Hey all, hoping someone has an idea or if I'm having terrible luck. I set up a mantis only 7 gallon a year ago. I put a G. Smithii in it and things were going great. She molted once successfully but about 4 months into having her, one day she was laying on her side in front of the tank and nearly nonresponsive. I thought it might be a bad molt since she was probably due and so turned off the lights and left her alone. She died a few days later unfortunately.
I left the tank unoccupied for some months and tried a wennerae. He seemed fine on arrival, active. But he turned up dead one morning less than a week later. He had never come out again after the first day, but even just hours before his death, we had heard him clicking away in his cave.
It's really frustrating. The tank has again been unoccupied (except for snails and bugs) for some months. I found another smithii that's coming this week. If I lose this one too, I'm out for good. I feel too terrible about it all. For more details, It's also a macro only tank. Due to all the plants, phos and nitrates are used up fast and I actually dose them daily to keep the numbers up from zero, so high nutrients are not a problem. I also dose chaetogro daily for the plants. That's the only things I dose. I added some snails in with the wennerae and they have all been living happily along with the million copepods that also live in there. So there are inverts that are living in the tank. The first mantis death coincided with a breakout of planaria. I did nothing to treat them until after the mantis died, but I still wondered if it was a coincidence or if they still somehow emitted toxins that hurt the mantis despite not treating for them (I did add in carbon at the time). The planaria were completely gone when the second mantis was added.
If anyone has any ideas at all, please let me know! I really want this one to do well.... A mantis tank has been my dream for a while
Thanks
I left the tank unoccupied for some months and tried a wennerae. He seemed fine on arrival, active. But he turned up dead one morning less than a week later. He had never come out again after the first day, but even just hours before his death, we had heard him clicking away in his cave.
It's really frustrating. The tank has again been unoccupied (except for snails and bugs) for some months. I found another smithii that's coming this week. If I lose this one too, I'm out for good. I feel too terrible about it all. For more details, It's also a macro only tank. Due to all the plants, phos and nitrates are used up fast and I actually dose them daily to keep the numbers up from zero, so high nutrients are not a problem. I also dose chaetogro daily for the plants. That's the only things I dose. I added some snails in with the wennerae and they have all been living happily along with the million copepods that also live in there. So there are inverts that are living in the tank. The first mantis death coincided with a breakout of planaria. I did nothing to treat them until after the mantis died, but I still wondered if it was a coincidence or if they still somehow emitted toxins that hurt the mantis despite not treating for them (I did add in carbon at the time). The planaria were completely gone when the second mantis was added.
If anyone has any ideas at all, please let me know! I really want this one to do well.... A mantis tank has been my dream for a while
Thanks
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