My Ultimate Multi Mantis System(s)

[Kharn]

Finally after a few days of waiting (the longer it took the more nervous I became...) Rocky (G.graphurus) is now inhabiting the PVC tunnel system I built for him =) he has plenty room inside and can flip to reverse within it, I saw him curiously go in this afternoon, watching eagerly and hoping he would wonder in, as he did I jumped in excitement and waited eagerly to see how he would react and he did exactly what I thought.

He entered and resides in the Top Right entrance port, sitting at the highest point of the stand and looking out at me, this is a good spot as that is the place I planned to put my nicest mushie/ric since its nice and high and out of the way of everything it will have the light and space it needs, so it shall make for great pics with him beside it =D, one of the things he did instantly upon entering which I already assumed, was test it, see where it all leads, so with a few seconds between each sighting, his head would pop out from one of the random openings in the tunnels until he finally stopped in that Top Right plateau and has hence been residing at.

I was nervous because I started to think that he wasn't going to actually inhabit the pipes...nonetheless he seems happy in there as he hasn't been out since going in =D

Again once algae takes in, everything will only become more natural =D

More to come!

 

[Kharn]

Here is Tintin, my male G.ternatensis, he use to have 1 appendage but has since grown a new one =) the male G.ternatensis has silver/grey eyes whilst the female has gold/orange eyes, very easy to distinguish between the too.


Here is Maximus, he might look all tough and fired up =) but he sure is whipped! Take note that he is outside his cavity =) seems Minnie wanted her space within his home =D he looks to be fine I see no damage (besides his pride xD)...


Wider view, Maximus on Right, you can see Minnies BUTT poking out the front of the cavity with a rock in place too.


More to come =)

 

[Kharn]

Ok so I went fishing with my soon to be brother-in-law (whom I treat like a brother anyway) along with a mate and we were just generally fishing really didn't plan on keeping anything just planned on enjoying ourselves.

We took a cast net to get some bait, prawns as the usual.

Except we did not expect to catch this prawn....it's massive I mean just a pure freak of nature, its over 1 foot long.....usually people talk of these sized prawns in 'stories' which don't have pictures (conveniently...) however this 'story' has a picture for proof and soon more then just a picture....



So what does a man do with a 1 foot long prawn when he keeps what locals call "prawn assassins" ?

I'll tell you what this man does, he forgoes his stomachs cries and sticks this behemoth of a prawn in with one of his largest 'assassins' in this case...The Juggernaut is a key candidate as he made swift work of the much smaller then this prawn, crab, that I gave him a while back.

Although its going to be an obvious one sided 'fight' it will be interesting to see how even a large stomatopod (Peacock) can deal with a "harmless" target, nearly twice its own size....

P.S. Yes this is main coarse, 5 star restaurant quality prawn that many (if not all) would sooner wack on the BBQ rather then feed it to a "pet", some may not agree with me here but....I didn't exactly say this is the only 1 we caught....there are more, there will be more and my belly shall get its fair share, the stomatopods are first though =)

More to come as I feed this monster...to another monster =)

 

[TundraGuy]

Where is that video

 

[Kharn]

Where is that video

I was just too tired last night, ended up getting to bed at 3am this morning after making sure the prawns acclimated to the tank rite, I don't really know prawns and can't say if there delicate and hard to keep alive or really easy.

So far all survived the night the only thing I lost was a little mullet.

I'm about to put that big prawn in with The Juggernaut, now.

The best part about this is that I can now cover at least 4 live foods =D

Shrimp/Prawn, Crab, Yabbie/Crawdad, Fish all live all free =D so I am starting to have a more serious think about my live food tank setup maybe I will get something similar to my stands built but 1 tank for prawns, 1 for yabbies/drawdads, 1 for crabs and 1 for fish mostly to protect them from each other, I know if a fish slows down the crabs throw there arms up to try and crab it and have successfully done so a few times.....

 

[Kharn]

Hmm perhaps Juggy has met his match...

The prawn has been in for nearly 15mins and so far Juggy has come face to face but only struck the much larger adversary once, sending the giant prawn into a fit where it hit the roof of the tank with a loud bang, still doesn't seem to be phased.

Juggy is certainly curious about this new intruder but taking it cautiously.

