peacock preparing to molt?

[hilary22677]

hey everyone!

i've had a 5" peacock mantis for about 8 months. it molted right when i got it and hasn't molted since

it refused some krill i fed to it around monday or so, and so i did a partial water change. after the water change it started freaking out and it looked like it was trying to escape the tank and was swimming around alot, and kinda twitching for the next few minutes

i now realized that it was probably going to molt soon. did some more reading on it and stumbled across this forum, where i read the "So how long will it take for my stomatopod to molt and what is it doing?" topic at the top of this page

so i'm guessing the partial water changed probably irritated it. :twitch: i have kept up on feeding it hermit crabs and snails so it could keep its smashers in shape, probably about once a month or so.

it's been about 5 days now and he has just been hiding in his cave. i can see in there pretty good and it doesn't appear to have molted yet, no signs of a buried molt either.

should it have molted by now or did i possibly screw up by doing the water change?

 

[Gonodactylus]

The water change, if the animal was approaching a molt probably didn't help, but unless the salinity was off by a part or two per thousand, it is not likely to be fatal. An animal this large, depending on diet, tank size, etc. should molt at least a couple of time a year If it is a large male, you can usually see a lighter broad stripe appear down the dorsal abdomen. This signals an approaching molt. The stripe is less obvious in females and juveniles.

Roy

 

[hilary22677]

well yesterday i noticed he covered up his main hole in the cave and kinda sealed off the enterance for the most part

and when i looked today, he was peaking out of the cave at me, completely re-opened. looked in the cave and didnt see a molt at all :-/

hard to tell if i see a broad stripe or not. i haven't tried feeding yet though but it seems slightly less reclusive

the water change was about a week ago now. do you think he should have molted by now?

i guess my best bet is to just leave him alone at this point either way i suppose...

 

[ladyonyx]

Leaving them alone is usually the best thing you can do. How quickly and/or succesfully they molt depends on a variety of WQ parameters, so for now just wait it out and see what happens. He should be OK though

 

[hilary22677]

yay i think he molted!

i just never saw the molt. i've been trying to look at the tank, but he is acting normal again. looks brighter in color at least and ate some krill