My O.s.

yankeereefer

New member
Well, some of you read and posted on my other thread when I was having some issues with the O.s. that my fiancee got me for xmas.

It got better and worse - Mantis finally molted, then, the tank I plumbed for it cracked at the bulkheads. My peacock has been living in a 10g since last weekend. Although small, it seems to be okay temporarily.

I have another tank that I drilled this past weekend - I have siliconed the overflow box and will get to plumbing again this week.

Anyway, here are some pics:
temp 10g tank (50w stealth, 4x24w T5, mini powerheads x2, small ac HOB)
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molt - pulled it when draining the cracked tank - you can see some of the areas where I believe it to have had shell disease - No trace of it since molt
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misc pics
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Enjoy
 
Glad it made it through the molt okay!

Too bad about the tank though. Hope youe get that guy back in a nice big tank soon ;)

Dan
 
I swear he looks exactly like mine. Usually they look somewhat different but they look so alike! gorgeous!
heres mine! (not to hijack - sorry- I just thought they looked so similar!)
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ps thank god he made it through the molt, mine is new and has yet to molt and Im very scared... that shell disease or whatever that is on your's molt looks nasty Im glad hes ok! he looks happy to me ! I like how youve concealed the pvc it looks nice too

Jess
 
thanks everyone

I was lucky to retrieve the molt - It was only b/c the tank cracked and I had to move everything that I was able to do so.

Dr. Roy (I think) mentions that not allowing the mantis to eat it's molt when it has shell disease is probably a good idea.

Dragonette - They do look the same! My mantis sat in the LFS for almost 3 months and did not molt. Within, 3 weeks of arrival to it's new place, it molted.

I think it had to do with environment and feeding. I gave it a place that it could close up it's burrow and gave it krill soaked in selcon every couple of days.

Gonna get plumbing parts perhaps tonight and try to get it's new home up and running. It's a 20H over 10g sump. Pics upon completion.
 
Oh yeah -

Question for you other O.s. owners -

Does your peacock do a lot of "smashing"? Mine only smacks the rock and PVC pipe periodically. It also took a couple strikes at the stealth heater last night. Other than that, not much.

In fact, it seems to be able to pick out a snail's insides from it's shell without breaking it. I had a couple of turbos and 6-7 margarita snails in the tank. All have since been consumed, but only 1 or 2 were "beaten".

By comparison, when I stick snails in my smithii's tank, all I hear for the next day or two is "Pop", "Pop", "Pop"

I guess for whatever reason I expected more from a larger species.
 
yeah i noticed the same thing with my peacock vs. G. smithii too. I don't have any real explanation, but maybe it has to do with the fact that when it does hit, it takes much more energy because it hits harder relative to it's own size? My O.s. smashes most snails/hermits i put in the tank though; the only one it didnt smash, was a large turbo. that one got the pull treatment. Have you tried feeding medium sized snails/hermits? I think it might be that large shells offer a larger opening in which case, the mantis actually has to do less work to pull food out than smash it out. Smaller shells with smaller openings might force your mantis to smash it open.
 
That kinda makes sense, Justin, but all of the margarita snails I put in were very small. You would think it would have to bust them up. The couple turbos were fairly large.

While I was working on the new tank / sump last night, I found a small hermit in the sump so I put it into the mantis tank.

The peacock found it pretty fast. Lo and behold, he started to smash it for access.

Maybe when I get the tanks transferred, I'll conduct a small study to see if I can find any relation between food size / type and mantis preference to accessing it.
 
Tank conversion completed - From 10g to 20H with 10g sump-

Was up to late and tank was a little cloudy for pics - Will post tonight.

What a tease, right?

Ryan
 
As promised....

plumbing
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the drip on the return has been fixed - Pic was taken during wet run test before final gluing
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sump
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display
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same plumbing configuration as what cracked before - Sump is crowded with the ASM mini - going to try and build a small refugium for chaeto or maybe hang the cpr fuge I have on the front. I also modded an ATO to put into the return chamber - I have to figure out where to put a water container though before hooking it up.
 
that is alot of light for that species of mantis. the intense lighting will contribute to things like shell disease. maybe one of the masters of this area will chime in and give you some ideas on how to shade him a bit to ensure the lights to make the problem worse.
 
It is a lot of light - tank is dark or actinic only for majority of the day. The 10k bulbs only come on for a couple of hours between when we come home from work and go to bed.
 
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