes :-)
 
You're right, I didn't realize the full extent of the damage.

You could try over feeding with the bait to keep it from grazing on other things.

When you finally catch the bugger, you could encase him in resin for a souvenir. ;)
 
do the bottle thing - a beer bottle with a nice juicy dead fish - not a mushy one that it easily picked apart - about 45 minutes after the lights go out and every 30 minutes after that - keep checking with a red light (our tank life does not see red light apparently) - if it is in the bottle - be quick and agile to cover the bottle entrance before making much of a ruckess it does not dart out and be the smarter for it for the next time.
 
^^^ My crabs can see it. Probably not the color, but the light itself anyway. My amphipods don't seem to, and neither does my brittle star. But all my crabs react to my red flashlight.
 
I've had pretty good luck with something yucky in a small wine carafe, tilted against the rockwork. But something living IN the rock---my money's on a gorilla crab.
 
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