New mantis tank setup help

[appleknocker]

I am ready to set up a tank to house a mantis shrimp at my office and am looking for some advice on tank setup.
One, I have 29 gallon and a 45 gallon high glass tanks to choose from. Which would be a better choice or do I need to go acrylic?
Two, How should I setup the substrate and filtration? How much live sand,crushed coral, live rock, fuge, skimmer, external filter?
Three lighting, I have read on here that the peacock's need lower light levels. This is my first choice right now of mantis, so what kind of lights would suit a peacock best. Can I still keep some of the easier to care for low light corals with it or should I try to locate a less light sensitive mantis? I am hoping to find one that is colorful, and very active with a lot of personality.
Anyway, money is not really a concern for this project. So how would you folks go about setting up a great home for a mantis?
Thanks a lot for your help, Allen

 

[rwhhunt]

I have my peacock in a 30 Bowfront, with about 3-4 inches of sand. I buried black pvc with three openings for his burrow, and then specificaly placed large live rock on top of the pvc. Use sand with large chucnks of live rock or gravel with e smasher like a peaock or terntensis; OR use fine substrate like sand for spearers like the ciliatas. I have 130 W powercompact light from coralife, but I usually just use one of the actinic bulbs unless I am trying to get a close look at my mantis. It also cuts down on algae signicantly. The lower light levels with the actinic and the dark pvc burrow will hopefully maintain my mantis's color, he has already molted twice in a smaller tank with brighter environment, and he dulled and changed color pretty dramatically. green -> olive->orange->brownish/olive/orange.... The peacocks seem to have the coolest personality. However I hear the ternatensis is also very cool, and one of the larger mantis. Ask Uriel about these guys, he has several different species. Roy sugggests that if you are keeping one of the larger species (peacock, ternatensis) then acrylic is suggested or at least glass 7-8 mm thick. I have mine in a glass tank the is 1/4 inch glas which is about 6-7mm. If they are going to break their tank, it usualy occurs on the bottom pane when they are trying to deepen their burrow. The PVC and 3-4 inches of sand should prevent him from digging all the way to the glass...I hope... I also don't provoke mine to strike the side of the glass (however, I did when he was in an acrylic when I first got him.) I thought that my tank was rather large for just one occupant, so to add a little movement and color, I put in a couple damsels. One died of natural causes. but the other is doing great, and the peacock doesnt seem to care about it at all. They have been living together for a couple months with no issues, the damsel will swim right in front of the mantis with little to no reaction. so i just ordered a tomato clown to go in as well, I will let you guys know how this works out... Mine also didnt bother my knobby star, (however, it died of a degradation of water quality while i was out of town)So I am getting another one. I am also going to try a pincushion urchin. I have read both ways on these, some have never been bothered, while others are dinner. apparently the peacock does eat urchins in the wild, but for $7 its work a try, plus they are great at eating algea. I alos am throwing in about 10 little hermits, and about 5-10 little trubo snails, for cleanup and dinner. Ill let you know how all these new roomates work out.

 

[appleknocker]

Thanks for the info, it is very helpful. Do you have the pvc pipes all connected together under the sand? It sounds like you have some good ideas for tankmates also. Have you added the clown yet?
This may sound like a crazy idea, but what if I had a piece of plexiglass cut a little smaller than the bottom of the tank and put it in below the substrate for extra protection? Would detritus eventually get under it and cause water quality problems?
Right now my plan is to use the 45 glass tank with live sand and about 40 lbs of live rock, an aquac remora w/ 1200 maxijet skimmer, a titanium heater, a couple of powerheads for water movement. Does anyone have a suggestion for a good light?
Also, let me know if I am making any mistakes in my aquarium setup plan. Thanks, Allen

 

[Qwiv]

I keep my mantis in a small eclipe system. Mantis don't need much more than food to survive.

 

[Gonodactylus]

A glass 30 gal. should be fine for any O. scyllarus under 5 inches.

If you want a smaller smasher with more personality and colors that are just as spectacular, I would suggest Gonodactylus smithii. The color morph with red intersegmental lines coming out of the Philippines is particularly attractive. This species does exceptionally well in an aquarium and since they live in the low intertidal can take bright, broad spectrum lighting. Get your face too close to the glass and they are almost always ready to flash a threat.

Roy

 

[rwhhunt]

Appleknocker, The plexi glass will definatly work, I have heard of many people doing that. The only reason I did not was because when I got the tank it already had the DSB in it, and I didnt want to take it all out or risk having sand stuck up under the plexi. the pvc is one three way piece at 180 degree and 90 degree angles about one foot long. I attached two 90 degree ends to the outer exits and then rotated one 90 degrees such that it is a orthogonal rotation off the others. Here is a picture, I have pointed to the three exits of the tunnel:

the one in the rear he likes the best because it is shaded from the lights and he can get behind the other large towers of LR.

