Nightwitch
New member
Well, I got my O. havanensis from KP Aquatics (Formerly Sea Life Inc). He arrived this morning, ahead of schedule, looking totally alert and happy in spite of the long flight from balmy Florida to blustery Wisconsin. I was shocked that he was in such good shape considering that it was snowing as I brought the package into my house. I was also given a free Yellow Rod Gorgonian with him. Really beautiful. I know nothing about corals, but I put it on a piece of live rock and I'm hoping for the best.
As for Thor, he's awesome:
So far, I've had 5 different mantis shrimp in my life, including Thor. All the rest were female O. scyllarus. So, he's my first havanensis and my first male. First thing I noticed about him was that he tends to be more inquisitive than every peacock I've owned save one (and I selected her based on her inquisitiveness from a selection of 25 peacocks back when stomatopods.com was still up and running and I lived near their retail store). He's very active and interactive.
He's aggressive, but not in the same way as a peacock. First thing he did in the tank was kill and eat a baby snail I didn't even know was there (less than 5 minutes after finishing acclimation and being added to the tank). Then, he went and explored. I accidentally scared the emerald crab in the tank into the little burrow he was making. Two kicks later, and the emerald crab was running for it, just missing one leg. Thor was content with that. He then killed a small hermit crab and ate that too. So, he seems to be quite aggressive towards small crustaceans and mollusks, but relatively benign towards the big emerald crab and the damselfish that keeps checking him out.
I know I just got him, but he seems to like my tank parameters. Thanks so much to IslandofTiki for that refugium build-along. You weren't kidding about removing a baseball-sized clump a week from that thing, and I definitely think it's helping water quality. Anyway, I highly recommend KP Aquatics and O. havanensis both!
As for Thor, he's awesome:
So far, I've had 5 different mantis shrimp in my life, including Thor. All the rest were female O. scyllarus. So, he's my first havanensis and my first male. First thing I noticed about him was that he tends to be more inquisitive than every peacock I've owned save one (and I selected her based on her inquisitiveness from a selection of 25 peacocks back when stomatopods.com was still up and running and I lived near their retail store). He's very active and interactive.
He's aggressive, but not in the same way as a peacock. First thing he did in the tank was kill and eat a baby snail I didn't even know was there (less than 5 minutes after finishing acclimation and being added to the tank). Then, he went and explored. I accidentally scared the emerald crab in the tank into the little burrow he was making. Two kicks later, and the emerald crab was running for it, just missing one leg. Thor was content with that. He then killed a small hermit crab and ate that too. So, he seems to be quite aggressive towards small crustaceans and mollusks, but relatively benign towards the big emerald crab and the damselfish that keeps checking him out.
I know I just got him, but he seems to like my tank parameters. Thanks so much to IslandofTiki for that refugium build-along. You weren't kidding about removing a baseball-sized clump a week from that thing, and I definitely think it's helping water quality. Anyway, I highly recommend KP Aquatics and O. havanensis both!
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