Mike's sharp eye

SWSaltwater

New member
Sahuarita Mike was looking at one of my coral systems(240 gallon) and found a mantis that we were super lucky to catch without tearing up everything. Its a pretty one but I have not ID'ed it yet. With post picks tomorrow if I remember the camera. For now I will throw him in the catch all of "Peacock" as most with green red and blue go to. He is only about 4 inches though. What a catch!!!!!! I was wondering were all my snails and sea hares went, and why the 40 pepermint shrimp I put in there stopped eating the aptasias!!!
 
I think I might have a mantis or something in my tank. Every night after the lights go out, I hear loud snaps. I've looked and haven't seen any cause. I've unplugged pumps and other stuff, but the pops continue, usually 3 or 4 before I go to bed. No fish have come up missing though. I don't see any decrease in my larger snails, but my smaller nassarius are about gone.
This has been going on for at least 5 months.
I do have a pistol shrimp. Could he be the culprit?
 
Pistol shrimp will make that noise pretty well. Hence the name "pistol" shrimp. I would suspect him of the noise first, but after seeing that mantis yesterday, it makes one worry.
 
Yeah the mantis was small but I would suspect it would eat your pistol as well if you have one. I never heard snaps in the take but with all the pump noise who knew lol. He was a thumper thank god so no fish lost. Gonna have to ID him today. Pretty sure he came in recently on a rock of kenya tree from a phoenix reefer that moved. Before that I had tons of snails in the tank.
 
Talk about fast I spotted the mantis and in less than like 20 seconds Rob jumped up grabed a net moved the lights picked up the rock and scooped out the mantis. And some people say catching a mantis is hard :).
 
Gonodactylaceus falcatus

mantis2.jpg

mantis.jpg
 
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