 

[Kharn]

So a few things have happened in the past couple of hours, with Juggy not being that interested in the giant prawn I decided to tempt other inhabitants with other things...

Since Morgoth & The Leviathan refused there initial live food which was on the larger side, I decided to offer them a smaller prey item, which they both took swiftly =) I am guessing that they either didn't think they had the strength to take on the larger prey which I offered initially due to there lack of striking but persistence in trying to grab the prey with there maxillipeds.

Here is The Leviathan prior to being fed he looks good to go =) Morgoth I should of got a photo of but for some reason I didn't probably to excited to get to feed him again since its been over a month lol...


Also a good note, Minnie decided to finally vacate the side that Maximus resides in during which I swiftly came to a good conclusion to prevent and control her next 'visit' basically I plugged the hole I made with a nice rock =D it's in there good and will do its job.

Minnie


Maximus


"Door" - Stone wedged in place =)


This is the current state/stock of the Live Food tank, lots of it is also hidden within the sand (crabs and smaller shrimp), the sump below holds all the live rock.








More to come as I shall tempt more of my smaller ones now (was waiting for Maximus and Minnie to part ways before I fed them as I didn't want to risk a fight for food as a catalyst towards an incident....

 

[Kharn]

HD1080p

The Juggernaut takes on some larger then life prawns

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2y-MzndUUFc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

&

The return of the Spearers!

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GeIoJVoaJaQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hope you like much more to come =)

 

[Kharn]

Today was an exciting day for me I went out and purchased most of the PVC needed to make many of the DIY tunnels that I plan on having setup just like my 1st one.

Stopped by my LFS and noticed that they had more 'elcheapo' Ric's for sale so I snapped up them as well =) they were quit cheap only $15 e.a. picked up 5, they also had lots more of that Turtle Grass in that I previously had in a tank with The Leviathan, although instead of them having 1 rock this time they had a dozen rocks some fist size, others 2 fist sized. I picked up 2, double fist sized rocks and decided that this time I would put them in a different tank.

The Results

Up first we got Rocky and his compartment, unwilling to purchase any ultra grade top quality Ric's yet (plan is to though) I decided to place all the Ric's I have (and could move) on the top Plateaus as planned (except instead of a cluster as there are currently, it will be 1 Ultra Grade Ric per plateau). You can see Rocky poking rite out of the top right entry/exit hole curiously looking around, doing the monkey "just hanging out"!


Rocky is a true Camera Thief, he can get in every shot and isn't afraid of anything, instead of fleeing, he just opens up more (appendages etc. too look bigger). Here he is sitting in the Top Left entry/exit hole along side the Ric's on the Plateau beside him.


Like I said...he is a Camera hog! He starts to creep out as he begins to see the 'evil giant eye' come slowly towards him and his precious treasure of Ric's


Finally here he is again...as I was getting a close up on this Ric that started to already open up, he charged out and gave me a warning, so I thought I would shift focus a bit to get them both (Ric & Rocky) in the pic.


Up next, Maximus & Minnie....

Like I said above I purchased some Turtle Grass today, the same as I had in the tank with The Leviathan a while back, however instead of putting in the place I had it previously I thought I would get 2 pieces and give both Maximus & Minnie a rock each to get lost within its fine long bright green hair. Only thing is....how to best position it so far I like how I have it with Minnie but I am still toying around with the position I have Maximus in, suffice to say, his won't stay the way it is in the pic.

Minnie



Maximus



Like I said I don't really like the way I have the side that Maximus resides on setup, I am likely to change it and when I am satisfied I will post pics of him again.

More to come!!!

 

[Kharn]

Didn't take me long to sit down be 'happy' and get back to be 'unhappy' a.k.a had to change something and as I stated, it was the compartment of Maximus however I am HAPPY to say that I finally got it to what I now like also in the process of it all I ended up creating a sort of "man cave" for him with it being 50:50 (rock:grass) but both parts meet together at the top (mostly thanks to the flow and turtle grass being so flexible) hence creating a cavity beneath and a sort of cave .

Here is Maximus checking it all out, have to be really careful with him, he was constantly going for my fingers, he strikes the rod that I use to manipulate things around but if he sees I get careless and have my fingers in the water at the top a bit, he shoots for the surface to get my fingers! Smart!!


