New Mantis Behavior Question

[LotsaTanks]

I just got a new peacock mantis yesterday. He is a big one at 7.5 inches long. I've never had one but couldn't pass on the opportunity when I saw this really nice one.

The question is: He lays on his back and side quite a bit waving his legs in the air. Is he ill or this is normal? When I come in to check on him he gets up and runs to the edge of his tube and looks at me so he is active. He ate part of a cube of trigger formula last night and is snacking on a raw in shell shrimp, so he is eating. His tank is 60 gallons (my frag tank) with a 4" PVC tube system I made as a burrow with some sand and rock rubble for him to move around. He isn't interested in moving the sand or rocks, though, and I thought they were supposed to move these into their burrow. I have an established 240 gallon reef tank, sump, and refugium hooked up so it's plenty of water volume...not sure if this behavior is normal for these guys.

 

[Canarygirl]

maybe he's playing "possum."

(I know nothing except that I'm leary of those guys...)

 

[Opcn]

He is stressed from the move, Mantis are odd, they can be in a hole in some rock out of the water for a week and then go through an amonia hell in the curing process, and then be moved to a tank with slightly different parameters and die because it happened at the wrong time.He will probably survive, good luck.

 

[justinl]

i dont think its anything really serious to worry about. if the mantis is curled up and not able to right itself, then i theres a major problem.

if you want you can cut the lights for 24 hours and stop checking up on it every five minutes. that will help it get more comfortable in the new tank. like opcn said, its probably a bit stressed from the move.

it will most likely start moving stuff around and making its burrow eventually. leave the rubble for now at least so its there when the mantis wants it.

 

[LotsaTanks]

Thanks for the input. He seems to be okay today. I left the lights out and just turned them on this morning. I'll leave the rock and sand where it is so he can sort through it when he is ready. I didn't know these had so much personality, my family who is only minimally interested in the reef even likes to watch him. When I check on him every couple hours (not 5 mins anymore ) he runs over and looks at me through the acrylic. I gave him part of a silverside and he really didn't like it- he almost attacked it and shoved it out of his burrow and moved it further away from his home when it drifted back in pushing sand over it so it would stay out of his tube. I think it's pretty clear he didn't like that! So far the shrimp seemed to be his favorite food.

 

[Gonodactylus]

Measured from the tip of the eyes to the tip of the telson, there has never been an O. scyllarus recorded this large. The largest one I'm aware of was 171 mm, just under 7 inches.

I'm not trying to be picky on this point. Mantis owners frequently overestimate the size of their animals including the antennules in the length. If someone does come up with a large animal, it will be useful in augmenting the species description.

Roy