RacingReefer
New member
Unfortunately the story doesn't have a happy ending. For the past couple of months I've had a small mantis in my tank, it's killed a few snails here and there nothing major. Due to it's size i've never really pursued getting rid of it. He seemed to move around the tank a lot so it wasn't easy to pin down his location most of the time.
Sunday morning after my morning tank maintenance he popped out from under my brain coral. He saw me and ducked away, I sat down and kept looking for him then found his hole where he was hiding. At the same time he pushed the remains of my peppermint shrimp our of his hole which had recently disappeared. Since I knew where he was I removed the canopy and pulled the rock from my tank. I was completely unprepared to remove him but took advantage of the fact that I knew where he was. I didn't have any salt to mix up any high salinity water so I used straight fresh water instead.
I submerged the rock and within a 30 seconds he came out of the rock and was running around the bucket. I pulled the rock and got it back to the tank (along with the pumping xenias that were attached to the rock). I grabbed a small bucket and filled it with SW and netted the shrimp. At this point he had been in the FW for 3-4 minutes. He wasn't looking good, I got him in the SW and he seemed to calm down a little. He moved around fine and seemed normal. After getting my tank back together I checked on him and put an air stone in and left him for a while.
When I got back a few hours later he was in pretty rough shape, curling up, swimming on his side. Nothing I did could help him and by last night he was dead. Can't say that I'm too upset since he took a good amount of snails, 1 peppermint shrimp and 1 small emerald crab with him. I was hoping to save him and put him in a small 10 gallon tank I had been setting up.
Bill
Sunday morning after my morning tank maintenance he popped out from under my brain coral. He saw me and ducked away, I sat down and kept looking for him then found his hole where he was hiding. At the same time he pushed the remains of my peppermint shrimp our of his hole which had recently disappeared. Since I knew where he was I removed the canopy and pulled the rock from my tank. I was completely unprepared to remove him but took advantage of the fact that I knew where he was. I didn't have any salt to mix up any high salinity water so I used straight fresh water instead.
I submerged the rock and within a 30 seconds he came out of the rock and was running around the bucket. I pulled the rock and got it back to the tank (along with the pumping xenias that were attached to the rock). I grabbed a small bucket and filled it with SW and netted the shrimp. At this point he had been in the FW for 3-4 minutes. He wasn't looking good, I got him in the SW and he seemed to calm down a little. He moved around fine and seemed normal. After getting my tank back together I checked on him and put an air stone in and left him for a while.
When I got back a few hours later he was in pretty rough shape, curling up, swimming on his side. Nothing I did could help him and by last night he was dead. Can't say that I'm too upset since he took a good amount of snails, 1 peppermint shrimp and 1 small emerald crab with him. I was hoping to save him and put him in a small 10 gallon tank I had been setting up.
Bill
