Mantis Shrimp in my reef tank

H

heyloco

New member
My tank has been running since 12/29 (65g with 100lbs LR). I have four green chromis, and a coral beauty. I saw two MS in my live rock this week. One is pinkish in color and about 2 inches long. The other is gray and about 1.5 inches long. I have been trying to catch them with a "mantis shrimp trap" and the bottle trap, but have not been sucessful. Only manage to trap the hermit crabs. I have heard conflicting info. To some MS are the devil incarnate :eek1: , other say they have not had any problems. The questions I have are: 1) Do I have reason to worry? 2) Does, it matter on the specific type? 3) Does anyone have a better way to trap them?

As soon as I can catch one out in the open I will post a picture.
 
MS are not good to have in with fish or other inverts. Your best off trying to locate which rock the shirmps are hiding in and isolating it. they make great critters in a species tank, but they will eventually eat your fish, snails, crabs, clams, and anything else it wants to take a wack at
 
When my friend had a mantis in his live rock, we took the LR out and sprayed freshwater into the hole that he was in. He came out and we caught him.
 
I caught my mantis with a piece of pvc pipe covered on one end with netting and a rubberband. A inch or so from that end I drilled a 1/8 in hole through pipe. In that hole I inserted a toothpick to skewer a pice of silverside. At the open end I drilled one more hole to tie on fishing line. I placed the trap into the tank with the opening near mantis hole. It came right out to investagate. About 5min later it went into the pipe long enough for me to pull up on the line. This trap worked when the bottle trap and fresh water spray did not. My mantis now has its own 5g.

Lots of luck
 
Hey guys, how about crabs? I have seen 4 crawling around my tank esp when the lights go out...I could only guess the biggest one is at least 2inches in diameter cos i only saw its claws..its hidden in some cave...Managed to trap one only using a home-made funnel...then the rest got clever....

Any ideas for crab trapping?Please?
 
I had two small mantis shrimps in my Tongan live rock. One of them was easily caught with an x-terminator brand trap. The other would not go near it. I found the rock he lived in, submerged it in RO water for a couple seconds and he came right out. I now have both of them in a 10 gallon(seperated).
 
I just found a MS in my tank the other day. I had never , ever seen him before. I thought I had twice, but both turned out to be crabs.

Anyway, as I was rearranging rock work , he swam out of a rock I was moving ( it was the 3rd or so time i had moved it yesterday ) and swam under a rock on the bottom of the tank.

I took that rock out , but I'm pretty sure he isn't in it. I havent seen him before or since and am afraid I may never see him again , only find dead fish. I tried a bottle trap and caught nothing, and all the night watching I do I have never once seen him. I can't help but think I may have imagined him. Btw -- he was all green , didnt seem to have any other color to him at all. Although he swam right past me it was too fast to get a good look.
 
intranet, do you hear clicking in the tank? If it's a smasher, and I think almost all hitchhikers are... they make a clicking noise when they strike. In my experience usually a couple times an hour, with the lights on or off.
 
You know, I dont think so. I have some clicking sounds normally associated with my tank, like my heater coming on, or my puffer snapping at the glass but it isn't nearly even once an hour. I also read that mantis usually click multiple times in a row , and I have never heard anything like that at all.

The lack of dead snails, blue leg hermits or fish ( blenny especially I would think ) makes me wonder if thats truly what it was, but it sure was green and it stuck some kind of small white / clear tentacles or pincers ( looked like pincers but i could be wrong ) out from under the rock.
 
Haha, I know what you mean. I had my tank setup for at least a month and never saw any signs of a MS, I am one of those people that can just watch all the stuff on LR for hours. When I finally saw one I thought I was crazy even though I knew what it was. Then I ended up having two(crossing my fingers that there are no more). MS are awesome, but not in your main tank. As far as the clicking being multple times in a row, it's not like a machine gun or anything, just one or more random snaps.

You mentioned you have a puffer, that is probably a different situation than many of the people that have reefs. I would think the puffer might would be able to keep a small MS under control.
 
And here I thought I was odd for staring at rocks all day long! I am not the only one! I received my second LR shipment from TBS early this week and have heard clicking ever since. Even with all the staring I do, I have yet to see any of the evil do-ers. No luck with a bottle trap either.
 
The dreaded click! I feel your pain. Did you ad the new LR to your main tank yet? I am starting to think that new LR needs to be quarantined for MS before added to the tank. I guess those quarantine tanks they always talk about really are important.

I woke up one morning to see my arrow crab becoming breakfast and I never wanna see that again.
 
Everything went right in the tank, didnt know about quarantine tanks. This my first fish tank ever, dove right into a 45 gallon saltwater tank (with a little help from TBS, and you all on RC!) So far no casualties. Wish me luck!
 
Reggae I was wondering because I bought some from Doctor Foster&Smith ,Forgot the website, but it was total crap LR, I should have complained and sent it back but I didnt.... I mean they didn't even send water with it! It was bone dry and I could see dead things all over it. I was so mad.
 
ReefMagic, that is a major bummer. There is so much misrepresentation of LR. They have banned LR from Fiji for a couple of months now and how many places do you see that still have it advertised?

I think from now on I will use a new method of adding new LR... fill a couple rubbermaid containers with new SW and a heater and powerhead. Move the rocks out one at a time to a second container and watch for clicks before adding to the main tank. Kind of a pain, but a lot better than dealing with MS once the tank is full of corals and fish.
 
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