Should I Give Up? Discouraged after Loss

[ossifiedconscript]

Hi everybody,
If you did not see my update to my last post about my peacock mantis with no punchers, I unfortunately lost her the other day. I knew she was about to molt since I had been keeping track of the weeks and she holed up in her burrow accordingly. I knew the nitrates in the tank were too high- I had been isolated from the tank for a week due to a local blizzard (i was able to access her to feed her once during this time, but did not test the levels), and when I checked when I returned, the levels were easily over 40ppm. It is hard to tell since API kits are generally a toss-up, but I know they were extremely dangerous levels. The nitrates in this tank have been a problem for a bit, although I had it under control for the past few months, there was an incorrectly placed under-gravel filter collecting detritus. I gravel-vac every time I do a weekly water change, which kept the issue under control short-term, but it now is obvious to me that I was not tackling the source of the problem, and for that, I blame myself. Anyways, she had severely underdeveloped punchers; she had none when I purchased her but grew small ones after her first molt. I knew this upcoming molt would be more difficult since she has put more energy into developing new dactyls. When I saw the nitrates were dangerously high, she had just begun the molt process; holing herself up for 2-3 days, etc. I didn't feel like I should change the water and add more stress during this time; unfortunately, after two and a half days, she appeared out in the open, dead.
The problem is that this is the third mantis shrimp that has abruptly died on me in the span of two years. I worry that I am not doing a good enough job and should abandon the hobby; I am a broke college student who cannot afford a lot of luxuries that make tank-keeping easier. The tank is a 20g long tank with plenty of live rock and hiding places, a small internal filter, a larger hang-on-back filter, a tiny skimmer, a heater, and the under gravel filter (which was not installed correctly, unfortunately). I use RO water when I can get it from my LFS but have been using the water from my apartment more often than not with lots of dechlorinator. I am worried that it is this water that is killing the shrimps over time, as I am not certain what toxins it might contain and that is the gross irresponsibility on my part. I performed lots of panicked water changes with subpar water. I know this has been my fault time and time again. Every time I think I am doing something right, I am proven wrong by a dead shrimp and the crushing guilt of the life I inadvertently extinguished. I already have fixed the under gravel filter and purchased a new, stronger hang-on back filter which have proven good results, but I am finding myself terribly discouraged. I love stomatopods so much and keeping them has been so rewarding over the past two years. It feels like I am wasting beautiful animals, I feel like one of those pet owners who does not do the proper research, despite spending so much time trying to perfect this tank. I have put so much into getting this right, but after losing Constance, it feels like I should give up before I do anymore damage. I don't want to give up; I want to try again, and give a mantis a really great and healthy life. But I don't want to do it if it means I am a bad fish owner.
Can anyone offer some words of advice? Should I give up? I feel absolutely guilty and terrible and I miss my shrimp so dearly. Can anyone relate to this feeling? Has anyone been through similar difficulties?
I know many of you may want to put me on blast for not being a good aquarium owner and I am ready to accept those words as they come. I hope you can realize that these failures do not come out of a place of negligence and I only want to learn how i can do better.

 

[Pistondog]

Sorry for your loss.

You have some challenges.
1. Predators produce a lot of waste.
2. Not using best water source.
3. Financially constrained.

Maybe try a different type of tank. Pistol shrimp and goby?
Unless you change something the past will repeat.

 

[ossifiedconscript]

Sorry for your loss.

You have some challenges.
1. Predators produce a lot of waste.
2. Not using best water source.
3. Financially constrained.

Maybe try a different type of tank. Pistol shrimp and goby?
Unless you change something the past will repeat.

Thanks so much, I really do appreciate you answering.
I hadn't considered doing something different; I have been so focused on mantis I forgot about all of the other cool stuff out there!
But you are right, if nothing changes then this will keep happening. I will have to commit to a regimen of stocking up on RO water from my LFS instead of running in with a 5g bucket whenever I happen to be on that side of town. Hopefully fixing the positioning of that under gravel filter will really help the detritus problem (it had half an inch of substrate beneath it instead of being beneath all of the substrate, effectively doing nothing)
Thank you again.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Thanks so much, I really do appreciate you answering.
I hadn't considered doing something different; I have been so focused on mantis I forgot about all of the other cool stuff out there!
But you are right, if nothing changes then this will keep happening. I will have to commit to a regimen of stocking up on RO water from my LFS instead of running in with a 5g bucket whenever I happen to be on that side of town. Hopefully fixing the positioning of that under gravel filter will really help the detritus problem (it had half an inch of substrate beneath it instead of being beneath all of the substrate, effectively doing nothing)
Thank you again.

