mantis population is totally out of hand...

R

rick62

New member
just counting from what i can see at this moment my live rock appears to have 2 three inch mantis.. one was easily captured and the other could be gotten pretty easily too.. they however are not the problem .. the problem is tiny ones.. at last count we have 6 tiny little ones ranging from half inch to one inch.. these are slippery little creatures and I dont even think I have found all of them.. the six Im mentioning are the ones I have found. I know where they live but as fast as I can chase them out of one hole they hide in another.. I would swear they are multiplying :(

We are trying the trap method but no luck on that so far and my tank is ticking like a clock. Now we are only on our first live rock shipment from Tampa Bay and the rock itself is lovely but I would like other creatures besides mantis in the tank and quite frankly the little stinkers are more distructive than the big boys.. does anyone have a suggestion for us that wont kill the live rock but will drive the baby mantis out of the rock without killing all of the other stuff on the rock? ...

I fear what will happen when the second half of the shipment comes..

By the way.. anyone want a mantis or two.. or three .. hehe.. katt.
 
I'd take any you catch! I recently found my first little guy in a shipment from reeferrocks.com. Anyways, I've been told dipping the rocks in higher salinity water drives them out. But I did this with my rocks as a precaution, and nothing came out. The one I have, I didn't find untill I saw him out for an afternoon stroll in my tank. I was amazed, because I was able to just take a cup, and scoop him up before he went for the rocks.
 
I just got a Mantis shrimp from rags111875 that is about 1/3-1/2" long. He said the little dude came right off of the rock when he pulled it out. He also has (had? how's that coming rags?) a large mantis population from tampa bay rocks. So you might want to check with him and see how he got this little guy to come out so easily. If you can ID their lairs you can pull out that piece of rock and can pour a little seltzer water that spot. You can also pour cold freshwater on the spot (freshwater, not untreated tapwater). If it only takes a little seltzer/water you wont be hurting your rocks... just don't bathe them in the stuff.

You'll probably want to compare notes with rags, since it sounds like he's going through the same thing you are. I had the impression that the seltzer water was more effective.

Gotta run to work...
 
Club soda did the trick for me

Club soda did the trick for me

My TBS rock also came with a full extended family of mantis. After trying a bunch of things, what finally worked for me was to pull the rocks out and douse them in club soda. The mantis (and about 2 dozen little crabs) would come scurrying out within 20 seconds of hosing them down. None of the rock life seemed any worse for the wear.

Good luck!
 
I wouldn't worry about the small ones. They don't do any damage and when they get large enough to do damage are easily caught. I had several adults (now residing in a 10 gal) and a few babies. The babies are still in my 125 and to date have done no noticable damage.

One is getting large enough where I am thinking of catching him, but I have not noticed any decrease in my crab or snail population and have not noticed any newly empty shells. They will come to the entrance of their tunnel for bits of raw shrimp and will take it from my hand.
 
I would not panic over the babies either.

Please post all mantis for free, trade, and sale topics in the appropriate forum.

Thanks folks.
 
thesus13 said:
I just got a Mantis shrimp from rags111875 that is about 1/3-1/2" long. He said the little dude came right off of the rock when he pulled it out. He also has (had? how's that coming rags?) a large mantis population from tampa bay rocks. So you might want to check with him and see how he got this little guy to come out so easily. If you can ID their lairs you can pull out that piece of rock and can pour a little seltzer water that spot. You can also pour cold freshwater on the spot (freshwater, not untreated tapwater). If it only takes a little seltzer/water you wont be hurting your rocks... just don't bathe them in the stuff.

You'll probably want to compare notes with rags, since it sounds like he's going through the same thing you are. I had the impression that the seltzer water was more effective.

Gotta run to work...
Click to expand...
ok, the club soda seemed to work the first time, got 3 mantis from a medium-sized rock(note: seltzer water did nothing and scalding hot water only killed most everything on my LR:mad2:
i have given up trying to catch, hunt, destroy my mantis shrimp b/c there is something in my tank doing all the killing for me. tonight, i found my 2nd decapitated mantis head (one green, 1 red). no idea who to thank (and i'm sure sometime in the future, i'll be hunting this very adept hunter).
 
The mantis will cannabalize each other . I put three adults in a ten gallon tank and one was immediately killed. I was left with a male\female pair which subsequently produced a tank full of fry.
( The fry didn't survive as I wasn't set up to produce the proper food for them).
 
I also got a shipment from TBS recently... Grr... :mad2: I don't think I'll buy from them again. Or if I do, I'm going to have to figure out something to "pre-treat" the rock, if you will, to remove unwanted hitch-hikers. I only got 20 pounds from them, and I wondered at the odds of getting one mantis. I caught that one, and just discovered I've got another in my tank. After reading all of your posts, I wonder if I don't have more. I'm terrified at the thought of having a tank crawling with them. They can't successfully reproduce in a reef setup, can they?
 
BTW, ecugman, may ship you out the one I've got if I can figure out a good way to do so, if you really want it. Let me know, and how you'd want me to ship it.
 
traveller7 said:
Please post all mantis for free, trade, and sale topics in the appropriate forum.

Thanks folks.
Click to expand...
[top]

Please take trades and sales dialogue to PM folks.

Thanks.
 
a followup

a followup

I thought I would give ya all a followup on the mantis wars :) We declared war on our manits population last night to no avail. Basically we lost the battle but not the war. The kinder gentler approach of club soda yeilded many bad crabs but the mantis just rolled around in their holes and had a nice hot tub effect... stubborn little creatures. I think we managed to smush one little one but I dont really have the heart for that, it was an accidental death.

With one big mantis out of the tank, Im hoping the other big gal takes the littler ones out eventually. She seems to know where they live and I suspect if we rotate the rocks near her home eventually she will be top dog in the tank. Either that or I will feed them till they get big enough to capture.. hehe...They like this hard fish food I have and will actually eat it off the end of the stick, anyhow size is to my advantage, I have no troubles catching the big ones.

Traps seem to be the feeding hole for the She still in the tank and the one in the bad boy tank seems to have a taste for crabs all of the sudden, as all of the crabs we have put in there with him (gorillas extracted) get pummeled and munched. He seems to like cracked crab.. lucky bugger.

We are waiting till our second shipment comes from TBS and then I will post my one bad boy for free, then we will have the proper shipping containers as well.. he deserves a good home because he has character and attitude.. For now Im letting the second, the one I call She stay in the tank because She isnt being bad .. yet.. I have no doubt She will need to go sooner or later but I hope it will be a battle of the bad and in the end I will only have to pull one out.

Next batch?? probably have some more .. and when I figure out where to post free or for sale creatures thats where it will go but I will try some of you kind posters here first. Thank you all for all of your advice.. at least we are having fun with the whole deal, but then all we have is rocks, mantis and a much lessened crab population at this point.

I still think the TBS rock is beautiful... we are dying for our second shipment.. but (sniff) Richard is out of town and Mark hasnt called us back.. but I have no doubt the tank will be even more entertaining.. katt
 
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