Mantis ID and questions

[Pea-brain]

It is generally called the death curl (or that is what I call it. There are no other names for it that I know of)

It happens when a mantis is put under severe stress. It usually happens very soon after acclimation, within couple of days. Things that can cause this include-failed molts, stress, improper acclimation, sudden temp, salinity, etc, and chemicals in the water or surrounding air

The most you can do is keep water quality up, turn out the lights, and hope. I once heard of putting an air stone in the tank with an airline may help, but i don't know for sure....

Best of luck

Dan

 

[doryarlin955]

Thanks, it must've been a failed molt then, although he was onyl missing for 2 weeks, is that long enough?

All tank params are fine (0 nitrates, ammonia, and nitrites, 8.0 pH and 80*). Although I started seeing this behavior after a water change friday night, so now I'm thinking there could be something that got in the water.

 

[OrangeKoi]

Try using some poly filter somewhere in your water filtering system. They pull everything out of the water. It might help.

 

[doryarlin955]

I didn't do a water change yet since I hadn't seen him since the day after my last post. I caught a glimpse of it at the back of the tank, it was actually upside right, not curled, and as far as I could tell (the view was not that great lol) it's legs were curled back either. I thought it was impossible this quickly, it's only been a few days, could it be possible that it molted? Or maybe it managed to "fix" the problem it encountered during molting??

 

[doryarlin955]

Saw him again yesterday he's still the same, legs curled back and all. He seemed a tad better, since he wasn't twitching or having seizures, but he's still doing the curl thing

 

[gharner]

this kind of thing happened to my N. wennerae 2 days after i got him......i acclimated properly and all was going well. he even killed a snail and ate it. unfortunately he didnt recover. good luck with your mantis

 

[helipilot]

My fingers and toes are crossed. Good luck.