If you have the money for it, it might be easier to get a small RO/DI system (like the one linked below, which is the cheapest I personally am aware of) and just hook it up in your apartment as needed (you can attach it to a faucet with an adapter - it comes with an adapter that may work):

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Sorry but for the sake of the shrimp I would say hold off until you figure out what you've missed. Not to be mean of course, but sounds like you are in a very busy time of your life. Maybe try something much simpler, like a freshwater crayfish or something

 

[ossifiedconscript]

Sorry but for the sake of the shrimp I would say hold off until you figure out what you've missed. Not to be mean of course, but sounds like you are in a very busy time of your life. Maybe try something much simpler, like a freshwater crayfish or something

I know you are not being mean, no worries. You are probably correct, I'll have to wait until I know for sure what keeps going wrong in the tank and that probably won't happen until I'm done with this semester.
I had had freshwater crayfish before- love those little guys! Not a bad idea at all, thanks so much for answering.

 

[Dave1993]

you could always wait until you have more ££ to spare and start back up then but up 2 u

 

[olonmv]

Sorry about your loss. Here’s a contraption that you can build for cheap and drastically reduce if not, eliminate water changes. Just in case you decide to stick with it. I used cheap 80 proof vodka as my carbon source.

Poor Man's Nutrients Control - Donovan's Nitrate Destroyer

Hello fellow reefers!. I have been in the hobby for more than 3 years, the first 2 years was tough. Cyno, diatom, nuisance algae, high NO3 (120ppm at one time) and ich/velvet. I have tried several nutrient control method (poor man, so most of it were DIY project). GFO, water fall scrubber...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Stomatopods17]

Not intending to put you on blast, I went through the same thing but here's a lot of things I think you should take into consideration.

I'd keep trying, even us veterans go through a lot more stomatopods than we'd like to publicly admit, the kill count in labs, content creators, and those who got one copying content creators would make you sick to the stomach but its the ones that live we can make correlations on what works and what doesn't. You learn through trail and error, this is about experience and owning clownfish, pistol shrimp, giving the ants cheetos, does not teach you anything for a stomatopod. Honestly keeping an N. wennerae doesn't even teach you anything for O. scyllarus either.

I started with stomatopods (g. tern then o. scyllarus) and harlequin shrimp, at 14. Its been 10 years and the low points were depressingly awful, but learn from them and you feel good about succeeding later.

O. scyllarus is just painfully touchy to the point I run a 20 gallon refugium + skimmer on a 29 gallon tank which to anyone would be overkill, I abandoned keeping them with HoB or canister filters. The bottom is littered with rock I hammered to pieces, and I chiseled some pieces to properly make a burrow for her. One mistake I always did with O. scyllarus was put the U-shaped burrow sideways, but actually she taught me through the rubble building they like entrances going up as she stacked the rubble in a wall around the front that way. 10 years later learned something new through natural experience and trying something different (chiseling rock and letting her do whatever with it, over PVC tubing). I would not do anything smaller than a 29g, not just for foot space reasons but also quality swings (like a sudden power outage and depletion of oxygen) won't punish you as bad as something with less volume.) 40 gallon breeder is the sweet spot for o. scyllarus, 29 is the bare minimum.

I feed her something different every week (snails, frozen krill, emerald crabs cause its harmful bait to use cheap fiddlers that hurt saltwater predators over time, and soon I'm going to find some frozen squid.). I tried keeping two damsels with her, the first one just simply died post shipping, it didn't live very long in the tank and when I came back to get the corpse, she ate it lol. The other damsel, despite the taste for fish now, has been in there for almost a month now, which is perfect indication she's not starving and desperate to go chasing it. I used to always stick with frozen krill, deli shrimp, or frozen clams for something to hit, trying something more natural and varied this time and there's literally a bright blue fish who decides to sleep wedged right above the mantis's entrance that's easy pickings telling me I'm doing something right, it may inevitability get caught but its a very good sign as long as it lives.

