I think I have a mantis Please help.

[lumpo47]

Hi All,

 

I'm new to this site but its so far been very interesting and helpful, here is my problem:

 

I got a 35litre nano.

6kg live rock

various soft corals xenia, star polyps etc

1 x common clown

1 x firefish

1 x royal gramma

1 x blue leg hermit

1 x red leg hermit

3 x small algae eating hermit

1 x cleaner shrimp

 

I've just found one of my small hermit shells empty with holes in the top!!! also now getting infamous clicking noise...

 

I'm presuming some kind of mantis so......

 

1. any ideas on how to locate the offender

2. how to get rid, preferably without killing him and or ripping my tank apart

 

any help gratefully appreciated

[malawian]

might try trapping it (theyre kind of tricky though). I recommend coming to your tank at night to see if you can discover the hiding place of the mantis which will give you an idea of how you can get rid of it. if it lives in a rock you can remove the rock from the tank and try to get him to come out in a closed environment.

 

others with specific experience with mantises can probably help more.

[metrokat]

lumpo, I would start by editing the heading of your post to "I think I have a mantis, please help"

[DIstudio]

+1 to Metrokat

 

 

trapping it would be a good way to find out for sure, google water bottle fish traps and you'll find what your looking for.

[lumpo47]

Hi again,

 

thanx for all the advice... I have since spotted the offender hiding in my mushroom colony, it was a small pistol shrimp.

 

I managed to remove him and took him to my LFS. Luckily he was hiding in an easily removable Rock.

 

Not sure this shrimp could have killed my hermit it was very small.. white with red claws... noisy bugger though kept me awake at night.

 

All i have to do now is catch the peppermint shrimp i put in who has preceded to demolish my feather duster colony and most of my yellow polyps..... ahh the joys. LOL

 

Anywhoo thanx again