Is my mantis molting or dying?

[moosen34]

I just checked up on my peacock and he's acting really akward and it's scaring the crap out of me. He's in his borrow lying on his side right now and it looks like he's having sort of convulsions. He'll get up on his legs once in a while but hops back on his side.

His burrow is not sealed up and I can see what he is doing. He didn't eat yesterday and didn't really eat much more than a few bites out of a feeder the day before so it was weird to me that he didn't eat yesterday.

I don't know what to do. Whether to leave him alone or what? It doesn't look like his skin is coming off to me and he hasn't looked really different to me lately except that he looked like he had a little more red on the back of his shell lately than I thought he had but I thought it was just something I didn't notice before.

I read throught the molting post and it says that the actual molt should only take a couple of minutes. I watched him for maybe five minutes and it didn't look like any shell is coming off. What should I do

 

[moosen34]

He's only been in my tank for about two weeks now BTW

 

[Altpers0na-old]

is it still doing it?

 

[moosen34]

Yeah man. He's just acting kind of slow but he's more up on his feet now. I hope he's molting.
Now that I think about it, he's been hitting and trying to push some of the live rock in the tank, I think to possibly close up his burrow, but I guess he couldn't get anything to budge enough. His shell looks really dark on the carapace from what I can see, but I'm trying to bother him as little as possible. I put the PVC tube back in the tank so he can go in it if he wants but he didn't go for it. I'm gonna leave him alone for a while and hopefully he pulls through...

He seems to be on his feet more right now which I don't know whether its a good thing or a bad thing because if that means he's pulling through, there was a problem in the first place. If he is actually molting, why would he stop what he was doing?

I'll post up when I check up on him later on tonight

 

[Janina]

Based on my recent experience with peacocks, when they get to the point of laying on their sides and having convulsions, they aren't going to make it. Sorry!!!

 

[moosen34]

It is confirmed, my mantis is alive and well and just went through his first successful molt in my tank!!!

Man I was freaked out there for a minute. I came back in to check on him and he looked like he was being much more responsive than he was earlier and he was looking at me from his burrow like he usually does, but being kinda slow.
He ducked back in and I could see him shifting the sand around inside of his burrow which made me a bit optomistic because he was actually doing something.
I lost sight of him for a second so I looked in at him from the other side of the tank. I was heartbroken for a moment to see my mantis lying on his side again... this time completely motionless. I thought.. that's it. He's dead and backed away from that side of the tank... and to my surprise, he was poking his head out of the front of the tank!
I went back and looked at the other side and I saw what I thought was him laying on his side again, but it wasn't actually him, it was his molt skin!
I'm so relieved that he's doing well and didn't pass... and that he actually molted!!! What a relief

Now Janina, let's never be pessamistic like that again

 

[Janina]

I'm so glad that he made it Sorry to ahve been pessimistic but I lost mantis like that in the past and it was very depressing and I searched all over this forum and couldn't find an answer to laying on side and twitching like that. I guess it's best to be prepared for the worst though and have it turn out well than the other way around

 

[moosen34]

You're definitely right about that. I'm much happier and much more relieved that I thought he might be dying and he turned out to be molting, rather than having it be the other way around ya know