Fuzzy
New member
So here's the story.......
My wife and are both total newbies in reef keeping.
We've had our first tank up and running a little over 2 months now.
It's a 56 gallon tank with 4" DSB and about 80 pounds of Fiji, Tonga, and FL live rock. After going through a brown algae bloom followed quickly by a green hair bloom, we got a good size clean up crew. Mostly hermits and an assortment of snails and a detrivore kit. After the tank settled in and the nitrites went to zero, we got a small clown, 2 blue damsels, and a small yellow tang spread out over two weeks.
Last week I started to see a bunch of empty shells laying around the tank. And my wife thought she saw some movement way inside a hole in the rock. A few days later she saw what she described as a nasty looking black thing about 2" long with eyes sticking up over it's head. I set up a camera and tried to get a picture but it decided it was camera shy........
So on our next trip for RO/DI water at the LFS we asked if they had any idea what was killing our hermits. The guy at the store showed us a tank and said "look familiar"? Guess what, it was a Mantis Shrimp. He said get it out of your tanks asap or it will kill everything! Of course that freaked out my wife who absolutely loves her fish. Me being the calm one decided to check out this forum.
Good thing I did, I got some good ideas on how to catch the little fella. Unfortunately, he was smarter than the traps. I just happened to get lucky and see him go into a hole in the LR. Of course it was at the bottom of a stack, and I darn near knocked over half my tank getting the rock out. I rinsed off the rock in some fresh RO/DI water and out he came.
Not wanting to flush the little guy, I put him in a 15 gal tank we had been using to cure our LR before we added it to the big tank.
SO, here's the good part?
It looks like my little fella was a She. The 15 gal tank that was empty except for a couple of snails and urchins is now Full of what look like tiny little Mantis Shrimps. They are about 1/8" long, almost transparent, and look just like a tiny version of momma.
Now comes the questions... Is this for real? What am I to do with what looks like a tank full of babies? I sure don't want to fry 'em, but if they are as bad as the LFS guy says, I really don't want to keep them. And now my wife wants to drain the 15 gal and start it over..................
I'm open for suggestions!
My wife and are both total newbies in reef keeping.
We've had our first tank up and running a little over 2 months now.
It's a 56 gallon tank with 4" DSB and about 80 pounds of Fiji, Tonga, and FL live rock. After going through a brown algae bloom followed quickly by a green hair bloom, we got a good size clean up crew. Mostly hermits and an assortment of snails and a detrivore kit. After the tank settled in and the nitrites went to zero, we got a small clown, 2 blue damsels, and a small yellow tang spread out over two weeks.
Last week I started to see a bunch of empty shells laying around the tank. And my wife thought she saw some movement way inside a hole in the rock. A few days later she saw what she described as a nasty looking black thing about 2" long with eyes sticking up over it's head. I set up a camera and tried to get a picture but it decided it was camera shy........
So on our next trip for RO/DI water at the LFS we asked if they had any idea what was killing our hermits. The guy at the store showed us a tank and said "look familiar"? Guess what, it was a Mantis Shrimp. He said get it out of your tanks asap or it will kill everything! Of course that freaked out my wife who absolutely loves her fish. Me being the calm one decided to check out this forum.
Good thing I did, I got some good ideas on how to catch the little fella. Unfortunately, he was smarter than the traps. I just happened to get lucky and see him go into a hole in the LR. Of course it was at the bottom of a stack, and I darn near knocked over half my tank getting the rock out. I rinsed off the rock in some fresh RO/DI water and out he came.
Not wanting to flush the little guy, I put him in a 15 gal tank we had been using to cure our LR before we added it to the big tank.
SO, here's the good part?
It looks like my little fella was a She. The 15 gal tank that was empty except for a couple of snails and urchins is now Full of what look like tiny little Mantis Shrimps. They are about 1/8" long, almost transparent, and look just like a tiny version of momma.
Now comes the questions... Is this for real? What am I to do with what looks like a tank full of babies? I sure don't want to fry 'em, but if they are as bad as the LFS guy says, I really don't want to keep them. And now my wife wants to drain the 15 gal and start it over..................
I'm open for suggestions!
)
