Hitchhiker gets a home

Thanks. i'm certainly at the young love stage. Got some mangroves for the tank today so will be having a play tomorrow night.

I've had the little guy a week now and it still seems very shy and inactive. I'm happy to give it as much time as it needs but i'm a little surprised it hasn't done any digging or rescaping yet.

Oh and the most likely id suggested is a Green Mantis Gonodactylellus viridis. Which means it will stay smaller and should hopefully be very happy in the tank.
 
I think it is molting at the moment as it dissapeared on saturday and i haven't seen any sign of it yet, although i heard clicking last night so am thinking its may be near the end of the process and hardening up. Just read the molting sticky and that answered a lot of questions which i had, so i'll try a few mysis tonight to see if i can intice it out again, if not i'll wait a few days and try again.

Got the mangroves for the tank and roughly arranged them to give them a chance to root before placing them in the final position. Also got some non photosynthetic mushrooms from a friend and decided this is going to be a np tank. All this happend before the mantis diasspeared into it's den and i haven't touched the tank since, so i don't disturb anything.

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Very happy this morning. It appears the moult is over, so it's take two whole weeks. I'm guessing that this means it is getting on a bit and as it's nearly fully grown, may not have as long with it that i'd hoped.
Does anyone know a rough age for this species G. Viridis? would 4-5 years be a safe guess as this is what i have seen before.

Just glad the first moult is over.
 
As far as i know it's only the bigger species that you would have to worry about with glass. Even then i'm not sure its very common.
This species only gets to just over 2" so i don't see a problem with a glass tank.
 
Neat... I've contemplated doing something similar.

Got a pic of the entire setup?

If you have a sump, did you notice the water level rising a bit higher when you turn off your pumps?

What pump are you using to feed the upper tank?
 
This is the only pic i have of the entire setup. It's taken at night so you can't see much detail.

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The main display is a soon to be seahorse tank and it uses an old tunze skimmer pump i had lying around, its a 1000lph if i remember correctly. On its way to the mantis tank it passes through a phophate reactor just to keep thing neat and tidy.
The skimmer is in with the mantis but that the only equipment in there. The return is a surface durso so when the pump is turned off, there is a tiny amount of water returned to the display but hardly any.

So it's a really simple setup but works well.
 
I'm now wondering if it was a molt at all? The last time it saw it was a week ago and that was briefly. Apart from that there has been no sign what so ever.
Gonodactylellus viridis is supposed to be a diurnal and active species but the only time i here it is when the room is in total darkness around midnight. I've also seen no sign of digging or any other signs that it is actually in there, apart from the clicking and the missing hermit. So i'm a little confused.

Are they any ways to encourage it out? Could it have just found a comfy hime and not ventured? at this time any suggestion would be good as i#d like to see it eventually.
 
Yeah there is plenty of food in there for it and i do add some everyother day in the same way the person who looked after it did. It was out and about for them but so far nothing for me.
 
Still no sign of the little guy, the tank seems to be doing really well with the mangroves really shooting roots now.
The plan was to add a cerianthus today but the shipment from Bali didn't come in.
 
Well i have found out why its not out and about. I have only seen a glimpse in the last month and thought this could be down to the sand being to coarse for it to be able to dig in. The base mix was 3mm and 5mm coral sand with different sized grains being better for supporting a burrow. Since the mantis turned out to be much smaller than i was expecting, i thought this was too much for it. I just replaced the sand under its rock with 1mm to see if that make a diffirence.
To do this i had to take the rocks out. i put them in a bucket of tank water and went looking for the mantis. it was nowhere to be seen. I gently stirred the sand in case it was dug under a couple of base rocks but no luck there either. So the only place for it was in the large rock i'd taken out. Sure enough there it was in a very small tunnel. i could just about see its little bum poking out at me.

So now i know it loves being deep in the rock, is there any chance of coaxing it out? or is it likely to stay tucked up for the rest of it's life?
This species G viridis is supposed to be active during the daytime but mine certainly isn't.

The only real other option it to take it out of the rock and block up the hole. I would love to see more of it but don't want to cause it any harm, so i'm unsure what to do.
Any advice would be greatfully recieved.
 
Probably still adjusting to his new surroundings.

Have you tried feeding with a feeding prong?

Or adding some more tunnels, made with rock or PVC?

Not the same, but I have peppermint shrimps that were impossible to find for six months, and now they routinely hang out in plain sight.
 
Hi thanks for that.
I've tried feeding with a prong but it's not interested. It does take food as it's not there in the morning.

I was going to go down the pvc pipe route when i first setup but saw more negatives than positives about this, with them hiding more often and not seeing them being the biggest worry.

I know its early days and only a couple of months now, but i haven't seen any real signs of life like you would expect. When my friend was looking after it it was really active and had dug loads of tunnels, so its a little frustrating after tailoring the tank to it's needs, that it hasn't been out at all.
 
It takes a few months. If you try blocking the hole, it can always drill another one. My chiragra took up a burrow in the back so I just turned the rock around and I saw him everyday. Just turn the entrance around to face the front or try a PVC burrow out. Just remember it takes time. Once it associates you with food, you'll see lots more of it.
 
Thanks, i know i'm rushing it but when you have something this cool, you'd like to see as much of it as possible.
 
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