mantis shrimp apeared from LR how do i catch it?

[AlexPrince]

hi all,
i recently bought 18kg of LR from my LFS after taking it home building my reef layout and setting up the tank a 35-40mm mantis shrimp apeared running around on the sand bed. problem being these have a very notorious name for bein aggressive towards fish, inverts and corals.
Since the mantis has disappeared into the system and i havent seen it since.
i do not want this pest in my main display but may keep it in a species only tank or sump.
finding this i have done some research on this critter and it turns out they can be very intelligent hence why i have tried baiting this critter with a plastic bottle and a cord round the neck of it drilled with plenty of 4mm holes for good water flow some sand inside to weigh it down to sand bed and have placed a frozen shrimp inside and also a skint as bait to try and tempt it out.
so far no luck
apparently these types of traps do not work as the mantis is too clever to take the risk of entering!
so....
any ideas anyone

cheers

 

[Bige]

I had one that i started feeding so it trusted me. Then fed in a net. Then moved net to top and fed it. Then finally scooped it out. Took a few weeks for this to work though. Take a pic when you catch it. Mine was yellow. The one I had could get out of the bottle traps I made.

 

[AlexPrince]

Orite, not going to be quite as easy as I had hoped thanks for the reply I will try that next but am not holding out much hope as haven't seen it at all since,
Mine is a red/brown colour and am guessing it is a juvenile so may change considerably,
What did you use as bait?
Thanks

 

[tlkng1]

Try a different bottle. Not sure if you drilled the neck or not but there is a way to get them and I have never lost yet

Take the bottle, making the assumption it is a standard sized bottle...16.9 ozs. Cut off the top of the bottle near the "shoulder" where the bottle begins to flare. Invert the cone back into the bottle so the small opening is inside the bottle. Bait as usual. When the shrimp goes in, it can't get back out due to the sloped sides. If it won't go after the regular shrimp, try some frozen mysis. For some reason this seems to be the chocolate of the marine fish world.

 

[AlexPrince]

Inverting the bottle why didn't I think of that?? Lol
I have just used a coca cola bottle haha
I will try this now and hope it works
Thanks for your ideas

 

[all4wheels2]

Inverting the bottle why didn't I think of that?? Lol
I have just used a coca cola bottle haha
I will try this now and hope it works
Thanks for your ideas

Good luck! I tried that and it didn't work...he figured out what I was doing and wouldn't budge Luckily, I knew what rock he was in and just ended up removing that rock and putting it in a separate tank. Of course it was the largest rock in the display He was purple and is now turning green. I actually like the little bugger and couldn't see killing it.

 

[AlexPrince]

Orite not good as my display is all fixed together lol
Thanks for your help

 

[Scotty09]

That's cool wish I had one

 

[joy13]

You might try to get it to recognize you as a food source, Then feed it a few time with the net present in the tank, wait your chance then net it. They are very smart and amazing personalities.

 

[AlexPrince]

What bait would you suggest? Iv been using frozen skint, and shrimp no luck yet
Cheers

 

[tarpon]

Lol thats probably why it didnt work bc trying to get in w/o it flipped around is like trying to get out of the trap. Take pics if you catch him, theyre very interesting.

 

[Smitty]

Try putting a live crab in the bottle with a bit of bait for the crab to eat. The mantis will go into the bottle for the crab and then get stuck.

I had a mantis. I saw the thing jump out of the rock and smash into one of my fish. It was lucky that I saw it happen. I reached into the tank and took out the piece of live rock it was in. I did a freshwater dip and go the mantis out. He didn't like the FW dip but it didn't kill him and I took him to my LFS.

 

[AlexPrince]

Got the lil bugger will ad photo soon