Reef Discussion

[Kharn]

G'day

I'm a member of a couple of other forums and now hope to be apart of this community forum as well =) I was recommended here by 2 different members of this site, so I thought it high time that I make my entrance and myself known, as the titles says I am a devoted keeper of the stomatopod (mantis shrimps) and at the moment I currently house 4 stomatopods 3 different species.

Overall layout

2 of these stomatopods came from a member on here which I thank him greatly for as they have proved to be GREAT inter-active, active animals., these are a pair of G.smithii whom I have aptly named Adam(1inch Long) & Eve(2inch Long) because they live together so peacefully!

Adam Left & Eve Right - G.smithii


Another inhabitant of mine is Rocky the G.graphurus, I called him Rocky because of the 4 stomatopods I own THIS little guy is the most aggressive and fearless of the lot, boldly displays his appendages along with never darting off for cover when startled like the G.smithii pair sometimes, Rocky is very bold.

Rocky - G.graphurus


My last and most prized stomatopod is a Giant amongst its kind...he is a Lysiosquillina Maculata whom I have named Morgoth he is 6inchs long and 2inchs wide and strikes like LIGHTNING, I stated above that Rocky is the most fearless and aggressive guy I have which is true...but I am still more inclined to place my hand in Rockys tank as opposed to Morgoths....

Morgoth - L.maculata


Morgoth - Feeding 01

Morgoth - Feeding 02

Morgoth - Tries to catch a fish!

I have various other pics and videos of the smaller stomatopods being fed but due to there size it is no where near as "dramatic" as Morgoth. Any questions just give me a shout and I'll respond =)

Cheers
Merry Christmas!

 

[Agent M]

:welcome Kharn! Great vids - I love how you can only see his eyes above the sand while he susses everything out - Morgoth is a great name too, suits him! That is one serious sand bed you have there - have you seen any benefits to your water quality from having it that deep? Obviously it is there for the mantis shrimp burrow but was wondering :)

 

[brendore]

I love that tank as your main display.. Long wide and shallow.. What's it's dimensions?
Oh and :welcome

 

[Kharn]

:welcome Kharn! Great vids - I love how you can only see his eyes above the sand while he susses everything out - Morgoth is a great name too, suits him! That is one serious sand bed you have there - have you seen any benefits to your water quality from having it that deep? Obviously it is there for the mantis shrimp burrow but was wondering :)

G'day Megan I am glad you like my setup as far as the sand bed goes lets just say that I have had the tank up and running for only 3months now so I can't really notice much having said that I have NVR had a spike of anything yet (knocks on wood)

 

[Kharn]

I love that tank as your main display.. Long wide and shallow.. What's it's dimensions?
Oh and :welcome

G'day Brendore glad you like my setup =) the tank is basically 50% sand 50% water and the dimensions are 120cm L x 45cm W x 45cm H

I want to go MUCH bigger for my next setup though =)

 

[Synodontis]

:welcome Hi Kharn,

Cool looking critter's you have!

 

[brendore]

So thats why it looks like it's wider than high ;)

 

[Kharn]

:welcome Hi Kharn,

Cool looking critter's you have!

Thanks for the comment and viewing =)

 

[Kharn]

So thats why it looks like it's wider than high ;)

Yeah the sand bed is quite extreme...there is around 300-400KG's of sand alone in the tank...

 

[MTG]

Could that sand bed to deep ? What coarse is that substrate ? How how deep is it ? Interesting setup ! I would have thought the large mantis would have given all the fish a few dramas , :welcome

 

[Dr. Schell]

Glad to see the 2 smithii went to a good home. They are beuatiful individuals of a great species and will breed readily for you once they mature.

 

[Kharn]

Could that sand bed to deep ? What coarse is that substrate ? How how deep is it ? Interesting setup ! I would have thought the large mantis would have given all the fish a few dramas , :welcome

I have not had a problem with this large sand bed as of yet...the sand bed is broken down into 3 grains see the picture I made a while a go for details since you are not the first to ask me this question =)



It is an interesting setup =D mostly because of the large mantis within =) however the fish are in there as intended "prey" except for the scopas tang (which is doing fine) I bought this for a friend of mine whom no longer wanted it after I made the purchase...however the scopas is a great cleaner! Munching away at algae like no tomorrow!

To give you an idea...there WERE 6 Anthias in there (all gone) WERE 6 Humbugs in there (2 gone) WERE 2 Large Chromii in there (1 gone), so Morgoth is certainly picking them off, no bodies, no jumpers/floaters etc. I have found 1 1/2 eaten corpse of an Anthia where the last 1/2 of the fish was eat along with the frontal 1/2 of its face, all entrails were missing.

Thanks for your curiosity and questions Matt G

 

[Kharn]

Glad to see the 2 smithii went to a good home. They are beuatiful individuals of a great species and will breed readily for you once they mature.

Soon there going to an even BETTER home! Albeit still within my ownership, in short I am upgrading there setup and because of there overall size its not a difficult task (will be plumbed into overall setup).

Thanks again for the lil critters Dr_schell make sure to keep me in mind for the future mate!

 

[MTG]

Thanks for the break down. That's good you mixed u substrate often a sand bed that deep just with sand will turn toxic. Do you like the look of the deep sand bed or are you using it morge for the purposes of a "dsb"?

 

[Kharn]

Thanks for the break down. That's good you mixed u substrate often a sand bed that deep just with sand will turn toxic. Do you like the look of the deep sand bed or are you using it morge for the purposes of a "dsb"?

I like the look of the DSB because Morgoth has burrowed along the front of the tank hence creating great viewing from the outside into his "lair" =) the main aspect of the DSB is to provide for the Large Mantis to live in before anything else.

 

[Kharn]

Rocky Flashing - Gonodactylaceus Graphurus

My male G.graphurus "Rocky" smiling for the camera =)





Hope you like them, I know he likes to perform for the camera!

More to come (Morgoth is in hibernation mode -_- lazy bastard...)

 

[MTG]

bring on more pics!

 

[Kharn]

For Morgoth, his burrow is closed over at the entrance and he has blocked all the windows of his tunnel that allowed me to view inside it these traits mixed with the fact that no fish are missing hence he hasn't eaten means he may be or may have molted/molting!

As for Eve the Female G.smithii she has just finished a successful molt and is currently in recovery mode so I do not want to stress her out too much, I am just glad she made it through it....

From my experience and from what I have read on molting, the smaller mantis shrimp species are swifter with the whole molting process including recovery (think G.smithii), the larger mantis shrimp species are slower with the whole molting process including recovery (think L.maculata), however....smaller mantis shrimps have a higher death ratio during molts compared to the larger species.

 

[Kharn]

Hello all

To go with the recent pics of Rocky, later on today I happened to browse in the tank as I do all the time (not looking for Morgoth expecting him to be deep in the sand) but rather staring at my many corals and checking the filter skimmer etc etc.

Then I saw the eyes! Morgoth had his eyes just above the sand bed which gave me the opportunity to get a picture of them up close!

Deception - Like this he doesn't look very big.....
[Broken External Image]:[URL]http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/974/morgothpeeking.jpg[/URL]

Hope you like!

 

[Dr. Schell]

very nice and a great/interesting species. please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this species form monogonomus pairs in nature, with both individuals living in the same burrow (males catching food for the family and the female raising the young). noce photo, you can see how fish don't notice them !