Must catch Mantis Fast

S

sevise

New member
My tank is cycling and the ammonia is dangerously high. I have a nice Blue/Green mantis that I'd like to save. I have a very nice little tank for him. Today I saw him curled up on a rock(very cute), I knew that wasnt a good sign so I tried to get him in a glass jar to transfer him. As soon as the jar got within 6" of him he bolted into a rock.

How can I get the little bugger out before hes dies from the ammonia?

Even though I'd like to save him I do not want to do a waterchange to drop the ammonia. Hes held up in the largest piece of rock, which I can't take out because I just had stiches taken out of my hand yesterday.

Tank Specs, 120Gal, 160lbs LR, 150lbs LS
 
I have the trap in with some shrimp.

The problem is the little guy dissapeared while I was at the store. Before I could see part of him sticking out of the rock, now hes gone. I've seen him all over the tank so I just put the bottle at his last known location.
 
Mantis in Critical Condition

Mantis in Critical Condition

When I got home from work I saw the larger of my 2 Manti curled up on the sand. I grabbed a glass jar scooped him up and put him in a hospital tank. Some of his appendages are shivering but I see no coordinated movement. I'm hoping he'll recover.

I still have my hopes about the smaller one, I did see him swimming after I put the trap in, I think he got caught in the current and was going for a ride. After he broke free fo the current he went back to hiding.
 
Hes gotten better over the past few hours. There was more and more movement, some of it appeared coordinated. At one point he did find and hide in the PVC pipe I put in the hospital bucket for him. He does try to swim from time to time but he has no control. I moved him into his condo and hes moving around on the sand alot.

I'm hoping he finds a nice hole in the LR to recover in.

The smaller mantis is still MIA, but I did find a small pistol shrimp in the trap.
 
Hes been spending almost all his time in a piece of pipe for the past couple days. When I tap the sides he sticks his head out and looks around. He finally took some food, I put some shrimp in front of his pipe and he dragged it in. I dont know where his mouth is, so I'm not sure hes actually eating it, but he is holding it with his front set of legs.
 
Your levels must have been crazy high. I cycled my tank and at one point had ammonia at 1.0+ for days... Three of the three mantis lived through it no problem.

Still trying to catch one of them...
 
He seems fine. His Eclipse 3 is cycling, I've been doing a 10% water change every day to keep the water quality acceptable. He spends most of his day staring at me. Once in a while he'll stroll around the tank. I'm feed him by putting a small piece of shrimp at the end of a plastic stick, I make him chase it for a minut before I let him take it. He hasn't bothered the snail I have in the tank either.
 
Honestly, I wouldn't worry about water quality at all with mantis. In my experience, they are perhaps one of the hardiest type of marine life. I've read stories of them living in unheated garages out of water for weeks at a time.
 
The ammonia spike in my main was pretty high. I finally ended up catching him by pushing him into a glass jar with a credit card. He was unresponsive to the world for about a day.

Hes still living in the original tube I gave him. I've seen him exploring a few times but he always ends up back in the tube.

mantishome.jpg
 
How do you remove a mantis from the hole in the live rock? I took the rock he was living in and put it in a bucket for now. Was thinking of putting him in the refugium would he be ok there?
 
Update

Update

The little guys doing fine. The LR in his tank was getting a little hairy so I decided to add a cleanup crew. I gave the mantis a big chunk of shrimp so he woudnt be tempted by the new additions. I added the crew, 2 astraea and 6 blue legs. One of the blue legs must of struck his fancy because he ran out and smashed the little guy, and then went back into his cave.

Afterwhich I decided to call him Dr. Evil. Keeping with the theme I named the newly captured Mantis in my Fuge Mr. Bojangles.
 
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