How many in a tank?

[Bortass]

How many N. Wen can I keep in a 20 L(30 inches)?

I have one in it now that came on some TBS live rock. It turns out I got at least 2 more in the second shipment. Both are in the 120 display right now but I know where they are living unless they decide to move.

One of them is a real bright green color. I was able to feed it a small piece of shrimp yesterday. The second one didn't come out of his hole when i put the shrimp near it. I'm sure it's still in the rock though since the hole was closed off by some rubble when i looked at it around 3 AM.

The first one seems to be doing ok. I've fed it a few times and it met the stone crab that was added at the same time. The stone crab is missing a claw and seems to be watching the area the mantis lives in. I'm not sure why the stone crab is hanging out in the open now since it used to live under a rock at the other side of the tank. Unless some of the newer yet smaller gorilla crabs i added evicted it from it's old hame....

 

[G.SMITHII]

1!

 

[Bortass]

So it sounds like I'll either have a couple mantis in my display or i'll have to trap them and see if a LFS will take them. Luckily I don't mind feeding them myself. I don't think the two of them would decimate my cleaning crew in short order.

Makes me wonder at my decision to setup a new tank for the first one.

I'll leave the original mantis in the 20. I used that tank as the dumping ground for gorilla and rock crabs. There are a few more loose in my display still too.

 

[G.SMITHII]

ya know, if they are a smaller sp. of mantis, and you kept them in your 120, you could still have a decent reef set up.

the gorilla crabs are more to worry about than a mantis. hell they'll prob kill a mantis first chance they get.


id keep the mantis', coral and a few small fishes in a 120, and get rid of thse nasty crabs.

 

[Bortass]

That's what I'm thinking.

The mantis came on LR from TBS so I'm pretty sure they are all N Wen.

The only thing is if they go after a mandarin or not. I'd like to get one some day. My impresion is that smashers don't go after fish the way a spearer does. Also N. Wen stay pretty small.

I'm hopefull that feeding them every few days would keep them from hunting as much. I don't mind a snail or hermit here or there. It'll suck more if they decide that the peppermint shrimp or emerald crab would be a good snack which could very well happen.

 

[G.SMITHII]

they could be fine w/ a mandy, just dont get a stupid one. mantis' are oppertunistic.

also, with my smithii, i can keep like 5 bigger hermits, like an inch, that he really cant mess with. he'll try and smash em, but will loose intrest and go for somethin else.

i get like 10 -20 of those tiny lil hermits for him specifically, as well as lil snails and mynthrax when i can find them. this way he got easy food always available. it just makes it more convienent for him to hunt the stuff i want him to.

i mean, no fish is truly safe, im sure if BAne ever had a chance he'd kill both my damsel and firefish. its just that i make it so its not worth his while to.

with a couple in a 120, id suggest A LOT OF ROCK. id get atleast 60+lbs of likerubble, nothing bigger than like 5lbs, in addition to the norm for a tank that big. i mean ifthey each have a home, establishd territories and such, they might do well. id just make sure that you had a hoard of mini hermits at their disposal.

 

[Thurge]

Peppermint shrimp aren't totally stupid. I put osme in a 15 to rid it of Aptasia and feed the mantis. They quickly figured out the mantis couldn't get behind the skimmer so that is where they took up residence. The more often you feed the mantis the more likely they are to be fat and happy leaving other things alone.

The reason its strongly advised to keep one mantis per tank is that there is competition for space. In nature a stomadopod has two choices, it can defend its burrow or it can flee it when confronted by another mantis interested in moving in; there is plenty of space to find a new home. In a small tank, space is very limited so fleeing a burrow may not be an option because there may not be another sutable home. This becomes a problem when a mantis is in the middle of molting because it can not defend itself. A common stratigy for a mantis is to Bluff the other mantis trying to move in, by flairing out its raptoral appendages and generally looking like a BAMF. Should that not work its back to fleeing, but without sutable space this will end up in a knife fight with only one participant armed, leading to the death of the molting mantis.
The whole reason for that information is because in a 120 I think you will find that you would have sutable housing for a couple N.wennera to coexist peacefully. There is a LFS I frequent that has a couple of G.smithii in there coral tank that have been there for quite some time, because they each have plenty of room and options allowing them to avoid deadly conflicts.

 

[G.SMITHII]

man, that'd be sweet. id strait look specifically for live rock with serious holes and such, just provide them with more homes that they could ever need.

maybe you could have like 3 of 4 "rock piles" in the tank with space in between. maybe each mantis would stake claim to a diff lil hill in your tank.

that could be a real cool set up. and strait up, a couple lil fishes, corals, shrimps and a serious CUC, would not be out of the picture.

lets see what the good dr says. maybe he can give you some specifics as to how lage the territory the wenns would each need, then you could build your rock work accordingly.

 

[Thurge]

Nature and tanks are two completly different realities. Dr. Roy could point to finding 10's of mantis in one cubic meter of rock in the wild.

 

[G.SMITHII]

very true. i just figured Dr. Roy would have some pretty good ideas about how to do a set up like this. better than me at least.