Nano-Reef adequate?

[duckhuntboy]

I see people in this forum have mantis shrimp in anything from a 6 gallon to a huge reef tank. I am a college student, so my reef tank is a 7 gallon nano, healthy and everything. I just don't understand what the huge tank size for these little guys is all about.

If you have a stable nano-system, no matter what size, wouldn't it be more than adequate for these hardy crustaceans?

I've seen people with fish in a 2.5 gallon with better luck than people with 30 gallon systems. I don't see why putting a mantis in a 5 gallon with LR, etc. would be any less comfortable for him than usual...

Any comments on my thought?

 

[Gonodactylus]

It depends totally on the species and size of the stomatopod that you want to keep. I keep dozens of Neogonodactylus in 2 gal tanks attached to 203 Fluvals and they work great. Put an Ondontodactylus havanensis in the same system and the first time its doesn't eat its food and buries it, the animal will be dead in 12 hours.

In fact, we keep hundreds of our small gonodactylids and lysiosquiloids (under 30 mm) in 8 oz plastic cups. They are fed twice a week and the water is changed 6 hours later.

Something a bit larger like an O. sycllarus requires a bit more room and capacity. You can keep a five inch O. s. in a 6 gal. Nannoreef that is well run in with no problems - until the animal buries its food or molts and buries the molt skin. At reasonably high temperatures (we keep all of our tropical stomatopods at 78), you are flirting with disaster. The system may be able to handle the rotting organic material, but it will be close. If the capacity of the system is not up to speed, you will be in trouble. A 20 gal system is much more forgiving.

I keep most of my O.s in 100 gal tanks - 6 to a tank (with dividers). Even if one dies and we don't find it for a couple of days, the others will be fine. On the other hand, I recently put a couple of Squilla empusa in one of these tanks, one died, and within hours, we lost the other one. The O.S. were fine.

Bottom line - these animals very tremendously with respect to their tolerence. A Gonodactylus chiragra or Neogonodactylus bredini that lives in the intertidal and often spends hours in their rock cavities in the sun with no more than a couple of tablespoons of hot, stagnent water can live in just about any system in the lab. An O. brevirostris that lives at 80 feet in high current areas with clean water washing over a hard coralline algae substrate can't tolerate even the slightest build-up of ammonia or drop in oxygen concentration.

Roy

 

[duckhuntboy]

What species would you recommend to keep in a two gallon tank that I have lying around? (thinking of ease of care, and hardy)

 

[Gonodactylus]

If you can connect it to a decent canister filter and allow it to run in for sufficient time, many of the smaller gonodactylids would work. The toughest are intertidal species such as Gonodactylus chiragra, G. smithii, Neogonodactylus bredini and N. oerstedii. Some small Haptosquillas such as H. glyptocercus also so very well in these systems.

Roy

 

[duckhuntboy]

thanks a lot. I'll do some research to see what is available.