Reef Discussion

[camillo]

i think i just saw a mantis shrimp in my tank..but it was in the darkest area of my tank and i can't be sure if it was a mantis shrimp or just one of my peppermints..it was really hard to get a good look..and to make it worse, my peppermint shrimp was in the same cave, so it made it really hard for me to make sense of what i was looking at...thing is this, my fire goby was swimming right in front and looking straight at what i think could be the mantis shrimp. wouldn't the mantis of taken that chance to pounce at it?...and what the hell should i do about this problem cause its really given me quiet the anxiety attack.

 

[ifishnow]

Sounds like one of your peppys...You will notice a swaying movement and a bit of a glowing stripe when you look front on.

 

[blueblooded]

it think it would of been one of your peps because you wouldnt have any peps if you had a mantis after keeping one in a tank they love shrimps :D

 

[Kharn]

Hard to tell until you physically see it and know what you are seeing.

Pistol shrimps and Mantis Shrimps make next to identical noises...

Mantis shrimps are NOT the machines of death destruction and mayhem people make them out too be....having said that they are capable of extreme destruction! Each mantis has its own personality, if it IS a mantis shrimp you likely have a smasher as its rare to get spearers as hitch hikers being sand dwelling stomatpods, IF there is a mantis shrimp and because of the high chance it will be a smasher, your fish are "virtually" safe, it is very rare for a smasher to actively hunt down a fish because they lack (for the better part) the required tools to kill fish, in short the smasher knows what his "weapons" are good against so any hard bodied critters like molluscs / crustaceans will be the first things you start to see disappear.

Mantis shrimps are extremely intelligent, so it WILL figure out your "routine" when you feed fish, when the lights go out, when the lights come on, more importantly are the fact that they are extremely hardy and will survive off the small bits of food that your other inhabitants do not eat / float into the rocks, once it understand when lights out are if it is hungry enough it will start to hunt at night and THEN pick off your fish while they sleep.

Would it not be so easy and KOOL to be able to do what those asians do with birds and fishing, where by the asian ties a rope around the birds neck, then when he releases the bird into the water it would "duck dive" catch fish but be unable to swallow them because of the rope and hence well catch fish for the fisherman! Recreate that with a rope around a larger mantis shrimp so you can at least get it back out quickly while it hunts down the smaller mantis you want out of the tank! LOL

To catch a mantis you must first BECOME the mantis =) because if there is ONE thing in a tank mantis shrimps will not tolerate...its another mantis shrimp!

Hope this helps...

 

[MTG]

Very interesting advice. So in other words he needs a huge mantis on a leash. Sounds like fun :)

 

[Dr. Schell]

you will find that a "smasher" mantis will make several clicks in quick sucession. A pistol shrimp will make one/2 clicks then rest. Then repeat. If it is a smasher mantis, only your cuc will be at risk, your fish will generally be safe. In relation to your mantis killing a mantis. Research indicates that the biggest threat to mantis shrimp is indeed PISTOL shrimp. Resident Pistol shrimp will quickly attack and very quickly KILL any mantis shrimp that they encounter, even shrimp larger than themselves.

 

[Kharn]

It's weird how a mantis can tackle an octopus much larger then itself but when it crosses another shrimp and only half the mantis shrimps size it gets its butt kicked!

I was reading an article in CORAL magazine about mantis shrimps and an author put a Peacock mantis in his aquarium to see how it would go, there were many other things in the tank too including fish corals inverts etc. However as soon as the mantis went for cover out came the pistol shrimp and followed the mantis rite into the hole that is went down, then after a few clicking noises the author assumed the pistol dead but out came the pistol shrimp unharmed yet no sight of the mantis....he came back later and found it dead on the surface of the tank ='[ as he went to extract it from the tank it "disintegrated"...

Pistol shrimps pack power.... equal to that of the SUN!

 

[Dr. Schell]

not wierd, just an evolutionary arms race :-)
Mantis shrimp have to contact their prey, pistols don't - they stun with a pulse of heat! When you think that they inhabit the same areas, and that pistons are generally smaller than mantis shrimp, it is not surprising that they can and do defend them selves and their territories

 

[Jarryd]

very cool!