possibly sick mantis?

[jsronce]

My 2" N. wennerae has been lying on his back for the past three days (possibly longer, he's been impossible to find for weeks). He's in the back of the tank, on his back, with his front half partially up, just like a person lying in a recliner.

He looks around and will do a threat display if you tap on the tank next to him, but he either can't or won't get up. He hasn't lost any limbs, and will clean himself and basically behave like a healthy mantis, except that he's flat on his back! The tank has a sand substrate, and there's plenty of rock for him to use to stand up. He shouldn't have any trouble standing up!

Does anyone have ANY idea what's going on?

Jennifer

 

[mantisshrimp]

I don't know why but my does the same thing every ,month or so.

 

[jsronce]

Well, the poor guy didn't make it. He turned over the next day, but was still hunched over, and the day after disappeared. Today I found him under a rock, dead.

I'd still like to know what happened. Did a molt go bad? Some sort of disease? Something else? The isopods and bristleworms and little liverock critters seem to still be fine, and the razor caulerpa is healthy, and there were no problems with the filtration. He'd molted successfully a couple months ago, then moved out of his first hole and started hiding.

Jennifer

 

[word]

my guess would be a bad molt. my clown mantis did a similar thing when he died mid-molt

 

[jsronce]

There must be a link between seasons and molting. Both of my O. scyllarus molted (successfully) this past week. They both molted in April two weeks apart, even though I bought one in December and the other in March. Both tanks get a good view of the outdoors. Just an odd little observation. It was so funny to watch them prepare for it, too - they gave me ample notice. One kicked up all the sand in her tank and started hanging around the back, and the other carefully built walls around most of her cave, then spent hours carefully cutting 2-3" lengths of macroalgae and arranging them to camouflage her front and back entrances. My husband and I sat and watched her climb up, grab a branch in her arms, snap it off with her smashers, climb back down, fussily arrange it with the others, then climb back up to get the next. It was so funny to watch, she _had_ to get every branch in just the perfect spot....

I'm very glad these two girls came through their molts fine. Wish the little one had, too. (BTW, the N. wennerae that died was the one I bought from a LFS months ago, not the tiny one I just got a couple weeks ago.) I'm going to miss the little eyeballs sticking out of his rock.

Jennifer