A Mantis Reef?

[Aulonocara]

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on keeping a mantis shrimp intentionally in a reef tank. I've been told they wont harm corals, and I dont have any fish in the tank as of now anyway. I wouldn't mind sacrificing my few snails and hermits (which dont do a ton anyway) for the sake of having a cool mantis to feed every few days.

 

Every article I've found about mantis shrimp and reefs only deals with getting them OUT, not putting them IN. Thanks for the input..

 

 

Ryan

[SbCaes]

I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on keeping a mantis shrimp intentionally in a reef tank. I've been told they wont harm corals, and I dont have any fish in the tank as of now anyway. I wouldn't mind sacrificing my few snails and hermits (which dont do a ton anyway) for the sake of having a cool mantis to feed every few days.

 

Every article I've found about mantis shrimp and reefs only deals with getting them OUT, not putting them IN. Thanks for the input..

Ryan

 

 

Yes you could but remmeber you will never have, any of the hermits. cuc, crabs, cleaner shrimp, fish. EVER.

 

 

if you decide to go ahead you should be fine. but remember this is a heavy trade off. no snails... nothing...

 

 

Heres a basic overview of them:

 

they are very hardy animals and if you do decide to go with one. do it in a nano.

easier to see. =) and easier to clean.

 

suggestions for one... maybe a peacock mantis =) very pretty.

 

now wrtiing this is making me wan tto start a mini tank jsut for one... sigh.. but i wish i could house them with my yasha and firefish....

 

 

you coudl try to get yourself a supply of stomatella snails

they reproduce like crazy and hopefully not slower than your shrimp eats. and you maybe notice with a reef tank he may not come out often. as hell be in the rockwork often. and will have the shells and leftovers hanging out by his cave. just a heads up.

[justinl]

here ya go, my own mantis reef.

 

 

I would also encourage you to do this in a nano. that will lessen the temptation of putting fish in (which can be done but is quite risky, depending on the fish) and will allow the mantis to be more sociable.

 

one risk a mantis might pose to a reef is to frags. mantids will spontaneously go into a sort of home renovation mode. at this time smaller frags may be in danger of being used in the mantis' burrow. so make sure your frags (at least ones smaller than or the same size as the mantis) are attached to or glued to something the mantis cant move.

 

peacocks are not reef safe. for your purposes, i would suggest N. wennerae. they stay small enough that they wouldnt pose any threat to a reef tank, are colouful, are super hardy and super interactive. best of all, you dont have to go through all the muck of figuring out how to ID mantids because they are easily obtained from tampabaysaltwater.com. they're 10$ or 50$ shipped to your door.

 

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/cr...name=n_wennerae

[ENraged]

I am in the final stages of setting up my Mantis tank now and have plans on putting a Pseudosquilla ciliata in mine.

AS to clean up crew most of what i have been reading points to picking larger then you mantis shrimp can destroy and even that is a temp fix cause once they do grow larger enough the gloves will come off lol

[spanko]

A little off subject but I saw a program on the travel channel last night called Bizarre Foods and the guy was in Vietnam and was eating what he called Mantis Prawns. Huge mantis all cooked up and ready to eat. He said they were sweet like lobster but with the texture of crab meat.

 

Sorry, back to the tank build now.

[Hail_Ceasar]

I have a mantis reef in a 5 gallon mini bow. I feed him hermit crabs wich he only eats mabe one or two a week.

As for fish i put a blue damsel in there pretty much to watch him get eaten. Well that was 3 months ago and the he's still in there. The mantis has never shown any interest in him.

[Danno87]

A little off subject but I saw a program on the travel channel last night called Bizarre Foods and the guy was in Vietnam and was eating what he called Mantis Prawns. Huge mantis all cooked up and ready to eat. He said they were sweet like lobster but with the texture of crab meat.

 

Sorry, back to the tank build now.

 

Dude I saw that . I think that was Andrew Zimmerman or whatever his name was.

 

Personally I would leave the ground area of the tank coral free and then elevate the corals on some nice tall pieces of live rock.

[ENraged]

I have a mantis reef in a 5 gallon mini bow. I feed him hermit crabs wich he only eats mabe one or two a week.

As for fish i put a blue damsel in there pretty much to watch him get eaten. Well that was 3 months ago and the he's still in there. The mantis has never shown any interest in him.

 

My smithii took a few whacks at the 4 stripe damsel i put in the tank but he is still to little to really put whooping on it so the damsel will be going to my spearfisher tank soon