Mantis in Nano?

[nubreefer]

So I currently have both a 5g mantis tank and a 10g nano. You can see them in my gallery, taking up most of my desk space. Well, I want to free up some space and possibly put my mantis in my nano. It's a 2.3'' Male N. Wennerae and he's gotten along rather nicely with the cleanup crew in his tank( various blue leg hermit crabs, some ceriths, some astreas, and a turbo).

My question to you folks out there in reefcentral land is this: How well do you think my nano + crew would survive with the mantis in it? Am I crazy?

 

[MadTownMax]

it's a gamble, it might decide that it's hungry for fish one day..... if you're willing to take the risk. I'm thinking if you keep the tank well-stocked w/ hermits and small snails that it wouldn't really have a reason to go for anything else if it should feel more hungry than the usual feedings that it gets....

 

[nubreefer]

Yes, that's what i was thinking too. I'm not sure what I'll do. I think at this point I'm just going to keep him where he is. It's more idle speculation than anything. I was just thinking of starting a pico reef but should probably just try stocking the mantis tank with some zoo's shrooms and softies instead. If only I were a millionaire...

 

[jlovell]

Re: Mantis in Nano?

So I currently have both a 5g mantis tank and a 10g nano. You can see them in my gallery, taking up most of my desk space. Well, I want to free up some space and possibly put my mantis in my nano. It's a 2.3'' Male N. Wennerae and he's gotten along rather nicely with the cleanup crew in his tank( various blue leg hermit crabs, some ceriths, some astreas, and a turbo).

My question to you folks out there in reefcentral land is this: How well do you think my nano + crew would survive with the mantis in it? Am I crazy?

You can put the mantis in the nano, but I think your problem is going to be more of the mantis deciding to "rearrange" your nano to suit himself than him scarfing your livestock. So long as he is used to being fed and you keep up his feeding, he is probably not going to go after the livestock. Most of the smaller smashers don't seem to be inclined to go after fish from what I have read online. Of course, with everything else, your milage may vary.

I have a mantis myself in 10G tank, a Neogonodactyus curacaoensis, and he has one large turbo and one hermit in with him now. He doesn't bother them at all (I keep him fed so he isn't really hungry). Of course, I just bought him 100 of those Ilyanassa Obsoleta snails off ebay so he'll have plenty of "popcorn snails" to eat if he wants them Being the pig that he is with his food, I expect they'll stay busy playing "maid service" to him.

Tell me something, though. What kind of filtration do you have on your mantis tank? Do you use a skimmer and if so what kind?

Jay

 

[nubreefer]

Until recently i had been using a coralife super skimmer and an HOB with carbon and foam. I had a big cyano problem and bought some chemi-pure, which didn't help. The problem with the skimmer was that when it wasn't on it would just sit in the water and create dead space which ended up smelling like sulfur hydroxide(rotten eggs) and when i turned it on would make corals recede. So as of now water changes and live rock are the only filters and I think that's the best. I've taken a bunch of macro algae from my refugium on my 10g and started growing it in the 5g to starve out the cyano. The skimmer and filter inserts are in the garbage and I'm just using the HOB for flow.

 

[opihi]

even if you kept him well fed, there's a pretty good chance that your clean up crew will become lunch.

my 5g nano holds both my mantis and zoo collection. he only rearranges frags that are mounted on pieces of LR smaller than his body. he likes to rearrange the LR structure the day after i aquascape it. it hasn't been major reconstruction on his part, he just likes to build a tunnel system that gives him access to all parts of the tank.

i have some old pictures on my website. i have since reaquascaped, added more zoos and got a 70w ocean light from AquaMedic.

 

[sde219]

opihi:

Nice looking mantis tank - you got a nice assortment of corals in there too.

Steve

 

[Ms. K]

I decided to try a small domino damsel with my G. ternatensis. He's pretty lazy, but he will eat snails if they wonder into his lair. He'll bust them open. He never pops when I feed him though. He just takes the food and eats it. Anyway, one night he saw that fish sleeping in some caulerpa outside his door, and he perked up. Seemed to be peaking his curiosity...perhaps he just wanted a challenge. If yours in anything like my Mike Tyson, I wouldn't put him in with anything that I was really attached to...just in case!