What fish do you keep with your mantis?

[3Tripnip]

Hello all,

Well, I'm finally going to be setting up my 18 gallon acrylic tanks, and I'm gonna be putting a Peacock Mantis in it... along with some corals and such, of course. Since this tank is a little bigger than the mantis tanks I've had in the past, I thought about adding some fish. What fish do you all put in your smasher mantis tanks? I like the Yasha gobies, but I don't want my mantis to have a $60+ snack. Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

-Ben

BTW, what do you all do for tank cleaners also? Starfish?

 

[jeffbrig]

I have a mantis in my 250g, not by design (he hitched in on my FL LR), but he's proven quite interesting to watch. No fish in the tank yet (the first batch is in QT) but there are several hitchhiking mithrax crabs, plus cerith and astrea snails. Broken shells suggest he's attacked a few cerith snails but that's it so far. I've fed him bits of raw shrimp a few times as well.

I may be crazy, but I haven't made up my mind whether i want to pull this guy out or not. I may take a wait and see approach, but I'd like to hear what others suggest.

Jeff

 

[rwhhunt]

My 6 inch peacock lives happily with a 4 inch allardi clown. They have had no problems, other than some meral spreads and threats (I did see one attack once, but it wasnt a "im gunna eat you attack"; the mantis molted that night) That has been the only issue. When I first introduced the clown, it seemed quite stresed out and skittish, but after changing its diet to a wide variety of emerald entree, formula 2, mysis, garlic, squid, etc, and putting a LTA in there, the Clown couldn't be happier! Very Vibrant colored and will practically eat out of my hand! I also kept damsels in there, but I started with one, and then tried to add more, and the first one would stress out and kill any more that I added... I also keep about 40 reef snails in there as well, for some reason the illynaous snails must taste bad or are too slimy because the only time Boris grabs them is to literally TOSS them out of his burrow! Pretty funny to watch! its kinda like escargot bowling!

 

[gussy]

I have some damsels on one tank. On another tank I even have some small hermits and snails...maybe the they are too small to be bothered with.

 

[ATLDrtybird7]

I have a cinamon clown in with my 5'' peacock. They have been together since February and they dont seem to care at all about eachother. I have even seen the clown swim down into the mantis's hole and nothing happened at all. I thought for sure I was going to see action. Wrong. Anyway, its a combination that seems to be working.

 

[xdusty6920]

my mantis attacks anything dropped in his tank. you name it if i drop it in there he attacks it till its not moving.

 

[SLKs reef]

my spearer is living with a damsel and molly that he doesnt seem to tasty or something...

 

[Willy18T]

I am wondering the same thing. I figured the best thing would be to get a fish that is not a bottum dweller. Something that is a fast swimmer.

I really want to add some color to the tank, i was thinking about a royal gamma, some anthias, or anything else that might be suggested.

BTW my peacock is about 3" long.