Sea Cat
Aquarium Advice Regular
Hello all,
Throughout my story here, I ask a lot of questions. Hopefully they don’t get too lost in the explanation. Please help me with answering any of them that you can. Thanks!
I have a 29-gallon that I added some more live rock to, about two and a half weeks ago. (15 pounds more)
I started hearing some LOUD tapping/clicking the same night that I added the rock. I researched and after reading up about it, started praying that it was a Pistol Shrimp.
The next night, I saw the source of the sound. It was a Mantis Shrimp out on the prowl.
I quickly moved the Live Rock he was near and snatched him up in a net.
He was medium sized and mean looking. He looked like a clubbing mantis to me. Now, I didn’t want to kill him, but I wasn’t going to put him back in and risk my fish and other creatures, so…he didn’t make it through the night.
I thought, *phew*, I was lucky to have seen it so quickly, and caught it on the first try. Then, the very next night, I heard some tapping, but this time it was a fairly quiet sound.
I assumed that I had another Mantis, but a smaller one that doesn’t hit as hard yet.
After a week of watching for it to emerge to hunt, and still hearing the quiet tapping from time to time, I decided it was time to try and flush it out of the rock.
I got home from work the night I planned on trying to lure the mantis out somehow, and my Laurent’s Hermit Crab was not in his shell. I looked around and saw no evidence of him in any other shells. Now, his original shell was not broken, which I thought it would be had a mantis got him. But, I guess it could be a slicing mantis. But, do slicers make tapping sounds? And if so, maybe they tap quieter than the clubbing ones? Also, the hermit’s shell was just sitting there on top of the live rock as if he were still in it. Not turned upside down or anything. It looked like he had just up and left the shell. But, I haven’t seen him in two nights.
I knew which rock the tapper was in, because it was the only one with caves and holes that something besides a worm could get into, and that particular rock was the apparent source of the tapping sound. So, I decided to try a hypo salinity dip first. I did the dip and one of the four little crabs that I saw in that rock came out, and also a slug-like creature…but no mantis.
Now, this slug like thing was deep reddish brown, about 2 inches long and about as wide as a pencil, with a weird head/neck area. It looked like it had one little pointy thing coming from the head area and what seemed to be a segmented armored neck. (I’ll put a pic of it up in the ID section of the forum in the future for curiosity’s sake)
The crab was very light brown with dark brown tips on his claws, as are the other three that are still in that rock. (I’ll put up pics of those for ID as well, at some point)
Luckily, the hypo dip doesn’t seem to have killed anything else except for one orange tubeworm. I didn’t want to lose it, as he was pretty, but I had to try and get the mantis.
Now, for a couple days, I heard no tapping. I thought, maybe it killed him, but he didn’t get flushed out. Last night, I heard a very quiet tap, and then again about 15 minutes later I heard it again. It was only one tap at a time, both times that I heard it.
So, might I have a pistol shrimp instead of a mantis? Is there ANY way to tell without seeing the creature? I read about pistols making one click at a time and mantises being multiple clicks, but I’m not sure how reliable that is in ID’ing this.
How long can it (whatever it is) stay in the holes and caves, which medium size snails barely fit in, before it has to come out for growing room?
Could it have gotten my hermit with no evidence of foul play except for an empty shell?
Thanks for any help, suggestions, or advice that you can give,
Sea Cat
Throughout my story here, I ask a lot of questions. Hopefully they don’t get too lost in the explanation. Please help me with answering any of them that you can. Thanks!
I have a 29-gallon that I added some more live rock to, about two and a half weeks ago. (15 pounds more)
I started hearing some LOUD tapping/clicking the same night that I added the rock. I researched and after reading up about it, started praying that it was a Pistol Shrimp.
The next night, I saw the source of the sound. It was a Mantis Shrimp out on the prowl.
I quickly moved the Live Rock he was near and snatched him up in a net.
He was medium sized and mean looking. He looked like a clubbing mantis to me. Now, I didn’t want to kill him, but I wasn’t going to put him back in and risk my fish and other creatures, so…he didn’t make it through the night.
I thought, *phew*, I was lucky to have seen it so quickly, and caught it on the first try. Then, the very next night, I heard some tapping, but this time it was a fairly quiet sound.
I assumed that I had another Mantis, but a smaller one that doesn’t hit as hard yet.
After a week of watching for it to emerge to hunt, and still hearing the quiet tapping from time to time, I decided it was time to try and flush it out of the rock.
I got home from work the night I planned on trying to lure the mantis out somehow, and my Laurent’s Hermit Crab was not in his shell. I looked around and saw no evidence of him in any other shells. Now, his original shell was not broken, which I thought it would be had a mantis got him. But, I guess it could be a slicing mantis. But, do slicers make tapping sounds? And if so, maybe they tap quieter than the clubbing ones? Also, the hermit’s shell was just sitting there on top of the live rock as if he were still in it. Not turned upside down or anything. It looked like he had just up and left the shell. But, I haven’t seen him in two nights.
I knew which rock the tapper was in, because it was the only one with caves and holes that something besides a worm could get into, and that particular rock was the apparent source of the tapping sound. So, I decided to try a hypo salinity dip first. I did the dip and one of the four little crabs that I saw in that rock came out, and also a slug-like creature…but no mantis.
Now, this slug like thing was deep reddish brown, about 2 inches long and about as wide as a pencil, with a weird head/neck area. It looked like it had one little pointy thing coming from the head area and what seemed to be a segmented armored neck. (I’ll put a pic of it up in the ID section of the forum in the future for curiosity’s sake)
The crab was very light brown with dark brown tips on his claws, as are the other three that are still in that rock. (I’ll put up pics of those for ID as well, at some point)
Luckily, the hypo dip doesn’t seem to have killed anything else except for one orange tubeworm. I didn’t want to lose it, as he was pretty, but I had to try and get the mantis.
Now, for a couple days, I heard no tapping. I thought, maybe it killed him, but he didn’t get flushed out. Last night, I heard a very quiet tap, and then again about 15 minutes later I heard it again. It was only one tap at a time, both times that I heard it.
So, might I have a pistol shrimp instead of a mantis? Is there ANY way to tell without seeing the creature? I read about pistols making one click at a time and mantises being multiple clicks, but I’m not sure how reliable that is in ID’ing this.
How long can it (whatever it is) stay in the holes and caves, which medium size snails barely fit in, before it has to come out for growing room?
Could it have gotten my hermit with no evidence of foul play except for an empty shell?
Thanks for any help, suggestions, or advice that you can give,
Sea Cat
