Fartin'Gary
New member
Most lower dwelling fish are in more peril than a top swimming fish with a smasher. But all is free game.
My Ultimate Multi Mantis System(s)
- Thread starter Kharn
- Start date
Most lower dwelling fish are in more peril than a top swimming fish with a smasher. But all is free game.
Kharn
MANTISMAN
Blenny / Gobies might stand a better chance then most fish even though they inhabit the same zones as Stomatopods, Blennies/Gobies seem to be very smart and always on edge...
I keep a number of wild caught random blennies/gobies with many of my small smashers including 1 with a 6inch spearer. Some of the smashers have picked off their Blennies/Gobies but there are some still in there and the blenny with the spearer is still around now pritty much truly safe with the large macro algae forest to hide within.
I keep a number of wild caught random blennies/gobies with many of my small smashers including 1 with a 6inch spearer. Some of the smashers have picked off their Blennies/Gobies but there are some still in there and the blenny with the spearer is still around now pritty much truly safe with the large macro algae forest to hide within.
I'm not planning to try it, I was just curious, since a smasher seems to be better made to kill things that need smashing. I know a spearer is made to kill fish, but if I remember correctly, smashers are supposed to mostly eat hard things like crabs.
Hmm... Cardinalfish are more like top-dwellers, but they're slow and sort of unaware. Maybe something like a damselfish might do alright... The second a mantis got hungry, though, a damsel would probably be food no matter how fast it was.
Hmm... Cardinalfish are more like top-dwellers, but they're slow and sort of unaware. Maybe something like a damselfish might do alright... The second a mantis got hungry, though, a damsel would probably be food no matter how fast it was.
TundraGuy
MantisOholic
Betta smashers can open a spike on the hammer and do so sometimes when hitting soft targets. I have seen many videos that show this very thing. One that stands out is a video showing a large peacock breaking glass (Dr Roy made this video for a TV show). Look up "Fastest Club in the West"
Kharn
MANTISMAN
It's really hard to tell what the Smashers are better at killing...their appendages (if I am not mistaken) are an evolution of the environment they "grew up" in over the millenia, they use their hammers 95% of the time to carve out rock and bore through stone on the reef.
Crabs and hard bodied prey often last longer against them when the smashers fall upon them then any soft bodied fish does...I have seen my largest O.scyllarus 1 hit a fish to death, it's not exactly a common sight to see them do the same to say a crab.
At the end of the day it just depends on how much you value what you put in with them and how much you value the Stomatopod as well, they are not invincible...it's one of the reasons I am afraid of putting Nems in my tanks even though I think they are really cool and I would love to have one / some, but I just cannot have a tank without a Stomatopod...:headwally:
Kharn
MANTISMAN
I've decided to take a different path with how I am going to handle the new large smasher that takes up residency within the Juggernauts old tank....
In effect to "retain" peoples ability to "bond" with some of my animals as I have had a few people say this too me I have decided that the large smasher is going to be...INVINCIBLE!
The Juggernaut is like a Phoenix...with the death of Juggy Gen 1...the birth of Juggy Gen 2 is on the horizon (once I have it's tank completed, I want it going into a completed tank).
In saying this the obvious thing that must be accomplished upon the passing of each Juggernaut is to find another the same size as its predecessor, I'm sure the rest will fall into place in time.
<iframe width="800" height="600" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hXB1m21k8xM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I suppose now be a good time to let you know...The Kraken is dead... ='[
He died a while ago, something I just couldn't understand or really feel about talking about...it was FAR smaller then the fellow giant that passed a couple months prior...
It happened a few days after the ordeal with the powerhead...he was eating normally after the powerhead ordeal and then I came home from work to see him upside down and lifeless...
I have no O.scyllarus now.
With this I am in no rush to get more rite now, I have seen some come and go but I am not ready...I want the sump upgrades done! I want their individual compartments done!
And until such a time there will be no O.scyllarus.
It's puzzling again to note that the Top Tank of STAND B (above the Krakens tank) is the Refugium, that houses 3 Stomatopods, 2x G.graphurus (Maximus & Minni) and the strange and weird L.colemani (Minos), NONE of them are showing any signs of illness or anything other then the norm...
In effect to "retain" peoples ability to "bond" with some of my animals as I have had a few people say this too me I have decided that the large smasher is going to be...INVINCIBLE!
The Juggernaut is like a Phoenix...with the death of Juggy Gen 1...the birth of Juggy Gen 2 is on the horizon (once I have it's tank completed, I want it going into a completed tank).
In saying this the obvious thing that must be accomplished upon the passing of each Juggernaut is to find another the same size as its predecessor, I'm sure the rest will fall into place in time.
<iframe width="800" height="600" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hXB1m21k8xM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I suppose now be a good time to let you know...The Kraken is dead... ='[
He died a while ago, something I just couldn't understand or really feel about talking about...it was FAR smaller then the fellow giant that passed a couple months prior...
It happened a few days after the ordeal with the powerhead...he was eating normally after the powerhead ordeal and then I came home from work to see him upside down and lifeless...
I have no O.scyllarus now.
With this I am in no rush to get more rite now, I have seen some come and go but I am not ready...I want the sump upgrades done! I want their individual compartments done!
And until such a time there will be no O.scyllarus.
