Help me prepare my mantis shrimp tank please!

[hotelbravo]

New pvc will this be good enough for him??? i plan on coating the inside of the opening with silicon and sticking sand to the silicon to provide texture for the mantis to have an easier time closing up the burrow.
Also another question. what else can be kept with a zebra mantis?? any inverts that are safe? any type of fish at all? i doubt there are any that are safe but there may be something that COULD be, im willing to try..

 

[EI Gringo]

Corals, burrowing animals like pistol shrimp? Not a lot I would consider safe bets that the zebra won't kill them

 

[Kharn]

You cannot keep fish with a Zebra Mantis long term...

I kept my 2 spearers in a DSB reef with various fish but on some strange evening they both went on a killing spree and all that was left in the mornings was mostly heads of anthias and tangs etc.

You can however keep snails with them and my personal favorite is the zombie snail / nassarius snails, their small around 1inch long but move rather fast and are great for cleaning up uneaten food.

They sift sand well too, you could also get a strombus snail which looks just like a zombie snail but is much larger (4inchs) and much slower but likes to eat dinoflanges the fine carpeting algae that grows on sand beds/glass, trochus snails are safe as well and good.

Pretty much all snails your safe with.

No fish.

No crabs.

No starfish.

No sea cucumbers.

No abalones.

Urchin you could do there are some nice tuxedo urchins around.

You could possibly try out a tube fan worm, I really like them and their colors are amazing!

Shrimp only small things less than or equal to 1inch and even then I think a hungry spearer would go for an opportunistic kill.

As much as I can think of for now.

 

[hotelbravo]

i just finished putting the sand/silicon coating all over the openings of the pvc burrow. im pleased!

 

[Kharn]

Looks good I make PVC burrows for smaller and larger species of mantis shrimp

This was my G.graphurus tank, all of my small smashers & large smashers had special unique custom made PVC burrows which they all loved!

 

[nmotz]

Looks good, I just added a second PVC pipe on the other side of my Peacock's tank. I'm trying to see if he likes the slightly larger diameter. I have 1.5" PVC for his main burrow but the new one is 2".

 

[hotelbravo]

Why kharn why must you make me redo my entire plan to replicate the awesomeness of your setup.

thanks mnotz do you have a picture of your setup?

 

[nmotz]

hotelbravo, pics attached. It's a very simple setup. Trying to get some stony corals going but I need some better lights. Christmas can't get here soon enough.
Otherwise everything seems to be going well. Reef Octopus skimmer, 1 gallon refugium full of macroalgae, two pumps on a wavemaker and that's about it. Second picture shows the new PVC pipe. They always look better once a little algae grows on them. So far he doesn't seem to be too interested in it.

 

[Kharn]

They always look better once a little algae grows on them.

I was very surprised at how natural my PVC burrows looked in the end after a few months in the tank and algae had grown on them, they almost looked totally natural!

I'll get back into making them one day when I get another 2 dozen+ mantis!