Water changes to me are not for improving the water quality, frankly my skimmer and test results show they're not needed, its specifically to put iodine in the tank from the salt mix itself. No iodine *will* kill them when its time to molt, and it would be a good idea to check your salt mix to see if its the good stuff. Personally I use reef crystals, and I ain't ready to experiment with other salt mixes, but in general whatever mix you use I wouldn't settle for the cheapest on the self, make sure it has trace elements and most importantly iodine. I do not think failing a water change during the molt had anything to do with it, worst case scenario IMO is the mantis gets shell rot bad post molt and then does its toll next time if nothing is fixed by then. I never vacuumed my sand before, 1: it'd prob nuke my 125 reef for not doing it in 9 years, 2: sometimes there's a such thing as disturbing too much at once and the least invasive way is to just go crazy with CuC even if they get killed off over the week. Go wild with bristleworms, spaghetti worms, etc if you can find a source of them. I don't think stuff dies overnight from bad water quality, if you have to do a panic water change, do it slowly, because all at once can shock the animals too, the water could be cold and drop the temperature, the specific gravity could shift a whole level while pooring, I don't know how big your water changes are but again with a 20g the swings are more punishing so you have to go slower about it. 40ppm->0ppm water changes is more likely to kill something than letting them soak in it a big longer and do 40ppm->30ppm, then 20ppm the next day, etc.

I'm going to be blunt and say do not ever believe anyone telling you not to use RO/DI water, its the only thing you should be using, and distilled water from the grocery store in a pinch. All water, whether dechlorinated or not, has something in it, that's why we don't call dechlorinated water distilled, and we don't call well water distilled, we call it dechlorinated and well because they specifically are from different sources and have different chemical properties. Dechlorinate doesn't remove copper from your apartment plumbing which could be X years old and leaching. Some areas are clean enough to get away with doing it (until a certain weather phenomenon breaks your local sewer lines) but its never perfect. Some solutions remove copper too, but they almost always miss something (you can have have nitrates in your water supply!) .You admitted to the fault, you just have to fix it for next time, install an RO/DI unit or one you can sorta 'plug n play' attaching to a faucet and letting it filter into the bucket while you're studying. It's a penny to buy alright, but you can judge whether to buy and stock on gallons of distilled (not spring, specifically distilled) each time or have it made at home works better for you.

You may also want to buy a battery operated air bubbler, when you see really bad power threatening weather, its good to put it on for emergency incase your other bubbler goes out. Mine carried my O. havanensis through a 24hr outage from someone hitting a pole. That species does not survive low oxygen even momentarily and didn't have either dactyls too.

A grounding rod is good too, takes some electricity out of the water if you have pumps, removes unnecessary static, just worth having, who knows maybe your electrical in the apartment is bad and something flickered during the blizzard with the pumps and discharged in the tank. Its little stuff like that you're not really going to see mentioned casually in guides or about specific animals, the longer you do the hobby the more you run into some of the more niche factors like these.

Keep your head up, rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[ossifiedconscript]

Not intending to put you on blast, I went through the same thing but here's a lot of things I think you should take into consideration.

I'd keep trying, even us veterans go through a lot more stomatopods than we'd like to publicly admit, the kill count in labs, content creators, and those who got one copying content creators would make you sick to the stomach but its the ones that live we can make correlations on what works and what doesn't. You learn through trail and error, this is about experience and owning clownfish, pistol shrimp, giving the ants cheetos, does not teach you anything for a stomatopod. Honestly keeping an N. wennerae doesn't even teach you anything for O. scyllarus either.

I started with stomatopods (g. tern then o. scyllarus) and harlequin shrimp, at 14. Its been 10 years and the low points were depressingly awful, but learn from them and you feel good about succeeding later.

O. scyllarus is just painfully touchy to the point I run a 20 gallon refugium + skimmer on a 29 gallon tank which to anyone would be overkill, I abandoned keeping them with HoB or canister filters. The bottom is littered with rock I hammered to pieces, and I chiseled some pieces to properly make a burrow for her. One mistake I always did with O. scyllarus was put the U-shaped burrow sideways, but actually she taught me through the rubble building they like entrances going up as she stacked the rubble in a wall around the front that way. 10 years later learned something new through natural experience and trying something different (chiseling rock and letting her do whatever with it, over PVC tubing). I would not do anything smaller than a 29g, not just for foot space reasons but also quality swings (like a sudden power outage and depletion of oxygen) won't punish you as bad as something with less volume.) 40 gallon breeder is the sweet spot for o. scyllarus, 29 is the bare minimum.

