Is this shell disease??? (P. Ciliata

[A.T.DAWG]

yes i used to breed rats and gut load them for my snake
used gut load crickets when i owned a lizard too.

 

[justinl]

That sounds like a wonderful life. can you imagine that poor unsuspecting cricket...

"Man this guy must really love us crickets! All the wonderful fooooood! mmm so good, and so much of it, it's like a 24/7 banquet! Oh what's this? he's tranfering me to a brand new home now. hm it's warmer here. and look, my new room mate... oh crap"

 

[mattyice]

haha heck with the cricket what about the rats knowing they are with a snake and the snake isnt killing them yet, then when they think its safe WHAM, haha actually now i know what my peacocks entire kill list felt like

 

[justinl]

lol what an existence. Oh well i suppose being high on the foodchain has some benefits. that's life.

hey debo, that P. ciliata jumped the barrier to that tasty damsel yet?

 

[deboM3]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9297071#post9297071 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by justinl
hey debo, that P. ciliata jumped the barrier to that tasty damsel yet?

lol, not yet...

hey what do you guys think i should do. The first day i had him i fed him a piece of krill ( maybe a little too big) and he took it. I thought he ate it, but then last night i saw him come out of his cave and he had it in his hands.

How do you guys get uneaten food that the mantis stores in its lair??? Or do you think he will eat it eventually???

(edit: You can actually see the piece of krill in one of those pictures i posted.)

 

[mattyice]

at least they wont bury it (i dont think at least) like peacocks do

 

[deboM3]

He molted tonight! I got 90-95 percent of the molt out of his PVC cave. His back is clean as could be! No more spots!

 

[justinl]

yay! Im really glad that it ended up being okay. Just to be on the safe side though I would advise you keep up the routine of less light and supplemented food.

 

[Pea-brain]

Thats great! That is one lucky little spearer. You're lucky too! what with having a mantis shrimp actually CAPABLE of killing things! (Knives only has 2 tiny, pale little sticks. They almost look dangerous, but the fish apparently disagree, as they always hang right outside his cave ) I'm curious, did yours stay yellow after the molt also?

 

[deboM3]

Thanks justinl, I will definitly keep up the supplemented food, and less light.

I am actually leaving for the weekend, so I was thinking about placing a small damsel in the tank with the mantis in case it gets hungry. I think I will leave the lights in the tank off, but leave the window blinds open so that the tank will have some low light during the day.

The mantis still is a little yellow, but I think it is more green now. Its pretty cool to see the molt. I have one of its spearers on my desk. It is really sharp. lol

Also, the portions of its shell that seemed infected with the shell rot seemed to be ALOT less rigid than the non infected parts. That is when i tried to bend the shell, it broke at the rotted part very easily...

Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[justinl]

cool, good plan to just leave the lights off with the shutters open.

can we get some pics of the molt/mantis?

 

[deboM3]

This is the only crappy picture of the molt... The mantis hasnt really came out of the burrow. Just kinda peeks his head out and looks around lol.

 

[Thurge]

That rocks!!
Smart move in keeping the lights down through another molt. I would definately up the lighting after the next molt to try to keep your mantis yellow.
Something I just thought of is maybe slowly replacing your white Argonite with Seachem's Golden Shores Argonite.

I know in keeping Frog Fish, that if you don't have similarly colored decorations that a colored froggy may not keep its coloration. I wonder if this may be true in Mantis or if like N.wennera that come from different depths having different coloration, its a funtionality of light received?