My Mantis

cephalopoder

Premium Member
I have had this mantis for 4 months now and it is doing great. It is one hell of a smasher about 4-4.5" long. It is fed a varity of foods and is a hermit crab or astria snails worst nightmare. This beast will just smash them to bits!!!
When I threw in about 6 astria snails a month ago, I awoke to the loud smashing sounds of snails getting pounded every 6 am. I am glad I have a acrylic tank, because it knocks the snails off the acrylic with such force I think glass would shatter. Dr Roy ID the beast as a female
Gonodactylus chiragra.
It is housed in a CPR MRT 13 gallon mini reef with 4" of fine sand 10 lbs of live rock, temp around 79f, modified bak pak2 skimmer and carbon bag. The tank has macro algaes, mushrooms, leather coral, xenia, buttons, tube anemone, sand sifting cucumber and 36 watts of pc light.
Most of the time she stays in her home under the rock she has dug out. A 1.25 gallon water change is done bi weekly.
B ionic and esv iodide are added with the use of reef crystals at 1.025. I also alternate use of DTs and esv phyto plankton every other day. I have tank pics if any one would like to see. Its hard to get good pics of her in the tank but I have some killer video:D
 
Last edited:
Gram for gram, there is no stomatopod stronger - or nastier - than Gonodactylus chiragra. They are also tough and do very well in small aquaria. Adults rarely reach a total length above 10 cm, but they can smash shells as large as any taken by a 16 cm O. scyllarus. They live in the intertidal zone and therefore are exposed to severe temperature and salinity fluctuations. They are strictly diurnal and are active in the field during day time low tides although in the lab dawn and an hour before sunset seem to be their peak times for feeding. They are highly aggressive and will quickly kill one another if placed in the same tank. They are not the most colorful species, but if you want a tough, powerful mantis shrimp, this is the one for you. We often keep them in 1 gallon tanks and they do well - just make sure that the tank isn't made of window glass.

Roy
 
Sorry, I have video but no fire wire yet to post it to the web. I will at some point though, and it will be worth the wait hehe!
 
lol Are you guys insane? I don't think they are very good looking. But that is just me. As I have fought infestations of unwanted mantis in my reefs for years, maybe I am tainted.

About the only one I think looks interesting enough is the peakcock. My LFS has a pure yellow one in stock very odd looking!

BTW a little trivia. Mantis shrimp are the fastest animals on the planet! (are they animals?!?) They measured the speed at which they pound or stab and there is nothing on this earth that moves as fast.

I read this on some scientific site. And from the one I saw, I believe it. My firend tried to keep it once it was removed from a reefer's tank and it shattered his glass tank in one hit.
 
What an awsome looking Mantis! Such a beefy, compact body type.. looks like a powerhouse!

More pictures, please!!
 
i posted in this topic a few days ago, i asked if a GLASS 20 gallon is acceptable to house one of these guys... should i go plastic?

i already have the tank
 
Skattabrain :spin2:.... Roy answered this for you in another post I guess ... here is his post....

Gonodactylus
Reefer

Somewhere in the archives of this forum are several discussions on this. The bottom line is that unless you have a 5+ inch O. scyllarus , a 20 gal glass tank will be sufficient 99.9 % of the time.

Roy

Hope all is well!

Kime`
 
Heres some pics of a Mantis I had in my tank.
Smashed at least a snail a day. Big appetite.
It was at least 3 inches long. I didn't want to get too close with a tape for obvious reasons....

Mantis2-vi.jpg


Mantis1-vi.jpg
 
Cephalopoder,

That Chiragra is cool! It just looks like it was designed as a weapon.

Hey Nigel, that one is cool too. Did you just catch it in that soda bottle? Keeping it?

:)

-Rogue
 
No it came in some live rock. It has been let go back into the ocean. Only put it in the bottle overnight before I took it to the beach.
 
Back
Top