New Mantis build

[Captain_Glass]

So I’ve been wanting a peacock for quite a long time and my wife surprised me with my own man cave for our anniversary, so now I’ve got a spot to start. I bought an acrylic tank that measures 30 inches wide x 24 inches in height and 18 inches in depth. It came with a stand that I definitely will be painting and having my sister who is amazing with aquatic art paint something cool on the side. But more important is what is going inside. Which is mainly going to be focused on the peacock.

I am brand new to this and any and all help / constructive criticism will be much appreciated. When I bought the tank on CL it came with a tetra whisper 30-60 filter and all the filters for it, a digital heater, a simple daylight t8 bulb and fixture and a bubble machine.

So far I have filled it with ro/di water from my local lfs and gotten some top fin sand and some of that Fiji pink live sand on top and am planning on going to get more after reading suggestions of having a deeper sand bed than an average of 2 inches. I bought some live rock from one of my lfs and one of the artificial painted rocks with bacteria on it. And was told to put a couple of damsels in to start with the nitrates and ammonia part of the cycle after they tested the water and everything else was good.

My wife went with me yesterday and she fell in love with some corals so she bought a couple that the guy said would do well in a low light environment.

 

[Captain_Glass]

One of my local LFS has a “ peacock “ they’ve had for a few months and he has been in a very very small spot, seems more like a detention center to me and part of me wants to rescue him and give him a good home but I’m having a tough time id’ing from Roy Caldwell’s list because of the lack of lighting. I’ve seen him / her eat and it’s very active and eating well, but the colors don’t seem quite as vibrant as some of the pictures of the o. Scyllarus in videos and pictures. So I’m a bit hesitant to either get it for the $99 they want for it or if I should just order one off of one of the online websites that currently have one for sale.

 

[Hulley]

How is the tank going so far?

 

[Captain_Glass]

Going very well thank you ! I bought her on Saturday and she loves the tank so far she’s made multiple dens aside from the 2 foot long pvc pipe I buried in the sand bed. I keep saying she but I’m not 100% sure it’s a female. I’m going to get her some food today. I live in Florida and there are bait shops everywhere so I’m thinking about just getting a shrimp like I would use for fishing and maybe a crab.

My only other real concern is the lighting someone who works at my lfs has been doing this for 34 years and wholesales a lot of corals and other things to many shops and he also has a mantis, but it’s the zebra spearing kind. He told me I might want to get a blue actinic light for the tank. So I’m researching that right now.

 

[Hulley]

Very cool, I'd love to have a mantis shrimp sometime but not ready to set up another tank. Post a pic when you can!

 

[Captain_Glass]

Here’s a picture of her in the pvc pipe. For some reason I can’t upload a video straight from my phone like i can a photo idk if it’s because of the length or whatever.

But today we fed her for the first time got like 10 ghost shrimp, a Mexican turbo snail, and a couple other smaller snails and she was soooo entertaining the second we threw the ghost shrimp in there. She came right out and was amazingly active, definitely a good work out and way for her to forage but she didn’t eat any of them just chased them. But she got ahold of one of the snails picked it right up and took it to the pvc den and we just heard a bunch of clicks it was pretty cool. She’s 3 inches right now

 

[Hulley]

Very cool! Sometimes I think about turning my sump into a space for a Mantis, I've seen a few people do that but not sure how good that would be for the shrimp.

 

[rkpetersen]

Very cool! Sometimes I think about turning my sump into a space for a Mantis, I've seen a few people do that but not sure how good that would be for the shrimp.

I think it could work really well, especially if you often let your filter socks overflow. I'd make sure it can't get sucked into any pump inlet or the skimmer venturi, and also that if it's a glass sump, that the walls aren't too thin or made of tempered glass, as some mantis can really smack the glass hard when they're annoyed.

 

[Captain_Glass]

So she has been a very hungry girl. She’s eaten the 3 Cerith snails the day I got them, all of the ghost shrimp, and I bought a Mexican turbo that was pretty big and she wouldn’t touch it for a few days and then last night I came home and couldn’t find him. Well then we saw remnants of a shell and thought that must be it, and then my wife told me to come look and she was out and about eating it right in front of us.

