N.wennera questions

[BrianPlankis]

Hey all,

I have TBS rock in my tank, and yes I had 5 mantis. The first four were not very bright and I caught them easily. However, the last one is extremely good at hiding and escaping capture. I've twice had the rock I KNEW he was in out of the tank and hot FW, cold FW, seltzer water, etc would not bring it out.

I reaquascaped (partially in an attempt to capture it) this weekend and just as I was bringing his home rock out for another FW treatment it dove off the rock and scurried into the rock pile in the tank.

I'm going to try a couple of mantis traps, but I'm probably looking at months of gaining its trust. I have trochus, turbo and cerith snails in the tank and it appears to ignore them, only a couple of trochus have turned up dead. I used to have a stomatella population but only see a couple in my sump, so it might be eating those.

My questions are:

1. What is the best bait to try to capture a N.wennera?

2. If I can't capture this guy, is it a danger to any of the following livestock?

2 percula clowns
1 cleaner shrimp
1 scooter blenny
1-2 dottybacks

I'm beginning to think of letting it live peacefully in the tank unless it kills fish or shrimp. I've only spotted it twice and it is pretty and very cool to have it watch me.

Brian

 

[rwhhunt]

the cleaner shrimp may be the only questionable specimen...however mine lives in a 5 with a dartfish, two emarld crabs, snails, and hermits... 3 months with no causalities yet..

 

[BrianPlankis]

Thanks for the reply. Anyone know the best bait to try to lure them out? Shrimp, squid?

B.

 

[Hutton]

i would say shrimp, my smithii loves frozen shrimp, maybe some clam meat?

 

[dbrooks1440]

I read some place that shrimp soaked in garlic sauce will do the job.

 

[Thurge]

The shrimp are a toss up. My N.wenn is living with a pair of Peppermint shrimp, that were intended to take care of aptasia, and be munched on. 4 months later, of the 4 I started with, 2 were lost to a lion fish.
The mantis leaves larger Turbo snails alone but will pick off smaller Ceirth, Nassarius, Astrae ect. are fair game. Same with Hermits unless they are inhabiting the strongest of shells.
Your clowns should be OK. I have two pairs of Damsels in my tank, with no problems. The Dottybacks could prove to be detrimential to the mantis, as some of them are reported to munch small mantis.
The blenny though is probably a "meal on the hoof'. I tried a Yellow Watchman Gobie, and within 24 hours it was a meal.