Holy Moly! Mantis Shrimp??? Cb Trying To Fight????

vickreyreef · #1 06/17/2007, 06:58 PM

I honestly can't believe that after 1 1/2 years of having our reef tank up and running and me spending hours a DAY looking at this tank and today I see that largest freaking mantis shrimp ever (about 5") coming out of one of my rocks and getting into a fight with my coral banded shrimp!!!!

I am so overwhelmed!!! How in the world am I going to get this thing out? Where the heck did it come from after all this time?? Will he kill my CB?!!!??? What about my fish? (maroon clown, fire goby, two color blenny, watchman goby, coral beauty, cardinal and cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp and of course the CB mentioned earlier) it came out of a foundation rock..I would have to rip the entire tank out to get this one rock out! but I can now see where it lives....any advice is appreciated....please tell me they don't have a long life span lol...man ...I wonder what the heck else is in there....2 months ago a HUGE purple urchin appeared on the glass....where it came from I have no idea and how it hid for over a year???

jmack · #2 06/17/2007, 07:49 PM

I think some people use an inverted soda bottle as a trap..do a search you might find a link. How big is your reef? I think if it's fairly large things could hide indefinitely if they want to. Mine's 120 gal and every once in a while I still see new creatures..the last was an asterina star.

Snowboarda42 · #3 06/17/2007, 07:51 PM

The trap Idea is a good idea. Or just keep it well fed. What kind of colors is it?

BTW, your CBS will loose.

cowboyswife · #4 06/17/2007, 07:57 PM

I dont know how it hid for that long, but I would definitely try to get it out ASAP. If it is hungry enough, he can take out any of the fish and inverts living in your tank. My husband had a small one in his tank that I couldnt catch, and I watched him shred one of his anemones. The coke bottle trick is worth a shot. Just take a 2 liter coke bottle, cut the bottom off, turn it upside down in your tank, throw a piece of shrimp in the bottom of the bottle, and wait and see if he goes in there. Lean the bottle up against the rock so he can crawl into it, and if he goes in it, it is really hard for him to get out. They are usually more active at night, so try baiting him overnight. Good luck!

vickreyreef · #5 06/17/2007, 08:21 PM

Is it possible to stick the sucking end of the pump in front of his hole and suck him out or is that just asking for problems....or what about doing water changes...is the suction from the tube strong enough? The search feature, as usual, isn't working....anyone able to provide step bt step and good details for the bottle trap?

rbtwo4 · #6 06/17/2007, 08:27 PM

ive got a silly question being new to this as im starting to build my own reef tank but how the hell do these "creatures" get in the tank in the 1st place when u have to "cure" your live rock???

Rue · #7 06/17/2007, 08:28 PM

I dunno...I'd just feed him...they're gorgeous...

vickreyreef · #8 06/17/2007, 08:32 PM

ummm I have too much money invested in the tank to chance this and am very attached to all my fish to lose them to it and to be honest this one is soooooo not pretty....its brownish-green and really big....and seeing that its wanting to fight with my cbs I want him out before my tank starts getting destroyed...

rolyguy7 · #9 06/17/2007, 11:14 PM

I had a damsel once that was messing up the fins on one of my tangs and I couldn't catch him. I had to take out most of my live rock to get him out.

Good luck...

snappedbigfoot · #10 06/18/2007, 01:12 AM

i heard a good trick with that damsel get a lion fish to getr him out. than take him to lfs

magdelan · #11 06/18/2007, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by cowboyswife
The coke bottle trick is worth a shot. Just take a 2 liter coke bottle, cut the bottom off, turn it upside down in your tank, throw a piece of shrimp in the bottom of the bottle, and wait and see if he goes in there. Lean the bottle up against the rock so he can crawl into it, and if he goes in it, it is really hard for him to get out. They are usually more active at night, so try baiting him overnight. Good luck!

Maybe I'm not understang this correctly but, shouldn't you cut the upper third of the Coke bottle off and then invert it into the bottom half?? If you put bait (shrimp) inside the coke bottle and then lean it torwards the front of the mantis' home, hopefully he (also could be a girl

) will crawl into it with out having sence enough to get himself out.

HTH, GL

afo2046 · #12 06/18/2007, 03:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by snappedbigfoot
i heard a good trick with that damsel get a lion fish to getr him out. than take him to lfs

murfman · #13 06/18/2007, 04:23 AM

From what I hear, if you try a mantis shrimp trap and it fails, they will never go near it again. Is it a smasher or spearer? If you know where it lives and keep it well fed, you might not have any problems keeping it, till it dies naturally. If it gets hungry, it will hunt. Smashers will go after your snails and hermits. Spearers will go after your fish.

