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Gamera
09/15/2001, 12:13 AM
I currently have an 'empty' 20 gallon tank in my office. It's a standard all-glass aquarium with about three inches of aragonite formula on the bottom (used to be a dwarf cichlid tank). I've also loaded it up with about fifteen pounds of live rock. The substrate is chock full of fauna and the tank itself is looking great. A have three hermits and three astrea snails that roam around, but that's really it. The tank's been sitting 'unoccupied' due to a small velvet/ich outbreak that I could catch in time; but it's been empty for over two weeks.

I'd like to try it as a mantis tank, but I'm worried that the mantis will either grow too big for the tank or break the glass.

Any suggestions for smaller varieties that can be kept safely in a twenty gallon tank?

Doug
09/15/2001, 11:47 AM
Hi Gamera and [welcome]

icemark
09/15/2001, 10:12 PM
It is very very rare for a Mantis to ever break the glass on a tank. That idea should be thought as an old wives tale.

Now Mantis have been known to break the heater, as they lash out at the little light coming on inside.

Now most mantis will make a meal of your three Astrea snails, and perhaps the hermits (if it gets hungry enough).

Most mantis can be kept in a much smaller tank than you mention, such as a 10 or even 6 gallon tank. A mantis will be in hog heaven to have a 20 gal.

ISFRAEL
09/17/2001, 08:05 PM
i think the larger the tank the better as you have more room to aquascape and the mantis has more room to roam!
i have a 1" mantis in a 20"x14"x16" tank which is way too big for the tiny mantis but i enjoy watching him roam!

Gonodactylus
09/18/2001, 06:19 PM
We commonly keep even large Odontodactylus scyllarus in 20 gal glass tanks and only two have broken the glass over the past 25 years. However, just this morning I had to preserve three large O. scyllarus that died last night when a ground fault circuit tripped. The animals had been fed yesterday and the load was too much for a tank holding that large an animal and probably some rotting food. As long as the filters stay on, we have no problems, but there isn't that much of a safety margin if the filtration fails. Other small gonodactylids in 10 and even 2 gal tanks did fine. Just remember that an 8 inch O. scyllarus equalls dozens of 2 inch gonodactylids.

Roy

Gamera
09/18/2001, 06:46 PM
Out of curiosity, how well would a mantis shrimp do in a reef setting?

I assume it wouldn't that bad off, allowing for constant restocking of snails and hermits?

Moltenllama
09/18/2001, 06:58 PM
I have a little 10 gallon reef running with a 2.5 inch mantis shrimp in it. There are a large number of snails and even a limpet that showed up with a piece of liverock, some big hermits, anemones, etc etc. Runt (the mantis) takes out some of the small hermits and feeds himself on the ghost shrimp that truck around the bottom. I used to have fish in the tank too, but they were all eventually killed by Runt, and I haven't replaced them. I think they were eating the ghost shrimp larva anyhow. Runt doesn't even take shrimp from me anymore, he'll take a few bites and then just throw it out of his hole.

Short of some shrimp and booster fed to my big anemone every week, and water changes, my tank is self sufficient, which is how I like it (I'm lazy.)

Runt doesn't bother most of the reef stuff at all, aside from bullying the smaler invertebrates. I think a large enough tank in comparison to the mantis should do you fine.

Gamera
09/19/2001, 11:36 PM
Sounds good.

I had planned on converting a cichlid tank to marine, particularly a small reef.

I'll have to retrofit the lights to put out about 90W, but that shouldn't be a problem. 29 gallons with a 10 gallon refugium and a skimmer should do fine, I guess.

Does the mantis disturb any of the sessile inverts in the tank? I assume it doesn't bother the anem if the anem is much larger, but would it make a pass at any symbiotic inverts, like porcelain crabs?

Gamera
09/19/2001, 11:48 PM
Sounds good.

I had planned on converting a cichlid tank to marine, particularly a small reef.

I'll have to retrofit the lights to put out about 90W, but that shouldn't be a problem. 29 gallons with a 10 gallon refugium and a skimmer should do fine, I guess.

Does the mantis disturb any of the sessile inverts in the tank? I assume it doesn't bother the anem if the anem is much larger, but would it make a pass at any symbiotic inverts, like porcelain crabs?