She doesn’t pay any attention to the damsels corals or the anemone that came in On one of the live rocks my wife bought.

 

[rkpetersen]

Well then we saw remnants of a shell and thought that must be it, and then my wife told me to come look and she was out and about eating it right in front of us.

This is hilarious. I love encounters like this. RIP Turbo.

 

[Captain_Glass]

I got 3 margarita snails on Monday all of which she ate that night. I was going to go to the lfs yesterday to get her some more but they had closed before I could get there in time and last night she ate the Mexican turbo. Today I went and got a few more margaritas and another Mexican turbo and went to a bait shop and got her a shrimp I might go fishing with which was recommended by another mantis keeper. She beat the hell out of that thing it was like an MMA fight all the punches and wrestling. My question is am I feeding her to much ?

And here is a pic of one of her pvc openings she is starting to block it off with smaller rocks in the tank I’m assuming she is getting ready to molt ?

 

[Captain_Glass]

So she killed the shrimp from the bait shop and the next day I got a water test done at my lfs and the ammonia was crazy high. They told me I was probably feeding her to much and then I came home and she had thrown out the shrimp from the bait shop. After it being dead in her pvc den for a day. I took it out of the tank immediately. I’m thinking the dead shrimp was probably the cause of the ammonia spike in the tank.

 

[garbled]

They are pretty messy eaters from what I understand. With that much food going into the tank, I feel like you need to probably upgrade your filtration, alot. Maybe instead of the corals, you could throw some large macroalgae in there?

 

[Captain_Glass]

So an update she has been hanging out doesn’t mind her tank mates at all the damsels and chromis are normally pretty high in with water column. She eats krill from a bamboo skewer and a lot of smaller snails and hermits. There are 3 very large Mexican turbo snails she whacks but doesn’t continue smacking them until she eats them.

I got a new T5 light set up it has 2 blue actinic lights and 2 10k’s but I don’t ever turn on the whites only the blues. On the recommendation of one of my lfs.

I also added a green hairy coral and a Florida Ricordea along with the neon green sinulara and the green hammer. Those are all out of her way and she doesn’t mind them at all so far.

If anyone has any suggestions so far as lighting or feeding please let me know. I don’t know if I should be turning on the whites for the corals but maybe it will be detrimental to the peacock with shell rot concerns.

 

[reef lover]

In my opinion i wouldnt have corals and a mantis in the same tank...eithet the mantis will get shell rot or the corals will suffer from lack of light.just my opinion.

 

[Captain_Glass]

So it’s been about 3 days since I’ve seen Penny my peacock I’m pretty sure she must be molting she has barricaded herself in the pvc structure pretty well and I can tell when she’s been out and about as she’s pretty active and interactive but she hasn’t been seen by my wife or I in 3 days. a couple of days before she barricaded herself In she wouldn’t each the Mexican turbos in there she would just smack them. Hoping she pulls through.

Should I expect about a week or so for the molting process I don’t want to disturb her but also don’t want her lying there dead if she has passed.

 

[Hulley]

Have you checked water parameters? If she's dead, you'd have elevated ammonia and nitrate.

 

[Captain_Glass]

I know she’s not dead because I saw her last night for the first time. She peeked out and has been pretty shy. Also she has a white look to her almost like her shell has a slime coating or something I keep checking the entrances to her den and no discarded molt. So I’m not sure if she did molt at all or if she was just holed up in her den for three days without coming out.

 

[Hulley]

I know she’s not dead because I saw her last night for the first time. She peeked out and has been pretty shy. Also she has a white look to her almost like her shell has a slime coating or something I keep checking the entrances to her den and no discarded molt. So I’m not sure if she did molt at all or if she was just holed up in her den for three days without coming out.

How long to they take to molt? My cleaner and Fire shrimp molt all the time and it seems pretty quick.

 

[Captain_Glass]

She’s gotten much more active as the day went on and even today. But no signs anywhere near her den entrances of a molt just piles of dead snail and crab shells lol