I feed her something different every week (snails, frozen krill, emerald crabs cause its harmful bait to use cheap fiddlers that hurt saltwater predators over time, and soon I'm going to find some frozen squid.). I tried keeping two damsels with her, the first one just simply died post shipping, it didn't live very long in the tank and when I came back to get the corpse, she ate it lol. The other damsel, despite the taste for fish now, has been in there for almost a month now, which is perfect indication she's not starving and desperate to go chasing it. I used to always stick with frozen krill, deli shrimp, or frozen clams for something to hit, trying something more natural and varied this time and there's literally a bright blue fish who decides to sleep wedged right above the mantis's entrance that's easy pickings telling me I'm doing something right, it may inevitability get caught but its a very good sign as long as it lives.

Water changes to me are not for improving the water quality, frankly my skimmer and test results show they're not needed, its specifically to put iodine in the tank from the salt mix itself. No iodine *will* kill them when its time to molt, and it would be a good idea to check your salt mix to see if its the good stuff. Personally I use reef crystals, and I ain't ready to experiment with other salt mixes, but in general whatever mix you use I wouldn't settle for the cheapest on the self, make sure it has trace elements and most importantly iodine. I do not think failing a water change during the molt had anything to do with it, worst case scenario IMO is the mantis gets shell rot bad post molt and then does its toll next time if nothing is fixed by then. I never vacuumed my sand before, 1: it'd prob nuke my 125 reef for not doing it in 9 years, 2: sometimes there's a such thing as disturbing too much at once and the least invasive way is to just go crazy with CuC even if they get killed off over the week. Go wild with bristleworms, spaghetti worms, etc if you can find a source of them. I don't think stuff dies overnight from bad water quality, if you have to do a panic water change, do it slowly, because all at once can shock the animals too, the water could be cold and drop the temperature, the specific gravity could shift a whole level while pooring, I don't know how big your water changes are but again with a 20g the swings are more punishing so you have to go slower about it. 40ppm->0ppm water changes is more likely to kill something than letting them soak in it a big longer and do 40ppm->30ppm, then 20ppm the next day, etc.

I'm going to be blunt and say do not ever believe anyone telling you not to use RO/DI water, its the only thing you should be using, and distilled water from the grocery store in a pinch. All water, whether dechlorinated or not, has something in it, that's why we don't call dechlorinated water distilled, and we don't call well water distilled, we call it dechlorinated and well because they specifically are from different sources and have different chemical properties. Dechlorinate doesn't remove copper from your apartment plumbing which could be X years old and leaching. Some areas are clean enough to get away with doing it (until a certain weather phenomenon breaks your local sewer lines) but its never perfect. Some solutions remove copper too, but they almost always miss something (you can have have nitrates in your water supply!) .You admitted to the fault, you just have to fix it for next time, install an RO/DI unit or one you can sorta 'plug n play' attaching to a faucet and letting it filter into the bucket while you're studying. It's a penny to buy alright, but you can judge whether to buy and stock on gallons of distilled (not spring, specifically distilled) each time or have it made at home works better for you.

You may also want to buy a battery operated air bubbler, when you see really bad power threatening weather, its good to put it on for emergency incase your other bubbler goes out. Mine carried my O. havanensis through a 24hr outage from someone hitting a pole. That species does not survive low oxygen even momentarily and didn't have either dactyls too.

A grounding rod is good too, takes some electricity out of the water if you have pumps, removes unnecessary static, just worth having, who knows maybe your electrical in the apartment is bad and something flickered during the blizzard with the pumps and discharged in the tank. Its little stuff like that you're not really going to see mentioned casually in guides or about specific animals, the longer you do the hobby the more you run into some of the more niche factors like these.

Keep your head up, rome wasn't built in a day.

