just got 2 hitchhiker mantis

ratgrrl77

New member
This evening I went to pick up my liverock shipment from the freight co. for my second 55 gal tank.
The rocks are from a Floirda liverock vender, straight from the Gulf of Mexico. Well much to my surprise I aquired amoung my hitchhikers 2 mantis shrimp, one in each box. One box had a beautiful mantis , several dead crabs ( half eaten), a dead mantis and a dead half eaten peppermint shrimp ( a little upset about that, but these were freebie hitchhikers). And a large clump ( size of a quater) orange eggs. I believe they are the mantis's eggs as they look like the ones in the picture on this site w/ the mother mantis.
I would love to keep both mantis, but do not want to risk them injuring each other or my other crabs in the new reef tank. My other 55 is an established fish and live rock only tank ( semi-reef?) w/ some blue-legs and turbos for algae control.

What size tank are these mantis shrimp going to need? What type of filtration ( protein skimmer etc) ? And can one tank be used w/ a divider to seperate them? And what about the eggs?
 
just go to petclub and pick up a 10 gallon tank for 8.00 for the mantis
one each or put an acrylic divider in it to keep them separate.
 
I'm setting one of them up in my 18 gal ( 10gal base with extra 8 gal add to height) . I plan on eventually adding the domino damsel I have wanted for so long ( but unable to have with my other fish) in the 18 gal too. I will place the other one in a ten gal under neath the 18. They are both N. wennerae. One is from the shallows as it is jade green with blue highlights, and the other is from deeper water as its burgundy with orange highlights.

They are both so pretty ( I really like the green one best)! I bought them some ghost shrimp for a meal today.

It's funny I was trying to cut back on the tanks as I used to have 9 ( various fresh and salt) and the numbers just went up this week again. Well when your hooked your hooked!
Pictures will be posted soon.
Thanks everyone!
 
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