We think we have a mantis...

[Vox]

Hi all,

We think we have a mantis shrimp. We hear clicking. Lots of clicking. And something ate my spotted manderin fish .

So far, that's all we've lost in terms of fish and inverts. We do have lots and lots of little snails, so hard to determine if we've lost any of those.

I've spent many an hour standing in the middle of the night in the dark, peering into the tank with a torch with red cellophane over it, trying to locate the rock that he lives in. I've seen loads of little crabs, and many a time thought I caught him but it was my peppermint shrimp or a crab. So far, though, it has evaded me.

I find that the mantis will click a lot when we walk near the tank, which I've heard is common with mantis shrimps.

Soo... I'm looking for some clues on how to locate him?

Other tank inhabitants are naso tang, yellow tang, powder blue tang, 5 blue/green chromis, 1 B/W clown, 1 flame angel, 1 cleaner shrimp and 1 peppermint shrimp.

Any clues or ideas? We'd just like to move him to the sump away from the fish.

Many thanks,

Vox

 

[pat8you]

I would try and get some meaty food to drop in the tank at night when your looking. Some of those little shrimp would be perfect. Might draw him out of his hiding place.

Once you find him you may want to be careful about putting it in your sump. There are two different kinds from what i understand. One with a pincher like a crab and the other with a blunt kind of club that it hits and stuns its pray. The smasher club kind have been known to hit the glass and can crack it if they are unhappy.

 

[Jaybird]

It would have to be a fairly good sized manits to take out a fish. How big is the tank? I have the occassional pop from my tank, but it's my pistol shrimp. No idea why he does it.

 

[CaptainAhab]

pistol shrimp: The snapping shrimp competes with much larger animals, like the Sperm Whale and Beluga Whale, for the title of 'loudest animal in the sea'. The shrimp snaps a specialized claw shut to create a cavitation bubble that generates acoustic pressures of up to 80 kPa at a distance of 4 cm from the claw. The pressure is strong enough to kill small fish and shatter glass.[7] It corresponds to a zero to peak pressure level of 218 decibels relative to one micropascal (dB re 1 μPa), equivalent to a zero to peak source level of 190 dB re 1 μPa at the standard reference distance of 1 m. Au and Banks measured peak to peak source levels between 185 and 190 dB re 1 μPa at 1 m, depending on the size of the claw.[8] Similar values are reported by Ferguson and Cleary.[9] The duration of the click is less than 1 millisecond. The snap can also produce sonoluminescence from the collapsing cavitation bubble. As it collapses, the cavitation bubble reaches temperatures of over 5,000 K (4,726.85 degrees Celsius).[10] In comparison, the surface temperature of the sun is estimated to be around 5,778 K. The light is of lower intensity than the light produced by typical sonoluminescence and is not visible to the naked eye. It is most likely a by-product of the shock wave with no biological significance. However, it was the first known instance of an animal producing light by this effect. It has subsequently been discovered that another group of crustaceans, the mantis shrimp, contains species whose club-like forelimbs can strike so quickly and with such force as to induce sonoluminescent cavitation bubbles upon impact.[11]

 

[Zer0]

Dang Captain.. great info right there. A think it's a little too detailed for most people, and maybe a little more than what people really care to know, but still great information none the less. Only.. is that description about.. "pistol shrimp"? or mantis shrimp? That sounds like something you would expect from a mantis, since pistol shrimp are generally nice shrimp.. no? Please correct me if i'm wrong. I would like to know.

 

[Jaybird]

It could probably shatter thin glass. Same thing with a mantis. Both can have a serious kick, but not to crack 3/4 inch glass.

 

[thincat]

Good article on trapping a Mantis.
How to Trap a Mantis Shrimp?

 

[Jaybird]

you could always do a heavy dose of copper

That's a joke. Don't do it!!!

 

[Vox]

Wow so many replies. Thanks all!

I wondered if it were a pistol shrimp. I've heard that pistol's click 1 or 2 times, but mantis's click multiple? Is that true? We just get click, click, click, click ... sometimes 10 in a row, then sometimes just the occasional click. And the loudness varies, but it can get loud. In fact the clicking has woken me up at night, and my tank is down the hallway in the loungeroom!

I know pistols are good friends with coral gobies. We had a couple of coral gobies in there, but they got eaten some time(few months) back. At the time, we figured crabs did it, cause they were so tiny.

What are other signs that will help me figure out if its a mantis or pistol? Do pistols live in the sand or in LR? I'm _fairly_ sure, based on the directionality of the clicking, that the critter is in the top layers of my LR. But its a little hard to tell with the way sound moves with the water.

We have 145 gallon (550 litre) tank with 1/2 inch glass, including sump.

Thanks again!

 

[pat8you]

Pistol shrimp will make a burrow under some of your rocks. They always stay down in the sand bed. I have heard that pistols will just click once or twice as well. I really doubt that they would click that many times in a row. From what you have said there is probably little doubt that it is a mantis in there somewhere.

 

[Vox]

Hmmm.... As I figured. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

OK, so my next question is probably a little silly, but what the heck, I'll ask anyway.

