Does anything that's reef friendly eat mantises?

[synack]

I did a dip to pull a mantis out of a rock and to my surprise, I got tons of baby mantis shrimps out as well.

Is there anything that I can get that will eat the baby mantis shrimps just so I don't get over run sometime in the future?

 

[Uriel]

Hey there...

This sort of thread has appeared in the mantis Forums hundreds of times ( literally).

The 'baby mantis shrimp' that you are seeing are some form of beneficial pod (amphipod,copepod) 99% of the time.

Amphipods

http://www.mov.vic.gov.au/crust/amphigal.html


Copepods

http://www.copepod.com/

Both of these sorts of animals are great for your tank...


As far as fish that will/can/do eat mantis shrimp, you are dealing with a dangerous animal. Triggerfish,some eels,pufferfish,octopus, some wrasses... Any of these could end up being killed by the mantis instead of killing it.


If you do manage to capture your mantis shrimp, hopefully you will either set it up in a small tan of it's own, or give it away/sell it, as many folks love them and would happily give it a home.


Good luck,

-Ron

 

[synack]

I just did a little digging and what I saw both look like small mantises and amphipod's. I'm assuming that they are probably the pods. This definitely puts my mind at ease. Thanks for the info!

 

[pisces77]

if they bother you a sixline wrasse is pretty safe and will eat pods and worms. mandarins are also good pod eaters.

 

[Gonodactylus]

You may well have found hundreds of larval stomatopods. When a female broods her eggs in a cavity, the eggs hatch after three weeks. The larvae then remain with the female in the cavity for another week. At that time they molt again, become photopositive and swim up into the water column. When you dumped out the rock, the larvae may have been washed out of the cavity. They do not survive in an aquarium (little or no food, filtration) and will die in a couple of days. They must remain in the plankton for a month, so there is no change that you will be over run with juvenile stomatopods. It just does not happen.

Roy