Here is a full tank shot:

I was supposed to get my tomato clown yesterday, but saltwaterfish.com forgot to put it in my order... I did however put a domino damsel in there. I fear for his life and am not sure how long he will survive; NOT bythe peacock, but by my other damsel! He jsut keeps beating him up consistently, I tried to get him out, but he's such a fast little sucker I cant net him....I guess thats why the mantis's dont even bother messing with the damsels... I want to do a tomato clown and a dwarf flame angel or coral beauty. I think that will add some nice color, and give him some company. the damsel and angel would be the same shape and hopefully not be messed with either... I added a pincushion urchin a knobby star yesterday along with about 7 hermits and about 6-7 turbo/astrea snails. The urchin was sitting within two inches right about the the mantis's pvc hole, and the mantis was not interested at all... I know its only the first day, but at least he didn't immediatly recognize it as food. The knobby star I am not worried about because he had a knobby tankmate for several months with no issues. I have a prizm skimmer, its not as good as my remora, but it came with the tank I bought from a friend... I also have two powerheads with wave/tide controls, I have them alternate every thirty seconds. My peacock did smash my glass thermometer last week, and I have a glass heater in there two, I probably should switch it out with a titanium one that I have iin another tank.... My coralife 130 W Powercompact light is nice, I normally just keep the actinic on, and turn the 50/50 when I want to see more detail. I have it on ONE time, BUT it is wired w/ two plugs so you can put a timer on each bulb, I will eventually do this to have dawn/dusk/daytime lighting settings. I am also installing a large unit of moonlights. My peacock is Very active at night, I will through a few ghost shrimp in there before I got to bed, and I will wake up throughout the night to him bashing away at them. If I come home llate and the lights have been off for a while (2-3am) I will almost always find him out ontop of the rocks exploring his castle... I figure the moonlights will at least help me see him better at night, I imagine his complex eyes have no problem getting him around in the dark.

Roy: do mantis have "night vision" or do they rely on the thermal/infrared and UV for gettign around in the dark?

That smithii is BEAUTIFUL! How big do those get, and are they availble in the comercial market? I think uriel has one, but I have never seen them offered...IS that one of the luck of the draws that you find in LR??

 

[Gonodactylus]

G. smithii get to around 3.5 inches. I have had some luck ordering them because of their distinctive purple meral spots. The species is wide-spread and common on most reef flats in the Indo-Pacific. If you walk an exposed reef flat at low tide, the stomatopods you see running around occasionally even crawling out of the water are G. smithii.

The color vision system (mid-band) of gonodactyloids is somewhat less sensitive than the receptors of the rest of the eye. To our knowledge, there is no infrared detection system in stomatopods although I sometimes wonder if they can detect magnetic fields

O. scyllarus is unusual for a gonodactyloid in that they are active at night. Even other odontodactylids such as O. latirostris, O. brevirostris and O. havanensis close up their burrows for the night.

Roy

 

[DensityMan]

Beautiful shot of the G. smithii, Roy!

 

[rwhhunt]

appleknocker: I also used silicon on the ends of the pvc pipe, and attached sand and LR rubble to the tips to make them look more natural, some of the sand and rocks stuck well, but some did fall off, either way, even the opaque silicon looks more antural than sharp pvc pipe. Also, as the pics show I used Black ABS plastic piping rather than white plumbing PVC.

Thanks Dr Roy for the info! What is the purpose of these guys being able to detect UV light??

As far as the Smithii go, where do you order the specimen that you dont collect personally?

 

[Uriel]

(Points above at Density Man)
He's the one with the G. Smithi...though I wish that I could find one.

I have the following, with notes
Some are moving into much larger digs in the next week or so, as I am finally setting up proper shelves for my 350+ gallons of empty tanks.
I keep all of my tanks full of hermits and snails, though i frequently feed the mantis fiddler crabs/ghost shrimp, and of course, thawed shrimp/scallops etc...


Dagon: 3.5-4" O.Scyllarus (Peacock), in a 12 gallon eclipse. Loads of personality, he interacts with my cats (Who like to meow at him through the tank). He throws up thrat displays sometimes, just gets close and takes them in other times. He lives in a pretty barren landscape, having a burrow of LR that he constructed into a 3 openng tunnel,some other large chunks that I left in there to cure/ see if anything would hatch (loads of amphipods), and a Purple-tipped Anemone (Atlantic, the cheap guys that clowns don't like).
Dagon cruises around a lot, searching for whatever he may have missed the last feeding time.


