Starving a Mantis

[ejmeier]

I am about ready to give up.

I have lost so many fish, and they have just disappeared. I never seem to find any carcase, they are there one day, and the next they are gone.

I never hear any clicks or anything like that, and all of my snails and crabs are doing fine.

From these symptoms, I now suspect that I have a spearer mantis of some sort. I have tried various Mantis traps, but they haven't worked yet. I don't really want to mess around with these things anyway, as it just doesn't make sense to me why a spearer who catches live/swimming prey would wander into some tiny "cave" filled with rotting food.

My question is: do you think that I can just starve this mantis to death? I don't really want to add anymore fish as they would most likely die. So, I'm prepared to just wait this thing out - sort of like a case of marine ich. Just let the tank go fallow for a few months.

What do you guys think?

My main questions are:

1. Will this actually work? Will he truly starve to death, or will he begin eating other things in my tank to sustain himself like 'pods or worms?

2. What can I feed to the corals that will not nourish the mantis shrimp? I was thinking of DTs and possilby Cyclop-eeze, but I'm not 100% sure as to what the mantis would try to eat.

3. How will I know that he is dead? Will he come out of his cave/holdup and be visible, or will he just vanish without a trace? This could increase the degree of guesswork involved.

If anybody can help me with any of these questions, it would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[porky]

Man oh man those suckers are smart. I would think that the manty would resort to eating other stuff to sustain itself. It may start going after some of the other stuff it hasn't bothered yet like the snails and crabs etc. If you have not seen the thing it will be harder. Have you tried looking around the tank @night with a flashlight that has a red lens or red tape over the light? If you can't see the sucker it will harder to catch.
I have had the best success with locating the rock the mantis is in and then flushing it or poking it or what have you out of that rock!
Good luck!

 

[bkwudzjeep]

I have had the best success with locating the rock the mantis is in and then flushing it or poking it or what have you out of that rock!

Me too....find out where he likes to hang out, take the rock out and focus on that area ( I even flushed one out with freshwater with a target squirt from a turkey baster). They can hide in a hole and cover it up to look like its the rock too.....these suckers are REALLY smart!
When I had the rock out, I filled a sterile spray bottle of tank water to keep every wet, and I had no die off/spike with the rock out for an hour.

 

[ejmeier]

I have a central rock structure with the LR tethered to PVC pipe using tie-wraps - making it impossible to remove any of the rocks.

I have no idea where he is located, just that it is probably somewhere within the central pile of rocks. I have a few neon gobies and small shrimp (4 sexy shrimp and one fire shrimp) that are still alive, and I think this is mainly because just by chance these are the ones that do not "hang out" in this rock structure.

Anyway, this PVC/LR structure is pretty deep, with tons of crevices and such that I would never be able to reach...

I'm prepared to lose pretty much all non-sessile animals in the tank if it means finally getting rid of this hidden predator. I would doubt they could survive on amphipods, could they?

 

[ksrinlv]

I've seen my mantis eat pods... sorry!

 

[ejmeier]

Was it a smasher or a spearer?

 

[COreefer]

The Mantis theory in this case is purely hypothetical. You havenb't seen or heard a mantis so how are you so sure that he is there? Sounds to me like you have a fish disease of some sort. Fish are dying but not inverts? The mantis will eat what he has to to survive. I think that you need to look at other explainations first though...

 

[ejmeier]

Why I think there is a spearer mantis in my tank:

1. I have lost two flame angelfish (added at different times) and also two firefish. Now maybe there was a reason for the loss of the flame angelfish, I'll admit that. But as for the firefish, they were, as far as I know, healthy for about a month, then one day simply vanished. I also noticed that a few days before one of them vanished, he took up residence in my central rock structure (where I suspect the mantis of living) instead of his usual cave off to the side of the tank. Only a few days after moving, he was gone. I never found any corpses of any of these fish, which I find odd because usually there is a swarm of hermit crabs when something dies.

2. I don't suspect a fish disease because I DO have some healthy fish in my tank, and the only connection I can see as to their survival is where they "hang-out" and sleep.

3. I did find the remains of a weird blue-green molt that appeared to be a bunch of shrimp legs and a carapace. This was many months ago, maybe back in June or July??? I still to this day have no idea what that thing was, but some have suggested a mantis shrimp. This was in my old tank, yet I reused almost all of the LR for my current tank.

I just wish I had x-ray vision or something to see if I do have a mantis shrimp, and where in the world my fish went!

 

[ejmeier]

OK, sorry I blew up....

I just looked into my internal overflow and found a firefish and a neon goby! I have no idea how they got there, but I may have found my culprit.... I hope.

Boy do I feel dumb...