Ridding tank of Mantis - an uneasy task.
Ridding tank of Mantis - an uneasy task.
An attempt to dislodge a mantis shrimp from his entrenched hiding place is an effort in frustration...
Everything live on a single piece of our newest live rock began disappearing. No waving brittle arms at night, mussel shells crushed. I finally found the culprit yesterday while staring at the new rock for some time. A finger size deep hole in the rock held the cutest pair of eyes. I had no idea what it was except that it's eyes moved independently and it looked very strange. Shrimp-like except the eyes looked like a crab. I waved a piece of silverfish in front of it and he zipped out of his hole and grabbed it and was back in it so quick all I could tell was that I had a green part shrimp part millipede in there! I called my hubby to come see my neat green millipede and he diagnosed the dreaded mantis shrimp and said he had to go. Our live rock was no longer alive with critters and our blue damsel had a large gash in his side that couldn't have come from the peaceful tang or lazy clown. So I agreed the mantis would have to go.
LOL! Agreeing on it and seeing it done are two entirely different things.
I was confident I could lure him out with the waving meat and I did. But he never lets his tail leave the hole and he's too quick to catch with the net. So we isolated his rock to it's own bucket. Tried more bait and catch, tried bamboo stick gently to probe him out the other end, tried blunt end table knife to persuade him out. He whacked it so hard it felt like an electric shock passing through the metal. Nothing worked. Shaking rock upside down got us nothing, finally hooked up large suction tube and wedged it in his hole, still no sign of him. Thoroughly frustrated by this point we poured cool faucet water into his hole, he ignored the water except for backing further into the hole. We then tried club soda which we'd read would convince him to abandon his post. Not this fellow, he reacted like it was a fine thing to bathe in club soda. Last, we used hot water and he perished quickly and while not as humanely as I'd have liked, at least he didn't have to dry out and suffer for three days. It was quick. However we still could not get him out of the rock. No amount of prying with knife, bamboo stick etc would dislodge him. We gave up on the live rock, found a hammer and busted it open whereupon he was finally dislodged, thoroughly examined and found to be perfect match with pictures of Gonodactylus chiragra and about 2.5 inches of fascinating body structure.
I hate to be discouraging but if I had it to do all over again, I think I'd just take the live rock back to the store and hand it over, give it to my worst enemy, or perhaps sell or donate it on the net as "lovely live-rock and mantis - mated pair free to good home".
Funny I havent' read of mantis loving stars, but the rock was entirely cleaned of any and all life and it had been a cornucopia of brittle stars. Either they wisely moved out in a hurry or he feasted well.
-Bev Alstrom
Btw, a friend who bought rock from the same tank on the same day had one in his rock also. But his mantis abandoned the hole easily after being poked at and is now in a smaller container. But before being removed from the tank, he devoured about 1/2 of a 6-inch Florida Starfish in just days! The things are ravenous. The starfish lost a leg the first night, it appeared to have been shredded. The second night two more legs went, his body had been primarily consumed and had what looked like rake marks over it and he had perished. The only other thing in the tank was a small percula clown who is too lazy to find a piece of food set down right beside him.
FWIW, mine gets a piece of freeze-dried krill 2-3times per week. Good luck!