It's puzzling again to note that the Top Tank of STAND B (above the Krakens tank) is the Refugium, that houses 3 Stomatopods, 2x G.graphurus (Maximus & Minni) and the strange and weird L.colemani (Minos), NONE of them are showing any signs of illness or anything other then the norm...
Calappidae
Harlequin Shrimp
I'm so sorry to hear about your loss 
Kharn
MANTISMAN
I'm so sorry to hear about your loss
STAND B is virtually empty rite now, with the only occupied tank being the top one, since both middle & bottom tanks are designed for large smashers... but are empty and have nothing in them but some live rock and lots of rubble...
I'm not going to fill them with large smashers until I finish the upgrade and finish the interior aquascaping of the 2 tanks.
The Kraken is a complete mystery he was very healthy even though he went through that ordeal with the powerhead...
Sorry about your big shrimp...
I've lost a couple of shrimp like that, but they were just cleaners, not big fat mantises. No water quality issues, no noticeable damage... I wonder if maybe there's some random disease that only gets shrimp if they're stressed? I dunno.
As for your musing a few pages back, wondering if the Kraken was hitting the powerhead to make it work again, I was thinking that over...
I doubt that he was thinking "Oh, this isn't working, maybe if I hit it a few times it'll start working."
However... I have a pistol shrimp who seems to be smart, and that kind of got me thinking.
Maybe he'd sort of registered the powerhead as being good, as providing water movement, and then he noticed that it was no longer doing what it was supposed to. Maybe he then wanted to make it do its job?
I'm picturing a train of thoughts (probably more like images and instincts, the way I suppose most animals think) something like this:
Thing makes current. Good.
No current?
Thing not making current.
Bad.
And, being a smart creature, he responded to this in the only way a mantis knows how to respond to something not good; by hitting it.
Yeah, that does sound a lot like you were wondering, but I'm picturing it with pretty much no actual thought, just a string of- I suppose you could say ideas? I'm not really sure how to accurately put this into words...
That or it did that twitching thing powerheads do and it got his attention, so he decided to club it a few times.
Um... Not to be rude, but... Why do you spell 'right' as 'rite'?
I've lost a couple of shrimp like that, but they were just cleaners, not big fat mantises. No water quality issues, no noticeable damage... I wonder if maybe there's some random disease that only gets shrimp if they're stressed? I dunno.
As for your musing a few pages back, wondering if the Kraken was hitting the powerhead to make it work again, I was thinking that over...
I doubt that he was thinking "Oh, this isn't working, maybe if I hit it a few times it'll start working."
However... I have a pistol shrimp who seems to be smart, and that kind of got me thinking.
Maybe he'd sort of registered the powerhead as being good, as providing water movement, and then he noticed that it was no longer doing what it was supposed to. Maybe he then wanted to make it do its job?
I'm picturing a train of thoughts (probably more like images and instincts, the way I suppose most animals think) something like this:
Thing makes current. Good.
No current?
Thing not making current.
Bad.
And, being a smart creature, he responded to this in the only way a mantis knows how to respond to something not good; by hitting it.
Yeah, that does sound a lot like you were wondering, but I'm picturing it with pretty much no actual thought, just a string of- I suppose you could say ideas? I'm not really sure how to accurately put this into words...
That or it did that twitching thing powerheads do and it got his attention, so he decided to club it a few times.
Um... Not to be rude, but... Why do you spell 'right' as 'rite'?
Last edited:
Kharn
MANTISMAN
I reall y have no idea
...This is what I was trying to describe back then...as if the animal knew something was wrong, sharks investigate things by "biting".
I cuport publik edukasion :hmm5:
H.reidi.MN
New member
Rite
Kharn
MANTISMAN
:frog:
Well hopefully the chunky one is doing good
As I said earlier I'm not going to get an O.scyllarus soon...I need to or rather want to get certain things out of the way most notably..
- Sump Upgrades
- O.scyllarus/Large Smasher Compartment Aquascaping/DIY PVC Fake Wall Burrows.
Then I'll look into them if I don't have something else by then that suddenly popped up.
Kharn
MANTISMAN
I'm still awaiting the call that one of my collectors have found something unique like H.australiensis
.Ever heard of pistol shrimp? They work a little like mantises; they snap this massively powerful claw shut and it works like a sonic weapon. A smallish one, say 2", feels like getting hit with a big rubber band. It hurts! A bigger one can kill things.
Let's say we put a 2" pistol shrimp up against a 2" smasher mantis shrimp, open field, no terrain advantage for either... Which one do you think would win? What if it was a stabber mantis?
What about snowflake moray vs. smasher? Stabber?
Foot-long shark baby vs. large smasher?
I don't plan on trying any of these... It's just curiosity, and I figure that since there are plenty of mantis people on this thread, I might get some fairly accurate answers.
Let's say we put a 2" pistol shrimp up against a 2" smasher mantis shrimp, open field, no terrain advantage for either... Which one do you think would win? What if it was a stabber mantis?
What about snowflake moray vs. smasher? Stabber?
Foot-long shark baby vs. large smasher?
I don't plan on trying any of these... It's just curiosity, and I figure that since there are plenty of mantis people on this thread, I might get some fairly accurate answers.
Similar threads