Wow, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your words and advice!! I think it is just something I needed to hear from someone else in the hobby, that it is often trial and error. Your advice goes a long way with me, and I am certainly inspired to start again soon. I think I definitely underestimated the sensitivity of O. scyllarus, and am looking towards Wennerae for my next try- I think that wennerae's reputation as slightly hardier, as well as the size of the tank might be a good match. Not to mention that they are much cheaper and easier to find online, I have never seen my LFS with any type of mantis in stock. I have only been able to ever find o. scyllarus, wennerae, and g. tern online, so it seems like wen would be the best match of these 3.
I am looking into getting one of the RO/DI faucet attachments, do you think these are a good enough bet? I did some research on where my apartment water may be coming from and let's just say I will NEVER be putting it anywhere near a living creature again, myself included LOL. Pipes from the 1940s that have had little to no work done on them, almost definitely heavy metal contamination. The 45-minute trip to the LFS to get distilled water doesn't sound so bad anymore, but do you think the plug-on faucet attachment would be enough to deal with such nasty water? I don't know if I want to take my chances with my own water ever again knowing what I know now.
In terms of salt, I use instant ocean. I haven't heard any bad things about it, and it seems to be the main choice of my LFS, but if anyone thinks this may not be a good choice, I am ready to listen.
For gravel vacuuming, I doubt I needed it to be doing it as frequently as I did. I ended up upending the tank to take the obsolete UGF out and install it correctly, and there was an ungodly amount of detritus trapped under it. Installing it correctly and with a stronger airflow seems to be helping. Either way, I think I will go the route of a CuC next time as you suggested. Them ending up as food isn't necessarily a bad thing, do you think worms would be the best way to go?
I also think it is time for me to commit to a refugium or at least introducing macroalgae in the HoB - there's lots of things I can experiment with now in my time with an empty tank.
I want to thank you again for your response, it is easy for me to beat myself up over this, and hearing encouragement and advice from someone who has gone through it makes a world of difference. It was very thoughtful of you to take the time to type this out for me.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

I am looking into getting one of the RO/DI faucet attachments, do you think these are a good enough bet? I did some research on where my apartment water may be coming from and let's just say I will NEVER be putting it anywhere near a living creature again, myself included LOL. Pipes from the 1940s that have had little to no work done on them, almost definitely heavy metal contamination. The 45-minute trip to the LFS to get distilled water doesn't sound so bad anymore, but do you think the plug-on faucet attachment would be enough to deal with such nasty water? I don't know if I want to take my chances with my own water ever again knowing what I know now.
In terms of salt, I use instant ocean. I haven't heard any bad things about it, and it seems to be the main choice of my LFS, but if anyone thinks this may not be a good choice, I am ready to listen.

If the water is really bad, you may need more stages on the RODI system (the one I linked above is only 4 stage; more stages cost more money), but even just 4 stages would really cut down on any problems going into the water. To my understanding, the DI part of the system is what would deal with heavy metals and such in the water. If you're up for going to get water regularly, that works too, but if you're worried that you'll slip up on occasion, an RODI system is probably the way to go.

Instant ocean should be just fine - it's used by pretty much any public aquarium that doesn't have ocean water easy available to them, and it's used by tons of hobbyists too.

 

[Stomatopods17]

Wow, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your words and advice!! I think it is just something I needed to hear from someone else in the hobby, that it is often trial and error. Your advice goes a long way with me, and I am certainly inspired to start again soon. I think I definitely underestimated the sensitivity of O. scyllarus, and am looking towards Wennerae for my next try- I think that wennerae's reputation as slightly hardier, as well as the size of the tank might be a good match. Not to mention that they are much cheaper and easier to find online, I have never seen my LFS with any type of mantis in stock. I have only been able to ever find o. scyllarus, wennerae, and g. tern online, so it seems like wen would be the best match of these 3.
I am looking into getting one of the RO/DI faucet attachments, do you think these are a good enough bet? I did some research on where my apartment water may be coming from and let's just say I will NEVER be putting it anywhere near a living creature again, myself included LOL. Pipes from the 1940s that have had little to no work done on them, almost definitely heavy metal contamination. The 45-minute trip to the LFS to get distilled water doesn't sound so bad anymore, but do you think the plug-on faucet attachment would be enough to deal with such nasty water? I don't know if I want to take my chances with my own water ever again knowing what I know now.
In terms of salt, I use instant ocean. I haven't heard any bad things about it, and it seems to be the main choice of my LFS, but if anyone thinks this may not be a good choice, I am ready to listen.
For gravel vacuuming, I doubt I needed it to be doing it as frequently as I did. I ended up upending the tank to take the obsolete UGF out and install it correctly, and there was an ungodly amount of detritus trapped under it. Installing it correctly and with a stronger airflow seems to be helping. Either way, I think I will go the route of a CuC next time as you suggested. Them ending up as food isn't necessarily a bad thing, do you think worms would be the best way to go?
I also think it is time for me to commit to a refugium or at least introducing macroalgae in the HoB - there's lots of things I can experiment with now in my time with an empty tank.
I want to thank you again for your response, it is easy for me to beat myself up over this, and hearing encouragement and advice from someone who has gone through it makes a world of difference. It was very thoughtful of you to take the time to type this out for me.

