William’s Socially Distant Mantis

[William]

So I have some not great news. It looks like KP Aquatics will not be able to ship my rock in water so I will have a cycle to deal with. Its not the end of the world but I was hoping to avoid it. Currently they are the only Florida live rock supplier that is still shipping,at least as far as I know.  I am also likely changing the Mantis species as well. I plan to now have them ship a Neogonodactylus curacaoensis. This species looks considerably prettier. I had originally dismissed this option based on a sparse species description page on Roy Caldwells UC Berkeley site. However, after doing further research he updated his opinion on the species in 2018 in a post he made on Reef Central. The mantis will live in my sump (in a medium critter keeper) until his home is fully cycled. 

[William]

Everything has shipped 😬. Hopefully the level of death on the rocks won’t be too extreme. I have set up three 5 gallon tubs filled with water from my Waterbox 70:2 (I did a 15 gallon water change and kept the water). All tubs were dosed with 5ML microbacter 7, and they all have heaters and power heads in them. I plan to move 2 gallons out of tub A into a 3 gallon black bucket, and use it for the Initial rinse and clean of each rock. This bucket will have prime (ammonia neutralizer) added to it. After being rinsed the rock will go into tub A (also treated with prime). Once I’m done cleaning all of the rock I will split the rock between Tubs B and C. I have ammonia alert badges on both tubs and will either treat with prime or I will do water changes to keep ammonia as low as possible. If there is a piece with some form of life that is especially promising, or some form of viable life, I will put it in the nano tank after it’s time in tub A. 
 

This rock was harvested from the ocean today, so hopefully it will have a decent amount of life left on it. 
 

 

I obtained a small “critter keeper” and have it mounted in my Waterbox with magnets. The mantis will Be spending its initial days in this setup. This is not ideal,

and was one of the reasons why i tried to get KP Aquatics to ship in water.  If tampabaysaltwater was open I may have gone that route. 
 

 

[William]

Almost 11 and the package is not here yet ...

[Chadicus Meridius]

Nice.

[William]

It ended up getting here at 2 pm. Everything is alive so far. The mantis that was sent is the one that I wanted, which is good. He is currently in his temporary home. The rock had two tiny pencil urchins on it that survived and are now in my display tank. The rock does not appear to

have a huge amount of die off. I will say that this rock does not appear to have the complexity of life on it that the KPA rock I ordered in 2016 did. From my brief look over the rock, i did not see any coral etc on it or any other inverts. 

[William]

So I only used like 2-3 of the 10 lbs that I received, i will add some of the remainder to my main display. The rock that I have left will go I to one of my friends tanks that I’m baby sitting. 
 

I decided to put my MP10 on this tank. I am currently controlling it with the WXM module on the apex on my main tank.  
 

let me know what you think of the scape. 

[billygoat]

19 hours ago, William said:

Everything has shipped 😬. Hopefully the level of death on the rocks won’t be too extreme. I have set up three 5 gallon tubs filled with water from my Waterbox 70:2 (I did a 15 gallon water change and kept the water). All tubs were dosed with 5ML microbacter 7, and they all have heaters and power heads in them. I plan to move 2 gallons out of tub A into a 3 gallon black bucket, and use it for the Initial rinse and clean of each rock. This bucket will have prime (ammonia neutralizer) added to it. After being rinsed the rock will go into tub A (also treated with prime). Once I’m done cleaning all of the rock I will split the rock between Tubs B and C. I have ammonia alert badges on both tubs and will either treat with prime or I will do water changes to keep ammonia as low as possible. If there is a piece with some form of life that is especially promising, or some form of viable life, I will put it in the nano tank after it’s time in tub A. 
 

This rock was harvested from the ocean today, so hopefully it will have a decent amount of life left on it. 
 

 

I obtained a small “critter keeper” and have it mounted in my Waterbox with magnets. The mantis will Be spending its initial days in this setup. This is not ideal,

and was one of the reasons why i tried to get KP Aquatics to ship in water.  If tampabaysaltwater was open I may have gone that route. 
 

 

Very nice setup here. I love to see reefers going the extra mile to get that sweet, sweet natural life from real ocean live rock. 👍 Shame that it wasn't as loaded with life as you remember, though! Maybe they're having an off season or something. Regardless, you can count on some sort of larvae or spores to be carried in on it, so maybe something new will appear in the coming months...

 

Also, I like the scape, but do you think it's going to be adequate for the mantis? I'm no expert on their needs, but I've seen people build caves, tunnels, etc. for them in the past. 

[William]

10 minutes ago, billygoat said:

Very nice setup here. I love to see reefers going the extra mile to get that sweet, sweet natural life from real ocean live rock. 👍 Shame that it wasn't as loaded with life as you remember, though! Maybe they're having an off season or something. Regardless, you can count on some sort of larvae or spores to be carried in on it, so maybe something new will appear in the coming months...

 

Also, I like the scape, but do you think it's going to be adequate for the mantis? I'm no expert on their needs, but I've seen people build caves, tunnels, etc. for them in the past. 

I ordered my last batch of rock in July so maybe it is seasonal. The species that i got is a “smasher” and though it may be difficult to see in the picture the rock on the left is filled with holes and caves. 

[chickpea]

that mantis shrimp is gorgeous !!! I really like the minimal rockwork, and the sandbed being on a slant.

[Tigahboy]

The rock looks beautiful!

[William]

2 hours ago, Tigahboy said:

The rock looks beautiful!

 

2 hours ago, chickpea said:

that mantis shrimp is gorgeous !!! I really like the minimal rockwork, and the sandbed being on a slant.

Thanks! I’m going  to try and  not clutter this tank. I want it to be clean looking. I really wish the 365 day challenge started later so I   Could have entered this in it. 

