HELP!!.....Mantis sufficating???....

[bkwudzjeep]

I need some quick ideas...
I have found the mantis that was making the clicking and just flushed him out with freshwater (my last resort).....

He came out and is now in a kritter keeper inside the original tank, laying on his side.......moving his swimmerettes with no forward motion.

What can I do??? I want him to live......

 

[technoshaman]

Hard to say - I have found with a few of the mantis shrimp I have kept particularily my peacock that a draastic change in water quality sometimes triggers them to molt. I'd just make sure it's dark, give it enough good water and wait it out. On mine you could see the seams start to develop on his shell and I thought he was a goner - overnight he had worked his way out of the old shell and still seemed kind of weak for a while.

Also I have noticed that leading up to , and for a short period after a molt mantis seem to refuse all food. Also if it does molt leave it in the tank - they will eat part of it to replenish some of the materials consumed during the molt.

 

[Gonodactylus]

If this is a gonodactylid, there is a good chance it will recover unless the raptorial appendages are extended. If that happens, the damage is usually fatal. However, if the rapts are closed and the animal swims and rights itself when prodded, it could be o.k.

The animal may indeed be suffocating. The gill filiments on the pleopods are very thin and easily burst when exposed to fresh water. This will also rupture the cell membranes of chemosensory cells on the antennules and antennae, so if the animal does recover, it probably will be disoriented and unable to smell or taste anything for a while.

In short, exposing a stomatopod to fresh water can be pretty brutal. While these are tough animals, they are not designed to withstand any period of time at zero salinity.

Roy

 

[Dan87]

Roy, Say my tank is low and I carelessly dump about 5g of freshwater in there to make it full again. Could these cause the gill filaments to pop?? Mine was doing the same thing. Sitting there kinda waving his pleopods one section after another. Because I still don't know why mine died, and I would like to know

 

[Gonodactylus]

Not likely. It usually takes a minute or two at 0% salinity.

Roy

 

[Dan87]

Ok then. Thanks.

 

[bkwudzjeep]

update....

update....

He seems to be doing much better. In the morning yesterday, he still layed on his side, but that afternoon, I couldn't find, and later spotted him in a piece of live rock I put in his temporary home.

He's about 1.5 inches and really cool looking. He has not taken any food yet though.

 

[KingT420]

Dan if you had 5gal of water evaporate from your 20 gal, and then added 5 gallons of water to it, you would have a massive salinity fluctuation that would probably kill most anything.

I am not sure how high the salinity would go when 5 gallons of water evaporate from 20 gallons of salt water, but I am sure that it would be way out of range (1.060 or more, my estimate) for any reef creature.

It is recommended that you acclimate a new pet to your salinity by adjusting it .001 per hour, like from 1.021 to 1.022. On my reef, when I raised my salinity, I took two weeks bringing it up to 1.023 from 1.021.

I cant imagine any animal, making it through that kind of abuse. With small tanks, it is really important to top off every day. I CANT STRESS THIS POINT ENOUGH.

There are so many people with small salt tanks, that just donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t do this little thing, and our pets suffer the consequences. It is really very sad.