Newly discovered mantis

[Chriss68]

He's tiny, maybe 1 cm. I've put a bottle trap in the tank. Will any of my other creatures get trapped? And at that small size what damage can he do. I just added some scarlet reef hermits to a population of 3 mexican turbo snails, 1 blood shrimp, sand sifting star and a new discovery of a very tiny starfish (looks like a brittle). Don't want anyone to get hurt . I'd also be interested in learning about a mantis only tank. My husband loves the more aggressive creatures and I thought he might enjoy a mantis only setup.

[newbiecarlz]

i just caught mine the other day by isolating which rock he was in, removing it from the tank and squirting fresh water down the hole. it didnt work first time, took me a while but i caught him in the end.

 

apparently they are quite easy to keep, just need some circulation and a place to hide, but im not 100% on the details.

[Raindogg]

I never had any luck using either a bottle or an X-terminator trap...but I only used it for a week and then lost patience. I ended up pulling the rocks in my tank till I found him (of course in the last rock) and fushed him out with soda water. He ended up dying, probably a result of the soda water, but it did no real harm to the liverock as far as I can tell. If you have a more established tank, this may be an less attractive option, but I was still cycling mine (abit late in the cycle) so this wasn't an issue.

 

One of the concerns I had about the trap was the bait. A small piece of shrimp can get real rank overnight, and I was worried about the impact on a small tank.