Hard to see because of the camera flash but you can see a "shape" from the entry/exit to his rock to the hermit at the other side all is covered above by turtle grass and because it's hugging the side of the tank it covers the light above.


More to come!

 

[Kharn]

So this Ric's seemed to be settling in well and I have spotted my favorite or favorite to date, along with my favorite Rhodactis the "superman" which is going to be along the bottom of the tank.


Top Left Plateau


Top Right Plateau


More to come!

 

[Kharn]

Last night was an interesting evening mostly due to The Leviathan.

It was a spearers evening and I was attempting to tempt both spearers with a variety of live food, regrettably Morgoth wasn't hungry and turned his nose up to shrimp & fish, The Leviathan also let a shrimp crawl all over him before I finally rescued the stomatopod from the annoying shrimp....

However The Leviathan did take the fish I put in and with spectacular fashion!

Firstly I'd like to state that yesterday I was out and about most of the day buying random things and whilst I THOUGHT I purchased enough PVC elbows to make around 5 more of the DIY tunnels, I only bought enough for 2 complete tunnels -_- all good though the LFS didn't have the substrate in stock that I need / want to use so not going much further rite now with those however I did purchase much larger dia PVC (65mm) for my 2 peacocks, now because these tanks don't have lights and hence nothing else in them, the DIY tunnels aren't going to have plateaus and aren't going to have raised/verticals, its very basic just to maximize surface area above the substrate so very simple, straight pipe entry and exit at each end with an entry/exit in middle as well via a T fitting, I plan on burying all of the PVC except the 3 exit/entry holes.

Now whilst I was out yesterday and at my LFS (intending to only purchase the substrate I needed like that's gonna happen....) so basically I went in intending to spend no more then $50 (on substrate) but ended up spending $250....corals(ric's) / Turtle grass / Live food (shrimp & yabbie) / and....a pair of interesting fish, the LFS had a sort of 'plague' going on and by this I mean, the dread white spot disease so many of the fish were drastically reduced or not to be sold due to infection, 1 of them I managed to get for completely FREE mostly because the store couldn't sell them, nor were they recovering....for once, I was a welcome sight in there store.

So last night The Leviathan got one of these fish =) and I think it shows how much he has grown and the size of the prey he is now capable of tackling to add to the brutal nature of the event, after he disappeared with the fish down his burrow, something else started to happen, something I have yet to see.....the burrow reminded me of a chimney of sorts except replace the tick dark smoke with.......blood.

Yes this is not for the faint hearted and all I can say is.....

You will have to wait until I knock off work to watch the HD video in its full gore, note this is the largest victim for The Leviathan to date....

Stay tuned

 

[Kharn]

Ok so love me or hate me...

This 'was' a fish donated and free, because it was sick.

Hardly something that will stop a hungry stomatopod that hasn't really tested itself on something for over a month....

Nonetheless, this large as my hand butterfly fish really copped it from the Leviathan...



There was some slight awkwardness involved with this larger kill when it came to getting it down the burrow...at first all seemed well but then I saw the fish start to come back out again I took a quick snap then just as I started to record again, the Leviathan sealed its fate and yanked it down into the depths really fast...

In the end the pot hole left from the incident was a "smoking" chimney (but of blood) that gave of a very wide eye expression from me.

 

[Kharn]

The Leviathan Awakens!

HD1080p Quality

<iframe width="1280" height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LNmSv-ZcQno" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

A tribute to my favorite stomatopod, The Leviathan a male Lysiosquillina maculata, hope you enjoy.

 

[TundraGuy]

I watched it 5 times. Can't wait for the next installment on monster "pod" vision

 

[Alexraptor]

Interesting, allthough the choppy slowmo parts were very hard on my eyes.

 

[TundraGuy]

I like the slowmo shots but the rewind replay kills in slowmo

 

[Kharn]

slowmotion is always going to be unclear unless you get an exceptionally high quality camera the likes that film makers use....

 

[TundraGuy]

I was not bashing it.
I love your work Kharn.
With me not having a mantis atm i just cruze your stuff and its almost the same....... well kind of anyway.

 

[Jacwil]

Kharn what do you do to keep the buildup of crud from accumulating in your DSB tanks?