Anytime.

Instant ocean is good, there's two versions there's purple 'instant ocean sea salt' and there's an orange 'instant ocean reef crystals'. The reef crystals version is basically just sea salt but with more in it (trace elements especially.) Reef crystals are what I use and although expensive, definitely ease the need to worry about the more under the radar 'vitamins' i guess you could call them to the water.

The RO/DI sounds good, the faucet one is what I had in mind but like the other guy said note how many stages it is. 4-stage is the golden standard usually. You can buy distilled water locally at a grocery store too, I've used walmart great value brand distilled before even. Just research the exact brand for anything fishy, and if its as pure as it says then it should be fine, distillation is pretty straight forward way of curing water. Even the O. scyllarus I have now that tank was filled with distilled water from a local market brand. LFS will always be safer and RO/DI will basically do the same thing as the LFS at home.

Worms are good, I don't think they get bothered much either and multiply really fast.

N. wennerae is a good nano choice; no shell disease, makes its own cavities in rock, not as reclusive as you'd think. They change color when they molt to match surroundings. Only downside is they're small, but they still can damage things, I've had one break out of a breeding container and one at my LFS gave them a reason not to order more in when it broke out of their critter container and rampaged their emerald crabs. Its a good refugium/desk nano species for sure.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hi everybody,
If you did not see my update to my last post about my peacock mantis with no punchers, I unfortunately lost her the other day. I knew she was about to molt since I had been keeping track of the weeks and she holed up in her burrow accordingly. I knew the nitrates in the tank were too high- I had been isolated from the tank for a week due to a local blizzard (i was able to access her to feed her once during this time, but did not test the levels), and when I checked when I returned, the levels were easily over 40ppm. It is hard to tell since API kits are generally a toss-up, but I know they were extremely dangerous levels. The nitrates in this tank have been a problem for a bit, although I had it under control for the past few months, there was an incorrectly placed under-gravel filter collecting detritus. I gravel-vac every time I do a weekly water change, which kept the issue under control short-term, but it now is obvious to me that I was not tackling the source of the problem, and for that, I blame myself. Anyways, she had severely underdeveloped punchers; she had none when I purchased her but grew small ones after her first molt. I knew this upcoming molt would be more difficult since she has put more energy into developing new dactyls. When I saw the nitrates were dangerously high, she had just begun the molt process; holing herself up for 2-3 days, etc. I didn't feel like I should change the water and add more stress during this time; unfortunately, after two and a half days, she appeared out in the open, dead.
The problem is that this is the third mantis shrimp that has abruptly died on me in the span of two years. I worry that I am not doing a good enough job and should abandon the hobby; I am a broke college student who cannot afford a lot of luxuries that make tank-keeping easier. The tank is a 20g long tank with plenty of live rock and hiding places, a small internal filter, a larger hang-on-back filter, a tiny skimmer, a heater, and the under gravel filter (which was not installed correctly, unfortunately). I use RO water when I can get it from my LFS but have been using the water from my apartment more often than not with lots of dechlorinator. I am worried that it is this water that is killing the shrimps over time, as I am not certain what toxins it might contain and that is the gross irresponsibility on my part. I performed lots of panicked water changes with subpar water. I know this has been my fault time and time again. Every time I think I am doing something right, I am proven wrong by a dead shrimp and the crushing guilt of the life I inadvertently extinguished. I already have fixed the under gravel filter and purchased a new, stronger hang-on back filter which have proven good results, but I am finding myself terribly discouraged. I love stomatopods so much and keeping them has been so rewarding over the past two years. It feels like I am wasting beautiful animals, I feel like one of those pet owners who does not do the proper research, despite spending so much time trying to perfect this tank. I have put so much into getting this right, but after losing Constance, it feels like I should give up before I do anymore damage. I don't want to give up; I want to try again, and give a mantis a really great and healthy life. But I don't want to do it if it means I am a bad fish owner.
Can anyone offer some words of advice? Should I give up? I feel absolutely guilty and terrible and I miss my shrimp so dearly. Can anyone relate to this feeling? Has anyone been through similar difficulties?
I know many of you may want to put me on blast for not being a good aquarium owner and I am ready to accept those words as they come. I hope you can realize that these failures do not come out of a place of negligence and I only want to learn how i can do better.