We have about.... 25 pieces of LR. And of course, its all piled on top of each other, making a gorgeous rock scape. This mantis shrimp could be hiding in a rock I can see, or indeed, a rock thats at the back of the tank that I can't see. Probably why I'm having such a great deal of trouble locating him. I've tried to convince my boyfriend (its his tank) that we need to pull out the rocks and dunk them til we get him, but he won't til I find which rock he's in.

What I'm getting at is, are there any kinds or rocks they prefer, ie with coral for instance? Do they like being low or high? I hope you see what I'm getting at. I'm trying to make finding him a little easier than standing for 2 hrs every night with a ****ed torch, listening to him mocking me with his click!!!!! Do they walk around the tank at night? Or day?

He didn't bother me too much til he ate my manderin. Now I'm very upset and concerned for the wellbeing of my other fish, and out to find him!!!

What have other you mantis shrimp discoverers found?

Thanks again!

 

[thincat]

Pistol shrimp will make a burrow under some of your rocks. They always stay down in the sand bed. I have heard that pistols will just click once or twice as well. I really doubt that they would click that many times in a row. From what you have said there is probably little doubt that it is a mantis in there somewhere.

Or 5 or 6 pistol shrimps! LOL

 

[Jaybird]

yeah, I can confirm, at least with the tiger pistol in my tank, it only clicks once in a while. I've never heard it do more than one. Not the multiple clicks you report. As well, they burrow in the sand, so will be on the bottom of the tank.

Someone mentioned clown gobies being with pistols. That's not true. Clown gobies do not form a partnership with pistol shrimp. There is a group of gobies called shrimp gobies that do (yellow watchman in my case). Each type of watchman, or shrimp goby, has a preferred type of shrimp that it can pair up with. Like with clownfish and anemones, there is no guarantee that they will partner.

Good luck with the mantis.

 

[pat8you]

What I'm getting at is, are there any kinds or rocks they prefer, ie with coral for instance? Do they like being low or high?

Not that i know of. I kind of doubt it. They just like a nice little cave or burrow where they feel protected. I wouldn't resort to taking out all your rock yet. Depending on how big the mantis is and if you have a nice hole in one of your rocks i've seen shrimp (and fish actually) just stay in the whole if you take the rock out or even dip it in fresh. So there is a change you will go through all that and still not find him. One other thing is you really really don't wanna go sticking your fingers in and around all that rock with a mantis. If they decide to get you it will not be a pleasant experience.

Take some fishing line and tie a piece of shrimp or silver side on the end and just leave it in the tank for a while. Make sure you step back a ways because they supposedly have very good eye sight and my stay hidden with you standing in front of the tank. If you have an actual fishing pole laying around that would be even better. They are more hunter then scavenger so it would probably be even more appealing if you were able to give it a little movement.

Hope that helps

 

[thincat]

They are not nicknamed "Thumb splitters " for nothing!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Vox]

Thanks guys!! Appreciate all your advice.

 

[Jaybird]

I was at an aquarium store last night and they had a mantis shrimp for sale that was huge! Seriously, I've seen people at restaurantes get smaller lobster tails than this thing.

There are a lot of different types of mantis shrimp. Most are really small and fairly harmless....but that guy would take a fish no problem.

 

[Vox]

We found the mantis!

Hi all,

Thought I'd update you all on our adventures here.

We've got aiptasia as well as this mantis issue, and we got a copperband butterfly to help out. Unfortunatly, the very lovely power blue tang was giving the butterfly soo much grief that it barely moved outta one corner of the tank.

Soo last weekend we thought, screw it, lets move all the rocks around, and while we're at it, take out the 2 largest rocks in the tank (which happen, of course, to be riddled with aiptasia).

We left them in a plastic tub full of tank water whilst we decided what to do with them, and then today I walked in the house only to hear a LOT of clicking coming outta the tub!

Long story short, here is a picture of our mantis, DEAD! YAY! We dosed the rock with soda water and he came out.

For anyone wondering, he was in a big solid rock, in which he'd made a very lovely hole, very much like someone had drilled into it.

Unfortunately for us, that was not the end of the clicking!

Also attached is a picture of a little pistol shrimp we found on _another_ rock. (Which was not a rock that sat in the sand, it was raised on other rocks).

And you won't believe it, the tank is STILL clicking. We are now thinking its another pistol, cause its only the occasional click, not multiple like the mantis. So we're going to *try* to ignore it.

Unfortunately, my photographic skills for the mantis were terrible, so the pic is dodgy. But he was a green colour and about 6cm long. When we saw him for the first and only time about 6 weeks ago, he was a dark red/brown (like a cockroach), so he must have molted.

Pistol shrimp's pic is much better. He was only small, about 1.5 - 2cms.

We presume the left over shrimp in the tank is the bigger version of the pistol cause it's clicking is much louder.

That's it! The tank is a mess and my BF is not looking forward to re-doing the rock layout in the tank! But it'll be minus the mantis (and the aiptasia) so we are happy!

Thanks again for all your advise everyone! Its nice to know we have the support of others out there!

 

[Jaybird]

Great that you got the mantis out...but too bad for the pistol shrimp. They're pretty harmless....except to the occassional snail. Looks like it was a tiger pistol. I had one until it had some problems shedding and then it died. It was awesome to see it pair up with my watchman gobie

 

[Mitchell0605]

Nice job. Sad that you couldn't throw those two in the sump but that the way these things go.