mantis in hermit crab shell

[Myladyfish]

Just a couple of days ago I noticed hearing the sounds of "tsk tsk" at night... I posted a thread regarding it, and the replies suggested that it could be a mantis shrimp... I thought I haven't seen one in my tank so I thought it was sth else...

But today I found a 2 inch shadow that moved real fast, disturbed my sand bed, and created this sand storm around it... when the sand settled down, I saw a MANTIS SHRIMP in my hermit crab's shell staring back at me ... quickly, I reached out for the shell and luckily it ducked into the shell instead of going out of it so I caught him with him in the shell.... When I put the shell inside this small cup, he just went outta the shell, acting and moving crazy... I just flushed him out of my house cuz it looked like it's almost dead.... The size is almost 2 inch, I was pretty excited because this is the first time I saw it with my own eyes and happy cuz my tank is at least short of one mantis now....

I don't know what's so bad about mantis shrimps but I heard if you can take it out just do so, so that's what I did.... it's too bad I have no camera or I'd take a few snaps and post them here for y'all to see...

Now I'm left to wonder:

1.) where is my hermit crab then? Is it eaten by the shrimp?

2.) why are mantis shrimps bad for your tanks? well, I know they can disturb the sand real bad... that's one thing... but what're the others? Just curious...

 

[laustin]

1) most likely the mantis ate the hermit

2) mantis shrimp can / will eat your clean up crew, hermits, snails, good crabs, good shrimp etc.

and they can also kill fish depending on the type of mantis

 

[nanoman123]

a mantis shrimp is like a nuclear bomb. once it goes off, it will most likely destroy everything in its path.(except for rock, hard stuff)

my uncles friend got his finger cut off by a mantis.