Unfortunately this hobby is both time consuming and expensive.

I can't image doing it when I was a college student - too much other stuff to do.

you can always take a break and come back later When life is moe settled.

 

[ossifiedconscript]

Anytime.

Instant ocean is good, there's two versions there's purple 'instant ocean sea salt' and there's an orange 'instant ocean reef crystals'. The reef crystals version is basically just sea salt but with more in it (trace elements especially.) Reef crystals are what I use and although expensive, definitely ease the need to worry about the more under the radar 'vitamins' i guess you could call them to the water.

The RO/DI sounds good, the faucet one is what I had in mind but like the other guy said note how many stages it is. 4-stage is the golden standard usually. You can buy distilled water locally at a grocery store too, I've used walmart great value brand distilled before even. Just research the exact brand for anything fishy, and if its as pure as it says then it should be fine, distillation is pretty straight forward way of curing water. Even the O. scyllarus I have now that tank was filled with distilled water from a local market brand. LFS will always be safer and RO/DI will basically do the same thing as the LFS at home.

Worms are good, I don't think they get bothered much either and multiply really fast.

N. wennerae is a good nano choice; no shell disease, makes its own cavities in rock, not as reclusive as you'd think. They change color when they molt to match surroundings. Only downside is they're small, but they still can damage things, I've had one break out of a breeding container and one at my LFS gave them a reason not to order more in when it broke out of their critter container and rampaged their emerald crabs. Its a good refugium/desk nano species for sure.

N. wennerae might be a better choice for if I decide to ever establish my 10g, I feel like I may not see it very often if it is the only inhabitant of the 20g long tank. I definitely want to look into some of the species better suited for my tank size, though it seems a lot of them besides O. scyllarus and N. wennerae are widely available online. I'll contact my LFS to see if they ever end up pulling any off of live rocks. Other than that it looks like I would have to hold off on a peacock until I could increase the size of the tank. I think that it being a long tank might help mitigate the foot space issue, but until I'm able to assemble some kind of sump, the fluctuations of a 20g might be too much for a sensitive species. Let me know if you agree, or if there are any other species/sites to look into.

 

[Stomatopods17]

Avoid g. ternatensis, and large spearers. Pretty much anything normally available fits well in a 10. O. japonicus and some other hard to find ones obv dip back into the O. scyllarus territory. I'd avoid Odontodactylus entirely for now if you're downscaling.

All gonodactylids, neogonodactylids, and similar can thrive in a 10g setting. G. tern isn't necessarily bad of a species in terms of keeping but the process to get one is unethical and controversial to the hobby as a whole (reef destruction), they're very common miss-ids if you happen to order one by accident.

G. smithii if you can find one is well worth the space and makes use of it, they're very active. N. Wennerae is easy to find from florida supplies (kpaquatics, tampa bay saltwater, etc)

 

[Tamberav]

I kept some of these guys years ago.

I think mostly you need to keep up on water changes. You can just buy distilled gallon jugs at Walmart (the kind without elements added back for taste) or wherever and mix your own salt. It doesn't need to be from a LFS.

I fed a varied diet.. mostly a chunk of RODS/LRS or something similar and live foods (hermits, snails, crabs, etc).

I didn't run really anything for filtration, just some floss and a bag of carbon. I just did the regular water changes and siphoned the sand. It is fairly easy on a nano. A 20g is on the smaller side for a peacock.