woke up to the sound of a tapping noise

[WildFlower]

Sounded like a coin being tapped against the side of the glass tank. When lights were on for a few minutes it stopped. Got home a few min ago no tapping yet... Well, the sound I heard did exactly start my day off right I've not been able to eyeball the critter yet, but best guess at this time is Mantis Shrimp.

I have a clown and 2 damsels in the tank, I'm rather attached to them and want the danger out of my tank ASAP...I borrowed a trap this afternoon from LFS.. I will bait and the trap and give it a try, but I've heard you better get the Mantis on first attempt as they generally wont fall for the trap a 2nd time. Does anyone have any other ideas ??? What has worked for you???

 

[reefrunner69]

If you can locate the rock it is in, remove the rock and use carbonated water to mix SW (same SG as tank), put the rock in the cabonated SW and the mantis (along with any other critters on the rock should bail. The fizzing drives them nuts and they leave trying to get away from it.

 

[BONESTOCK]

How do you "carbonate" the water??

And would it be okay in a 20 long? Like not break the tank or anything?

 

[Biggen]

How do you "carbonate" the water??

I would think seltzer or club soda poured into the SW would do the trick. I never tried the carbonated SW cure. I have used the hyper-salinity trick by dipping LR in water with an SG of 1.035 - 1.040.

 

[OhTheHumanity]

I've seen several posts on how to identify mantis shrimp and how do drive them out of rock by the dip.

I have not seen a post on why the mantis shrimp is so bad, could someone elaborate?

 

[Biggen]

I have not seen a post on why the mantis shrimp is so bad, could someone elaborate?

Mantis shrimp are carnivores. Meaning they will eat just about anything they can get their little claws around (i.e. shrimp, crabs, fish, etc... are all easy meals). They also can inflict extremely painful and damaging wounds to an unsuspecting hand inside the tank. Those two things coupled with the fact that they can get very large typically means that they are a pest for most people.

With that said, I know of a few people who actually keep them as pets. They have tanks set up just for them. To each their own I guess...

 

[steve-s]

Could also be the hermits grazing the glass as they move about. It will produce a similar sound. With keys rock though there is a good chance of mantis or pistol shrimp.

Missing any snails? 8O

Cheers
Steve

 

[OhTheHumanity]

Sounds like some nasty little critters. Thanks for the quick response.

 

[BONESTOCK]

Will they be okay in a 10 gallon? with alot of sand....and live rock?

 

[OhTheHumanity]

Sounds like some nasty little critters. Thanks for the quick response.

 

[WildFlower]

Don't think it was grazing crabs making that loud of a noise this morn.. soon as I head the noise I looked, I looked everywhere... saw nothing on the glass at all.. This evening I spent over an hour with a flash light looking at every corner, hole, crevice, hiding place I could find. Found lots of interesting live creatures but one in particular is suspect to my eye... this one moved FAST as I hit the light in the hole it really buried itself deep!!!.. If it is the Mantis, I think I found his home

I hear that the Mantis are very smart and have incredible eyesight... so I'm going to set the trap and bait it for a couple days.. let it (hopefully trust the trap) then I'm having shrimp fishing expedition in the dark and hope I can get it..

Still wishing for pistol shrimp.. if I'm wrong and it proves to be a Mantis.. any takers???

WildFlower

 

[KLN]

Mine would not come out until I put the rock under the tap and ran fairly warm water all over it. Everything bailed out into a pan for retrieval. The mantis is now in a separate 10 gal tank by himself. Anything alive that goes in there is gone by morning. He likes guppies and grass shrimp in particular, and is growing like a weed.

 

[mansiz]

How does a mantis shrimp looks like? Is it like bristle worm? I saw one poping its head and half of its body out few weeks ago when I switch off the lights, it doesn't look like shrimp at all, it is long and looks like worms, but its large in size as compared to bristle worms. But I do heard some coin knocking glass sound twice, once mid-night, once early morning. How do I check that if there is any mantis shrimp in my tank? Will it kill my fish? I do have fishes lost its fins or part of tail some times, I'm not sure whether its done by other fish mates or the shrimp. But most of the fishes, maroon clown, some damsels, bi-colour angel, green/cleaner wrasse are alright, with no visible wounds.

 

[reefrunner69]

How does a mantis shrimp looks like?

It loks like a praying mantis.

 

[Jerry Adams]

Might be a pistol shrimp.

 

[mansiz]

Will pistol shrimp kill my fishes or tube worms/feather duster in my tank? What do they eat? I have found one of my feather duster misteriously lost. But I got the fishes for so long, and none of they seems to be killed, even if there are dead fishes, they are whole piece.