Mantis trap

[ouell]

I looking in my reef for a mantis shrimp (I can ear a clicking once in a while...), and I can find it. It killed a cleaner shrimp, pepermint shrimp and almost killed my brittle star during my last vacation.

Is someone know a good DIY trap for it ? :idea: Or how can I get it out of there?

How can I find where it's hiding? :bigeyes:

Thanks!

 

[ouell]

I found it.

But I still have the clicking, so I guess I have more than one!

 

[kungen]

How did you find it?
How did you catch it?

 

[MDKyleZ]

What did you do with it?

 

[ouell]

A turbo snail was passing by one of the mantis holes in my live rocks. I heard a lot of clicking. I sat in front and saw it comming out of the holes to attack or tried to affraid the snail. I took the rock out and poured some hot water over it and in the holes. The mantis got out of there fast

Now I still have some clicking in my tank, so I'm still hunting for more mantis.

I heard the best thing to hunt them is to put a red light to look at the tank. Fish and invert are not suppose to see red light, so they won't see me if front of the tank trying to look for the mantis!

The one I found is about 0.7 inch long. It's in a small covered recipient and someone already want's it.

 

[wylie713]

oull, the mantis has one of the most sophisticated visual systems in the world. they can distinguish about 10 times as many colors as we can, and even those in the UV range. so the red light trick wont work for this little bugger. youre prob. gonna have to pull the rock like the last time. also i read somewhere that hermits when mating click their shells together, so if you dont see anymore signs of a mantis (dead inverts in pieces, tiny particles of rock shooting out of holes-which is the mantis renovating his living space) you might just have 2 very friendly hermit crabs
whateve the case, good luck, and watch your fingers!!!

 

[ouell]

I know they have a good visual and are very intelligent and they are also very good predator.

Yes, I still see tiny particles of rock shooting out of holes, but can this rock shooting comming from pod's working? Some of my live rocks have a lot of holes, serial holes, one after the other.

I'm mooving in less than a month. I will have to move all my rocks out from the reef, and I will probably treat them all with hot water :uzi: before re-building my reef in my new house.

For the clicking, I'm pretty sure it's not hermits, I have none.:wave:

 

[wylie713]

For the clicking, I'm pretty sure it's not hermits, I have none.

well that def narrows it down to a mantis then, lol, i dont think your pods are strong enough to be pushing small pieces of rock all over the place. since your moving youll have to dismantle your tank anyway so you can get the little son of a gun then

 

[kentrob11]

I wouldn't use hot water as it will kill every bit of life on the rock. Plain old fresh RO water should do the trick nicely....

 

[ouell]

I had this trick sugested by a other reefer. I use hot water and not boiling water and I try to poor the water in the holes only (not easy but...). I did a couple of small rocks top of the reef, the one I suspected the most, and it did not armed the mushrooms and other living thing on them.

 

[wylie713]

agree with ken, most life on your rock will be able to survive a short fresh water bath, than a bathing in hot water, the drastic change in temp really affects everything.

 

[ouell]

Ok then, I will try RO water instead. If I do not find the mantis, then the hot shower!