Baba-Yaga: 3.5" Female Gonodactylus Ternatensis, in a 12 gallon Eclipse.
As Dr. Roy has stated, these are being harvested at the expense of large coral heads being destroyed, so their growing availability/popularity is the result of a sad happening. However, I do love mine, and she is frequently my 'favorite', definately the one that I spoil the most with treats. Moves around quite a lot, likes to sit at the tank wall, watching me (she is wandering around right now...)

Glaurung: 3" G. Platysoma in a 6 gallon Eclipse.
many people mention that this beautiful species is too reclusive, but I guess I got lucky and found a mutant. While he does hole up for long molts (2 so far in 5 months or so), when he isn't in a molt, he is very interested in me/the room/the cats etc... He cruises around a lot, though recently the grape caulerpa in his tank has made that less easy. He has taken to trimming it away from his cave opening and looking at me with a 'What the...!?!' expression. I am moving it to a proper rfugium next week.

Lo Pan: 2" Neodactylus Wennerae in a 5 gallon hex Eclipse.
Unlike the powerful Sorcerer after which he is named, Lo Pan is a bit of a scardy-cat,really. He hides in his den most of the time, and when i do catch him outside, he looks at me and scrambles back in...then returns to the opening and throws me a threat display.
I wish he would come out a bit more, but he is still aclimating himself, I'm sure, as i moved him into the 5G after having him in a 1.5g for a few months.

Baron von Munchausen: 2.5-2.75" G. Viridis in a 6 gallon Eclipse.
My first mantis, BvM has gone from semi-adventurous, to a dud...to a madman(tis?) making suicide attacks on the heater/thermometer (he broke that...), to a recluse, to currently 'almost' coming out to play. He is a wierd one, though really fierce when I add live food. An ambush hunter, he doesn't even hesitate to attack fiddler crabs his own size (one was bigger in mass,even...). Lo pan, on-the-other-hand, once ran away from a ghost shrimp half his size... ( :| ).

Freya: 3" G.Chiraga,in a 6 gallon Eclipse.
This mantis was a rescue from a LFS that had grown bored with them, and was feeding them to triggers/ making them fight each other etc...She was very aggressive, popping the LFS worker twice as he was bagging her (Woohoo!), and striking at me on the way home when I pulled her out on the BART (monorail) to get a look at her. She seems really happy to have her own little 6 gallon world now, as she spent at least 3 months in a gallon or so of space at that LFS. Very adventurous when she isn't molting, always rushes out when the magic-food-stick appears.

I have lots of live rock/sand, as well as the eclipse filter, and weekly water changes (today is water-change day, in fact).
Mostly mushroom corals,some polyps, low lighting (Eclipse isn't set up for bright lights), very easy animals to keep happy.

In rating, as far as entertainment value, I would put them like this

O Scyllarus/G. Ternatensis tied at the top
G. Platysoma (remember, mine is apparently a mutant extrovert...)
G Chiraga
N. Wennerae
G. Viridis (though he has his moments)

Hope that this wasn't too long, and may have helped a bit


-Ron

 

[appleknocker]

Thanks for all the great information. I think I would be better off with a G. Smithii than a peacock. Since they are more active in the day and can tolerate brighter lighting. That way I can begin to work on some reefkeeping skills as well. The only problem seems to be locating one.
Dr. Roy, Is the place you order them from for research only or can a petkeeper get one?
If anyone has any leads on a G. Smithii let me know.
Rwhhunt, your tank looks great, thanks for posting the picks. I want to do a similar pvc setup. What size pvc did you use and where did you get it from? Also, are the ghost shrimp you feed freshwater? How long do they live in saltwater? How many do you feed at night?
Uriel, thanks for all the great info on your collection. How does feeding the fiddler crabs work out? Do you guys keep them (fiddlers and ghost shrimp) in a separate tank to acclimate them to salt? If not, do some die off before they get whacked?
Thanks again, Allen

 

[rwhhunt]

The PVC is from Lowes, and I think it is about 2-3 inch diameter. I can only get the freshwater ghost shrimp here, but I do gut pack them cyclopeeze, they seem to last for a while in saltwater, I have never found a dead one. I use the ghost shrimp just to keep him occupied because they are so small and dont provide a lot of food. I will usually throw in two or three, and that seems to keep him occupied for a couple hours at night. He doesnt seem interested in them untill the lights go out. That is why I just bought a 15 led 20" blue moonlight to watch his nightime activities. I have been just turning on the hall light and that seems to not bother him at all. They are so quick I hear him bashing rocks and stuff all night probably missing his mark. I did however once watch one crawl right into his den in front of him and he knocked it a good foot or two like a homerun! I also feed frozen vitamin enriched krill and gulf shrimp soaked in garlic and zoe for his primay diet. He gets a freshwater crayfish that i try to gut pack with either mysis or spectrum about once a month or so.

this guy was the best fight we've seen, he lasted around 15 minutes and actually put up a fight!