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

I am going to live vicariously through this journal. I almost did a mantis tank, but I opted for my current tank instead.

[William]

37 minutes ago, Diamonds x Pearls said:

I am going to live vicariously through this journal. I almost did a mantis tank, but I opted for my current tank instead.

I have toyed with the idea for years. Hopefully it works out well. The mantis is not shy. 

[DISQUALIFIED-QQ]

1 minute ago, William said:

I have toyed with the idea for years. Hopefully it works out well. The mantis is not shy. 

Right?! The egg of an idea was laid in my head in 2013. One of my friends joked that I should get a mantis shrimp back then. No mantis tank has manifested for me yet...

 

Hope all goes well. I'm sure it will be eating better than all of us.

[Rehype]

Looks Awesome will.  Love the scape. Im also happy to have a small tank to focus on during this period.

[William]

Today I used a diamond Dremmel bit to widen the openings in the filter grate. I used the tank water as lubrication.  

[William]

So I tested the tank again today and ammonia and nitrite are at 0 and nitrate is at 10. I put a test coral (red mushroom) in to see how it does. If everything keeps going well I will likely move the mantis by the end of the week. 
 

I also applied some of the window frosting that I used on the back of tank on my Nanobox tide. Because of the surface agitation I was getting a bit of a disco ball effect. @DaveFason I hope this is ok.  The frosting film uses static cling so it’s easy to take off. 

[William]

What type of coral placement should I do in here, I kinda like how simple it is currently. 

[EfrainChicagoDeepdish]

I did the frosted cling on the mantis tank@NoOneLikesADryTang and I have and it collected salt creep really bad.  You'll have to watch it or it may ruin your bookshelf.  

 

How's your mantis doing in the critter keeper?

 

With ours, she didn't use the den we made for her with PVC pipe and instead lives behind the wall.  It appears the the Neogonodactylus oerstedii is similar in liking rock work to thump.

[William]

14 minutes ago, EfrainChicagoDeepdish said:

I did the frosted cling on the mantis tank@NoOneLikesADryTang and I have and it collected salt creep really bad.  You'll have to watch it or it may ruin your bookshelf.  

 

How's your mantis doing in the critter keeper?

 

With ours, she didn't use the den we made for her with PVC pipe and instead lives behind the wall.  It appears the the Neogonodactylus oerstedii is similar in liking rock work to thump.

I have used the frosting before and had that issue with my previous tank, this time I cut

the frosting so the it is about 1/4” from the top and bottom of the back glass. Hopefully this will decrease the amount of salt creap. 
 

the mantis seems of in his critter keeper, he seems very interested in the fish in the tank and is very active.  I decided not to bother with PVC piping as this species prefers to live in the rock and The rock I have in the tank have a ton of holes on it. 
 

Do you have pics of your mantis? Have a build thread? 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

She doesn’t come out much, but we’re hoping that given a little time, she’ll start to make some more appearances. We’re fairly certain she’s a Gonodactylaceus ternatensis. We had been wanting a smithii, but hadn’t had much luck in finding one. About six weeks ago by chance, our LFS had gotten this one in. Here’s a couple pics I got of her last weekend. 

[TatorTaco]

Congrats on your new mantis!  I've also been considering the purchase of one but I chicken out each time. 

[William]

10 hours ago, NoOneLikesADryTang said:

She doesn’t come out much, but we’re hoping that given a little time, she’ll start to make some more appearances. We’re fairly certain she’s a Gonodactylaceus ternatensis. We had been wanting a smithii, but hadn’t had much luck in finding one. About six weeks ago by chance, our LFS had gotten this one in. Here’s a couple pics I got of her last weekend. 

She is beautiful! Do you have a link to your build thread ? What have you been feeding her? Also, after looking up the species, she may be perfect for an SPS tank, they apparently live in SPS colonies. I could imagine that have her live in a big colony of birdsnest or pocilopora would be really cool. 

1 hour ago, TatorTaco said:

Congrats on your new mantis!  I've also been considering the purchase of one but I chicken out each time. 

Do it, you could start a Nano like mine. I know KP Aquatics has a few left in stock 

[NoOneLikesADryTang]

40 minutes ago, William said:

She is beautiful! Do you have a link to your build thread ? What have you been feeding her? Also, after looking up the species, she may be perfect for an SPS tank, they apparently live in SPS colonies. I could imagine that have her live in a big colony of birdsnest or pocilopora would be really cool. 

Do it, you could start a Nano like mine. I know KP Aquatics has a few left in stock 

Thank you... She's actually living in our rock flower tank, which was specifically built for a mantis in mind. @EfrainChicagoDeepdish just created a build thread for the tank that started it all, restart, which will be an SPS dominant tank (If you look at the photo I posted this month, for the picture of the month contest, it's the tank on the left. It's contents got transferred to our 80 gallon tank, which is the build thread in my signature) and the rock flower/mantis tank is the tank on the right. You can see the tank keepers thread at: 

It's currently focused on the SPS restart tank, but I believe that @EfrainChicagoDeepdish will intertwine some of the RFA/Mantis tank in it as well, since they sit right next to each other. 

[EfrainChicagoDeepdish]

1 hour ago, William said:

She is beautiful! Do you have a link to your build thread ? What have you been feeding her? Also, after looking up the species, she may be perfect for an SPS tank, they apparently live in SPS colonies. I could imagine that have her live in a big colony of birdsnest or pocilopora would be really cool. 

Do it, you could start a Nano like mine. I know KP Aquatics has a few left in stock 

I've been feeding her about 1/3 of a silverside or I have clams in a half shell left over from the Chad days, every other day.  She seems to eat both by evidence of the half shell being presented for collection/discard and silverside skin returned as well.  There are snails and such in the tank as well when she wants to hunt.