P. ciliata pics and tank setup

[medellia]

here are some pics of the ciliata that a friend gave to me on Sunday. she is a gorgeous yellow color, and is really active, cruising around and starting to burrow.

here she is in her new 12 gal nano-cube--

 

[deboM3]

Dude i sware you have the coolest mantis tanks i have ever seen. Very nice setup and mantis! I love my P. Ciliata.

 

[medellia]

thanks! it has been really fun to design these tanks. i like trying to make each one unique. sometimes i wonder if i am more addicted to mantids or soft corals, but either way they both seem to feed off each other either i get more corals than i have room for and have to set up a new tank to fit them in, or i get a new mantis and then feel obligated to fill the tank with corals!

i try to make their homes as interesting as possible, both for me and them. i think my problem is that sometimes i think i get too carried away and give them too many great hiding places--then i never see them oh well...the things we do for stomatopods...

i had originally planned on setting up a shallow-water coastal type tank for a ciliata, mainly aquascaped with different kinds of marine plants (caulerpa, halimeda, mangroves, etc). but i got this one unexpectedly, so she went into my main reef tank. she seems to like it in there so far, and has built quite the burrow already. who knows, i may eventually set up a coastal type tank to move her into...