Does this sound like it could be a Mantis?

[jfgoldfire]

My 10g ADA tank is 1 yr. old with softies, LPS and a few SPS in it.
I believe I may have a small mantis shrimp that came as a hitchhiker in the LR. I've been hearing the "clicking" sound for 8 months or so, especially when the lights go off at night. I've only seen it a few times as it seems to be living under, and inside, one of the larger rocks, in a system of "tunnels" that are about 1/4" in diameter. He's about 3/4" to 1" long, medium to dark green. He has two shrimp-like pinchers, but they're now claws like a crab.
He's very shy and allusive. He never comes out of the rock, not even at night. I've only seen him about 6 times and then only by shining a light inside one of the tunnels while he's looking out. I can't get any pics of him, because he always moves away from the light, but what I have seen kind of looks like the Gonodactylus smithii on stomatopod.com.

My questions are:

1. Is he what's probably causing the rock he's living in to fall apart (disintegrate), from his tunneling efforts, or would it more likely be the bristle worms? (None of the other rocks are falling apart)

2. The glass on a 10g ADA is 3/16" thick, is he capable of breaking the glass while he's this small?

3. Do I need to get him out now before he gets bigger?


Thanks for your input,

 

[lionbacker54]

i don't think the g. smithii is capable of breaking glass. but are you sure it's a mantis? it's the "claws like a crab" that makes we think it could be another kind of animal.

 

[jfgoldfire]

That was a typo... I need a new keyboard or new fingers. It should have been, "NOT" claws like a crab instead of "NOW".

The pinchers are very small from what I can see when it's facing me looking out the hole in the rock.

 

[351winsor]

Sounds more like a pistol shrimp. Just a few weeks ago we tore a tank down to find about 7 of these 1/4" to 1/2" pistol shrimp in the rock. Tiny little clicks too! They are dark in color and had a few lite stripes on their behinds. With the typical one big claw one little claw.

 

[VacavilleFC3S]

i think pistol shrimp also, both my mantis sleep at night with there burrows closed

 

[Koshmar]

The closest sound that you can reproduce of a mantis shrimp hitting rock/a shell would be to take a small rock and drop it onto concrete. I've never heard a pistol shrimp so I don't know if they sound like that. When they hit glass, it sounds different though, louder and more low in pitch if that makes any sense.

 

[aromantis]

x2 on pistol shrimp. Stomatopods don't have pinchers, just dactyls, which don't look at all alike.