Mantis In Polyp

afgoody

afgoody

New member
First, I'm not afgoody--I'm afgoody's girlfriend who is taking care of the 75g while he's deployed overseas--wish me luck!!

Our tank has been cycling for about 6 weeks and after researching the "clicking" noise, I've determined that we have a mantis shrimp. I'm not sure if the mantis is hurting anything, but it has made its home in one of the highest rocks in the tank. The rock is mostly covered with star polyps.

I have noticed that our hermit crabs are dying. Our barnicles seem to be doing well, but our coraline seems to be disappearing a bit, but I'm not sure if any of this has anything to do with the mantis.

I think the easiest way to get this bugger out would be a freshwater dip, but I'm afraid it might hurt the polyps--any ideas?? Do you think it will go for the bottle--given that he hides constantly in the highest rock in the tank?
 
Freshwater dip would definitely hurt the polyps. I would just try and do something with traps. There are traps you can buy:

Xterminator Trap
or the tampabaysaltwater.com inverted 1 liter bottle trap.
or something to do with pantyhose. I'm not familiar with this one. Can anyone elaborate on this?

You're such a good girlfriend I doubt most girlfriends would be so understanding of the SW hobby
 
I had a MS so I got the xterminator and caught one within seconds. Then the clicking came back... and this time the trap only caught hermint crabs. I finally found the rock the second one was in and dumped it in freswater for maybe 5 seconds and he came shooting out. I put him and the rock back in seperate saltwater tanks and neither were harmed. The rock was a large piece of LR with just a couple very small green star polyps, but they were not harmed. Of course, this is just my experience and I am sure that there is some amount of risk, but in my opinion it is much better to deal with the problem now. If you do, a couple polyps have a small chance of being harmed, if you don't... many things WILL die for sure and you will worry about it all the time.
 
Thanks for the comments. Here's my plan--

Tonight I'm going to make sure he's still in the polyp rock and then put it in our quarantine tank (which has nothing in it right now) with the bottle trap and check it out in the morning. If I don't have him--I'll try a quick dip in freshwater before putting it back in the main tank.

What do you think?
 
Sounds great, better to try to trap it first, that way there is no risk to the coral at all. Although, I just moved my whole tank 30 miles to a third floor apartment, and I am learning that corals are a lot tougher than they look. Which I guess shouldn't really surprise us since all this stuff goes through so much before it reaches us. I definately know what you are going through. It's hard to sleep at night knowing that the hermit crabs are living with the Freddy Krueger's underwater equivelant. I also must say that it's great you are taking charge for your boyfriend. Good luck!
 
First I want to say how great it is that you are helping your boyfriend out while he is deployed overseas. 1 less thing he has to worry about. We had a mantis shrimp from hell. We tried traps that didn't work, it took our tank crashing which made us have to take out the liverock. I took the rock I thought the little sob was in and put it in a salt bucket with it basically hovering above the bottom. A couple minutes went by and I heard a telltale plop sound as he dropped out of his hole and was running circles around the bottom of the tank. Star polyps are pretty hardy so a few minutes out of water should not hurt them. If you are worried about them you can spritz tank water on them as you wait for the ms to drop out. Please wear gloves as you could get a finger sliced or smashed open by the little bugger. They don't call them thumb splitters for nothing. If it is a colorful mantis you might want to keep it in a 5 or 10g tank on its own or you could sell it to the LFS or another reefer. Ours was a drab one that terrorized us and killed things so I took great pleasure in feeding it to a clown trigger at the fish store. It is nice that you have a qt tank to put the rock in, you could try putting a nice piece of shrimp at the other end of the tank before you turn off the lights. Wait with a red flashlight so you can watch for him to come out of the rock and go for the shrimp. When he does if you are fast enough you could then grab the rock out of the tank and be done with it that way. Tie a piece of dental floss or string to it so you can move it if need be and that way it will have to eat it where you placed it away from the rock. This works with other unpleasant hitchhikers and large nasty bristleworms. Good luck and feel free to pm me with any questions, we girls have to stick together we are outnumbered in this hobby:lol: ;)
 
HELP!!

Ok, so I'm staring intently at the polyp rock to make sure he's in there...and low and behold--I see a bunch of baby mantis shrimp--its a SHE--with BABIES!!! The babies are real small--maybe 3-4mm, but I've seen quite a few of them all on the polyp rock. I know I need to get it in the quarantine tank ASAP, but what now? How can I be sure I get them all without hurting the polyps??

Also, we're still pretty new to this hobby and don't have lights for our quarantine tank yet. The QT is a 29 gal and is ready to go sans the lights...I have a 15watt bulb on a 20 gal freshwater tank that I'm not using, but I'm afraid that won't be enough light for the polyps? Any suggestions?
 
You are probably seeing copepods and other pod critters. I freaked and thought the same thing. If you are really worried about the star polyps you could break off with a chisel most of the area where they are on the rock. It sounds harsh but this is what the collectors do so we can get these corals into our tanks. Trust me that the star polyps will spread back over the area just by placing the broken off piece back in the same spot. Do a search on green star polyps also known as GSP. Some people act as if they are weeds in their tanks because they can grow wildly and sometimes not where you want them. It may not seem possible to you now since your tank is so new but in a year you will look back and laugh at how well they will have grown and spread. I personally like them and have a couple different varieties in both of our tanks. So if they completely keel over on you I can always mail some to you when the weather warms up if they all die. It is worth the risk to get rid of that nasty sob now vs later when it has killed your fish,snails and hermit crabs. If you start seeing crab shells with holes punched in them that is courteaous of the mantis shrimp. Good luck let me know if you need any help or more importantly moral support.:D
 
even if they are baby stomatopods, the odds of them surviving to adulthood in a reef tank are slighlty less than me winning the Powerball jackpot. do a search on raising their larvae and you'll see what a Herculean task it is.
 
Thanks for the link--YES mine look just like that. I'm pretty sure they are baby MS--they look just like an adult and like the picture in the thread.

I spent a lot time watching them last night and this morning moved the whole polyp rock into the quarantine tank. I moved the rock in a dry bucket and MS freaked out and ran all over the rock, but never jumped off. I didn't see any babies this morning.

It will be interesting when I get home from work. I'll try and get some decent pictures. The MS is about 2 inches and blue. I'm just happy there will be no more "death clicking" in the main tank!! I saw it attack a crab yesterday--it was brutal!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
Coral placement and water flow
Replies
5
Views
505
wvned
wvned
C.Eymann
Finding the "final boss" of coral pest hitchhikers, and how it turned into our beloved pet.
Replies
11
Views
772
griss
griss
R
Is it aiptasia or maybe hydroids?
Replies
3
Views
472
griss
griss
D
Custom Tank Prices
Replies
15
Views
1K
Dustin07
D
A
Salt water in wood
Replies
6
Views
646
C.Eymann
C.Eymann
Back
Top