Shabalaba
Active Member
Hey all,
It's officially 11 days with my peacock! He (pretty sure it's male) is about 4-4.5 inches and looks quite healthy. I see no signs of shell rot as he roams, not usually straying too far from his usual territory. He acts pretty normal for a mantis except for one thing, I have never seen, heard, nor observed any evidence of him using his raptorial appendages.
As I watch him, it begins to worry me because he won't even strike emerald crabs that enter his burrow. I witnessed a medium sized emerald crab walk right past him, through the front door. Also, I have watched him pick up hermits, inspect the hermit/shell, bring them into the burrow and either toss them back out a minute later or they end up walking out the front or back. Sometimes when he tosses them out he will pick them back up when try to move away and redo the process. This is my first peacock, but is this not odd behavior? I believe he can pull smaller hermits out of the shell with his other appendages and I have fed him smaller pieces of frozen shrimp with forceps twice over the 11 days I've had him. On occasion when I'm using a grabber to flip snails over, place shells, ect. near his burrow he will quickly dash to the grabber, and dash back to his burrow agressively but never swings.
I thought maybe it was because be was going to molt/just molted but it seems like he would have done that by now, he has good water quality and all minerals/elements needed (unless I'm missing something lol).
Aside from the mantis I currently own, I have a fever for more! I was very curious to the idea of adding another, smaller species to this tank. I was thinking Gonodactylellus viridis, or one of the Neogonodactylus smashers. Since these smaller species often live in rock cavities and LR, and considering my tank is 100 gallon with approx 120 pounds of LR, could I get away with it or is it just a bad idea?
I greatly appreciate you're wisdom and advice, and for reading this wall of text! I will post pictures if needed
It's officially 11 days with my peacock! He (pretty sure it's male) is about 4-4.5 inches and looks quite healthy. I see no signs of shell rot as he roams, not usually straying too far from his usual territory. He acts pretty normal for a mantis except for one thing, I have never seen, heard, nor observed any evidence of him using his raptorial appendages.
As I watch him, it begins to worry me because he won't even strike emerald crabs that enter his burrow. I witnessed a medium sized emerald crab walk right past him, through the front door. Also, I have watched him pick up hermits, inspect the hermit/shell, bring them into the burrow and either toss them back out a minute later or they end up walking out the front or back. Sometimes when he tosses them out he will pick them back up when try to move away and redo the process. This is my first peacock, but is this not odd behavior? I believe he can pull smaller hermits out of the shell with his other appendages and I have fed him smaller pieces of frozen shrimp with forceps twice over the 11 days I've had him. On occasion when I'm using a grabber to flip snails over, place shells, ect. near his burrow he will quickly dash to the grabber, and dash back to his burrow agressively but never swings.
I thought maybe it was because be was going to molt/just molted but it seems like he would have done that by now, he has good water quality and all minerals/elements needed (unless I'm missing something lol).
Aside from the mantis I currently own, I have a fever for more! I was very curious to the idea of adding another, smaller species to this tank. I was thinking Gonodactylellus viridis, or one of the Neogonodactylus smashers. Since these smaller species often live in rock cavities and LR, and considering my tank is 100 gallon with approx 120 pounds of LR, could I get away with it or is it just a bad idea?
I greatly appreciate you're wisdom and advice, and for reading this wall of text! I will post pictures if needed
