What is the best method removing mantis shrimp etc. from LR?

[Brenden]

I have read several ideas about this but wonder what people here have found to work best for them. Dip rock in fresh water or high SG salt water? for how long? etc. or any other methods.

 

[StripesTheEel]

i've tried the bottle trick.. and i think its a load of BS.. haha.. i have one in my 75gal atm.. ive located the rock.. well i have 2-3 rocks in mind.. if u want to kill the lil SOB my friend had luck with a skewer and poke it into the holes of the rock..

mmmm mantis shrimp

 

[AndyH5512]

Arent there predators you can get (the name slips my mind, of course) that will take care of the problem?

 

[Fluff]

The skewer doesn't always work. I broke open a rock in an attempt to remove a very stubborn mantis. I was amazed at how far he could get back out of the way and how many turns there were. If there are no corals on the rock, you could try a fw dip. Or, some people have had success with using carbonated salt water. The bubbles are supposed to irritate it and make it bail. None of these worked for me though. There are commercial traps available too. Liveaquaria sells the X-terminator trap. You just have to be patient. They are very smart and suspicious so it could take a few days to get them to take the bait.

 

[mp3z24]

i have caught one with the bottle technique and i am tracking down the second one that came on my live rock. the second guy is not going for the bottle trick, so i think i am going to start removing rocks until i can pinpoint where he is.

i probably will go with the bottle technique once i figure out what rock he is hiding in. the problem with the bottle is that it is hard to get the mouth near where the mantis is at... i think you need to be close enough to convice him to come out of hiding and take the bait.

~mike

 

[quarryshark]

I used the carbonated (SG and PH adjusted) soda water. Got many critters out, but eventually a couple mantis showed themselves.
Unfortunately unless you want to kill off most of the good life in the rock, they is not a sure shot method.
I wouldn't stress too much, you can always trap them out as you find them.

 

[badfish]

i helped my buddy catch his using the bottle trick, it took a couple nights, and probably wont hurt setting a couple traps because he caught his cleaner and a ton of hermits. He used a 1 liter soda bottle, i would try that.

 

[Brenden]

I spoke with Mike from Liverocks.com about this today. I figured if fresh or high SG water woulds run out a mantis it has to get rid of good stuff too. He agreed and said he does not recommend dipping because it "shocks" to much good stuff.

 

[Tlflan]

I spoke with Mike from Liverocks.com about this today. I figured if fresh or high SG water woulds run out a mantis it has to get rid of good stuff too. He agreed and said he does not recommend dipping because it "shocks" to much good stuff.

Did Mike have any recommendations?

I have 60 lb of thier rock. I got rid of two mantis upon arrival by repeated thrusting the rock in and out of a bucket or saltwater (not high SG.) I spent 3 weeks cycling and never saw or heard anything. Now I have added a cleanup crew and I regularly hear the "popping" at night.

I would have liked to know this before I added the cleanup crew, because now I feel like any trap I use will be more likely to catch members of the clean up crew instead of the mantis.

 

[Brenden]

He recommended a trap and patience. How loud is the popping?

 

[Tlflan]

How loud is the popping?

Not real loud. I can hear it pretty much from anywhere in the room where my tank is located, but not outside of that room.

I sounds about like some one popping a knuckle, except that the sound has a little more of a metallic quality to it.

I guess will order a trap and go to work.

 

[Brenden]

You could aways make a trap out of a bottle. I have never heard one but I just ordered 160 lbs of keys and 160 lbs of gulf rock from liverocks.com so I am sure I will deal with it soon enough.

 

[flanque]

I just picked it up with my fingers as it was darting in and out of a hole in the rock. No worries, problem gone.

 

[Brodie]

It's pretty loud. I've heard them sound like a snapping of the fingers to what it sounds like throwing a marble at a window.

 

[mp3z24]

if you have the extra storage space, and can live with the work involved. you can mix up a batch of saltwater, fill a rubbermaid container ~ 1/2 full, and then start loading rock from the tank into the rubbermaid. I would move 1/2 of the rock into the rubbermaid container.

this has several possible outcomes. the mantis will stay on a rock that is in the tank, or come out with the rock in the rubbermaid. if you have fewer hiding spaces you are going to be more likely to catch it in a trap.

also, if you have a second container to do this with, you can always split the rock again. when you figure out which batch it is in, you can split that in half and be working with 1/4 of the original quantity of rock.

im probably going to be trying this approach as soon as possible, b/c i simply cannot figure out where mine is hiding. like i said, it is a bit of work, and a bit of time, but it should work.

~mike

 

[Brenden]

I was talking to Mike again today and this came back up. He wanted to know why I wanted to get rid of the mantis. He said he personally likes them. He has several in his tank and has no intentions of removing them. He said he drops a piece of raw shrimp or squid in front of their hole and has never really had a problem with them. They have killed a couple turbos over extended time but that is all. No problem with fish etc.

 

[badfish]

When i brought my LR he told me the same thing, he said the Mantis from Gulf/Keys are not as tempromental as the ones from Fiji, Etc.. The one my friend had killed a bicolor angel and a yellow tang before he caught his, but he had FIJI liverock, Not from LIVEROCK.COM. I here poping in my tank as well, have never lost any fish in the 5 months i had my tank up, and never seen it, (i also ordered from LR.com) i assume its a pistol, but can very well be a mantis. Have you actually seen it and confirmed it as a mantis? I visited my buddy for two days and saw it at least 5 times, which is when we trapped him, too bad it was too late for the angel and tang HTH.

 

[Xenos]

Here is a pretty cool site about mantis shrimp http://www.togar.de/English/aqua/mantis_shrimp.htm
I have an website that also has a story about an australian diver who is killed by a mantis.