Lion suggestions in a certain situation.

[Fitz19d]

Alright, I'm a nut and love mantis shrimp. I've had a small one live peacefully even with slow moving fish like a scooter blenny.

However I just bought and have holding a very large 6 inch peacock mantis. Going in a 55, I wanted more than just the peacock. I may have done an SPS tank but high light is an issue. So If I'm stuck w/ lower light corals I figured that might make a lion which also would wreck havoc in my normal mixed reef maybe a good mix if I can get them at a size they won't bother each other. (One key is keeping mantis hand fed and lazy)

I was thinking a zebra/fuzzy but the ones locally so far are only like 2 inches. Grow fast but I'd be worried for them. Too small a tank for some of the others like radiata and they also may get too big for the mantis anyways. I hadn't expected to get a full grown peacock.

Was planning on just waiting for a closer to full grown dwarf/zebra. (Figure 8 inch vs 6 inch and thick peacock should be good to make them uninterested in each other.)

However another LFS has a Foo Man Shu in that is 5 maybe 6 inches. Already weaned to prepared/dead food!


Thoughts on hanging out for a bigger dwarf/zebra vs the foo man shu? Less active I've read but I think prettier generally. If I see signs of trouble I can potentially put the fu man shu in my mixed reef and he'd be small enough to leave the fish in there alone I think. (But a problem if I start getting ornamental inverts.)

 

[namxas]

There won't be any "signs" of trouble unless you catch the mantis hunting...it will pop the lion and that's pretty much it, esp. if the mantis is a larger specimen. That is, unless the lion decides to eat the mantis...

About the only thing I've had success keeping in a mantis tank are urchins, altho the only one that didn't eventually get killed and eaten was a Diadema sp. (longspine).

I'd be looking to keep low-light or NPS corals, maybe a Cerianthus tube 'nem. A peacock will want to use some frags as lair building material, so attaching them or getting larger corals will be the best.

HTH

 

[hkarmy25]

^ sounds about right.

Fu man chu are usually active at night, at least mine was. Really cool fish, that's what I would go with, but that's me. If you have had success with other fish and mantis you could try it, but it's a risk. Mantis shrimp are beasts, as I'm sure you know. Be a pretty cool tank if you got it to work tho...