dr. caldwell

[Agilecrux]

i just lost my 4" O. Scyllarus last night, im not a happy camper, i really dont know what happen to him. he was perfectly fine the other night. i was showing him off to a couple of people, he even took a piece of silverside. it started when my sister came home from school about 330pm and noticed that he was on is back for some reason. so she just used the feeding stick to flip him over and decided to feed him. she said that the mantis took the food and started to eat it. later when i got home i went to go check on him i noticed that he wasnt in his den. so i looked for him finding him in the back corner of the tank almost purely white and his eyes glazed over but still moving his pleopods. i tested the water chem. for everthing, nothing wrong. i proceeded to do a water change just in case. after the water change i did notice that he got some of his color back but still acting the same. from that point i just had to sit back and hope that he would pull through it. well he didnt. i found him this morning not moving any more.

i know that O. Scyllarus get a disease that will kill them. i was wondering if he died from this disease. if he didnt what do you think caused the problem so i can prevent it when i get another one.

 

[ISFRAEL]

sorry to hear about your loss agilecrux!

did your sister feed him from the same batch of silverside that you did? could it have been tainted by something she did before she fed him?

 

[Agilecrux]

actually she feed him frozen krill. both the sliversides and the krill i use on my main reef and had no problems.

so its very likely that the food is not the cause.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Sounds like the animal died trying to molt. The color change and cloudy eyes are indications of this. At least 90% of the deaths that one sees in mantis shrimp in captivity happen when the animals are trying to molt. Anything that weakens them, bad water, disease, wounds,stress from shipping, etc. can cause them to fail at molting. Once the molt starts to go bad, there is nothing you can do.

Roy

 

[Agilecrux]

then molting occurs more frequent than i thought. this mantis just molted about 4-5 weeks ago and this is a 4" specimen. i didnt think it was going to molt at least for another 4-5 months. hmmmmm.

 

[Gonodactylus]

For an animal this size, a molt every two months would be about average, but if given lots of food in a warm tank, this isn't an unreasonable interval.

Roy

 

[Death Shrimp99]

I looked at past posts on mantis shrimp dieing and most of them where from molting. I dont want my mantis to die from molting, i'm pertty shure i have good water conditions and my mantis doesent have any stress now. Does iodine help? can i put in anything to lessen the change of this happening?

 

[Gonodactylus]

Stomatopods have to molt to grow and even to maintain their cuticle. By not feeding them too much, you can slow down the molt cycle, but molting will still occur and animals in poor nutritional health are even more vulnerable when molting. The best thing you can do is maintain a good diet, good water quality, and keep stress to a minimum by allowing the animal to hide in a hidden cavity or burrow.

 

[ISFRAEL]

i put a heap more live rock in my tank recently (2 months ago) and i have noticed that the mantis now leaves his burrow and actually roams around the rocks all day instead on sitting in his burrow.

its heaps fun because i just tap on the glass lightly and he comes running into his tunnels back entrance and pokes his head out the front entrance and waits for me to feed him.

i just put in a nice peice of rock and wait for him them to build a nice home and then when they are settled in i start to place rock around them and bulid up a nice rock system. i have found that they very rarely will abandon a good burrow once built but they will come out alot more and wander around. i like it!

my 1st mantis died on his first molt but i havent had a problem since i starting varying my mantis diet (reccomended by dr. r. caldwell) and started a partial (25%) every weekend.