vickreyreef · #14 06/18/2007, 07:44 AM

it is a smasher ...and I guess I am trying to figure out if he has really been in there since we added the live rock....which as I said was over a year and a half ago (90g Bow front-corner tank with over 100lbs of LV) as we didn't add anything that he could have come in on for a year except a piece of pipe organ coral which we added last month and it is about 6" big. But the mantis is about 4.5-5" so I can't imagine how he would have come in to the tank at that size in a coral like a pipe organ (no real hiding spot in that coral for him--no holes) and not been noticed ...so if I believe he has been in the tank all this time (which is amazing as well except we never looked at the tank at night before for except in the very begining) ....do I not freak out as much as I am since we have never lost anything and he is obviously eating fine??? and of course now that I am aware of him I can make sure he has plenty to eat? Will a smasher also go after fish? I am happy to keep putting snails inthere if he stays happy and doesn't break the glass tank lol...It was just a freak thing that he came out when he did as the lights were on but I had just fed the tank and my infant daughter loves to watch the fish eat so it is a daily ritual for us and he has NEVER come out before when the lights were on...so maybe I have a "nice" one? lol I see online that their lifespan in captivity is 3-4 years....if I have one that big and my tank is 1 1/2 yrs old can I assume that maybe it is almost 2 years old or older?...with my luck this thing will outlive everything else in the tank lol...judging by his size he is a happy hitchhiker

vickreyreef · #15 06/18/2007, 07:58 AM

also, on the coke bottle trap...does it work because they don't swim or something? Is it too slick for them to crawl out of and that is how it works? How does the bottle not float up and off the bottom of the tank? Assumption is that you leave the cap on the bottle so it doesn't go back out the other end when you lift it up and out? And I know my cleaner shrimp...they will be on this bai like flies on......well you know...how do you prevent them from just taking it every single time?

Amyandlars · #16 06/18/2007, 08:11 AM

It's just hard for them to find the hole. And may not be true for the "if it doesn't work, it won't go near it again". I've got five with the inverted method. Don't fed your tank for 3 days then place the trap in, and target critters that will go in the bottle that you don't want to trap, i.e. starfish.

aznlmpulse · #17 06/18/2007, 08:21 AM

The thing about the coke bottle trap is that if you have any other smaller fish like blennies, gobies, cleaners, they're all at risk with that trap.. I've had wrasses get stuck in there with the mantis, and sometimes just fish for days at a time. It was more than a frustrating process for me (before I knew anything about mantis shrimp), so I ended up removing all my LR to catch them all. I had a 29 with minimal coral at the time, so it wasn't a biggie...but as a heads up, it might take a few days.

bureau13 · #18 06/18/2007, 09:40 AM

I'm with the "keep it well fed and enjoy it" crowd. Those things are cool.

jds

luke33 · #19 06/18/2007, 12:18 PM

Or you could put the rock in a small rubbermaid, and wait for it to come out and eat, pull out the rock and put it back? Just slap on a hob filter we all have and add tank water. Pry the easiest way imo. Or find a really small harpoon!

zma21 · #20 06/18/2007, 12:27 PM

Good luck to you! Some of these mantis shrimp are little bastards. I've had my rock for over 6 months. I woke up one day to a green mantis shrimp finishing off my flame angel. I caught and sold that son of a ....

vickreyreef · #21 06/18/2007, 02:23 PM

ok my husband is going to try to trap it tonight.....I hate knowing he is in there even though he hasn't caused any problems....I have to assume he has been in there for a very long time...I don't see any smashed snails/crabs so he must be fine with what he gets from regular tank feeding...

vickreyreef · #22 06/18/2007, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by luke33
Or you could put the rock in a small rubbermaid, and wait for it to come out and eat, pull out the rock and put it back? Just slap on a hob filter we all have and add tank water. Pry the easiest way imo. Or find a really small harpoon!

I can't easily do this as it is a foundation rock right in the center of the tank and I think his hole goes all the way through so as soon as we touch the rock he will jump ship anyhow. I have to really either trap him or learn to live with him I think....

vickreyreef · #23 06/18/2007, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by zma21
Good luck to you! Some of these mantis shrimp are little bastards. I've had my rock for over 6 months. I woke up one day to a green mantis shrimp finishing off my flame angel. I caught and sold that son of a ....

Did you have any idea he was in there? I still can't believe he hid for over a year.....

glockcoma · #24 06/18/2007, 03:17 PM

I read a thread somewhere that if you here knocking on glass at night, its most likely a mantis shrimp, I had a golden head sleeper goby and a banghai cardinal disappear on me and I do hear knocking on glass at night, could be a mantis shrimp?

sorry to hijack

vickreyreef · #25 06/18/2007, 03:22 PM

you know we started hearing a very dull pinging sound just a few weeks ago and our first thought was a mantis...but then it sounded like the MH lamp and coincidenly the light has been flickering so when we started hearing it here and there...not consistently....we figured it was just the lamp making a weird sound since it was kinda muffled. I know now that it was muffled because he was probably deep in the LR making his hole wider. Now I am still wondering if he could have hitch hiked in on the organ pipe coral that we put in the tank in May? Or if he was in there the whole time why we never heard him before...you would think we would have considering his size.....