New mantis setup

Drewl117

New member
So I did a bunch of trading and got a cube tank. 24 X 24 X 19. It has been cycling for almost a week now with 45lbs of dry rock and 35 lbs of aragonite. The tank is drilled and I have a sump and skimmer. I'm wanting to get a mantis for the cube. Is this tank big enough for a peacock or should I be looking for something else? And where is a good place to get 1?

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That's the tank so far... any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!


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Awesome looking tank so far! I see peacocks on liveaquaria divers den from time to time, i think it may be a seasonal thing.

Corn Fed Iowa Bred
 
I would just get on several different web sites and use their email notification option to alert you when they have a mantis in-stock. You may need to be patient if you want a Peacock, everybody wants one of those.

The tank is good, but I recommend a smaller specimen if you have the option. You'll be amazed at how much they roam around and Peacocks can grow to over 6.5" I would also recommend getting a u-shaped PVC pipe for a burrow. The burrow is probably the most important feature of a Peacock tank. The other species will just burrow into the rock or in the sand, but Peacocks are too big to do that effectively in the home aquarium.

I made these videos that have an example of a PVC burrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ejOxSlTQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NNNaiRmtAA

Long, shallow tanks are normally preferred for Peacocks but you can certainly succeed with a cube tank. A lot of mantis shrimp owners have a 40 gallon breeder. But I would say having a decent water volume is most important because you want to maintain stability. IMO, it's pretty tough to run a Peacock tank under 30 gallons although many people successfully run 29G cube tanks.
 
A good friend of mine got 2 clear 90's and a small piece of clear between the 90's buried under the sand and could go under his stand and look at his Mantis. Just an idea.


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I would just get on several different web sites and use their email notification option to alert you when they have a mantis in-stock. You may need to be patient if you want a Peacock, everybody wants one of those.

The tank is good, but I recommend a smaller specimen if you have the option. You'll be amazed at how much they roam around and Peacocks can grow to over 6.5" I would also recommend getting a u-shaped PVC pipe for a burrow. The burrow is probably the most important feature of a Peacock tank. The other species will just burrow into the rock or in the sand, but Peacocks are too big to do that effectively in the home aquarium.

I made these videos that have an example of a PVC burrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ejOxSlTQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NNNaiRmtAA

Long, shallow tanks are normally preferred for Peacocks but you can certainly succeed with a cube tank. A lot of mantis shrimp owners have a 40 gallon breeder. But I would say having a decent water volume is most important because you want to maintain stability. IMO, it's pretty tough to run a Peacock tank under 30 gallons although many people successfully run 29G cube tanks.

Thank you for all the info and great videos! I will go get some pvc and build a burrow for him. Is the U shape the best for them? I think I will start out with a 2" pvc so it can be used for a while. My tank with the sump is about 55 gallons and I also have a nwb110 octopus skimmer in there. Also what temp do you keep the tank at?
Thanks again
 
Is there an easy way to see if a peacock is male or female? I'm going to look at a couple 3" peacocks today.
 
I keep my tank at about 78-79F.

Look just beneath the last pair of legs for two small "sticks" if it is a male. Also many Peacock females seem to be more olive colored while the males are a brighter green. Not sure if it's like that with every specimen though.
 
So I ended up getting a female peacock from an lfs. She's about 4-5 inches and looks very healthy. She went right to work on building a burrow and keeps moving rubble into it. I had a few snails and hermits in the tank and she seems to get 2 a day. There is also a little dottyback in there and they hang out together all the time. It's cool to see them work on the burrow together and they stay in there together at night too! What an amazing creature!
 
Good choice on going for a peacock, will look ace in there. A handful of damsels or a pair of clowns would also be excellent additions in terms of live stock.
Tank looks ace and the flush black cabinet style is my personal favourite. I'm currently building a 48"x24"x18 long wide tank for a peacock and multiple big fish with a flush black stand too :)
 
Thanks, I've always liked the flush look on a stand. I'm loving the mantis too, she's a pig when it comes to snails (I think the dog likes her a little more)!
 
I really should use this site more. The tank I am making will have a 3d background at one end and it will be mounted end on going into the room lengthways. The tank is internally sumped with a central column acting as both space for filtration and also rock work and structure. The 3d background is my interpretation of a shipwreck except it is correctly scaled so it just looks like the Hull of a ship cross sectioned. I have used dead coral pieces to create a dead reef look which I have cemented onto the structure. I'll post all the pictures once I'm done :)
 

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One thing I would add is that you should make a strainer for that overflow, would hate for anything to get stuck in it, curiosity killed the cat :/
 
Drew, that's cool how much your dog seems to like the mantis.

El Gringo, interesting ideas for "aquascaping." Looking forward to seeing how all of that comes together.
 
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